Adolph John Paschang

Japan invaded China in phases in the 1930s, gradually taking southern China towards the end of the decade. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor of 1941, Paschang and his diocese were relatively undisturbed by Japanese forces, given that he possessed American citizenship.

In February 1941, Fr Paschang received a pass from the Japanese occupation forces to visit Hong Kong. The real purpose for his move was to leapfrog over into the unoccupied areas of his Diocese of Jiangmen in order to visit the priests and sisters. During his stay in Hong Kong, Fr Joe Sweeney from the Gate of Heaven Leprosarium in Ngaimen arrived, and recounted the adventurous journey he had just made: the motor launch carrying Fr Big Joe and other passengers had been attacked by a Japanese patrol boat towards evening, but they escaped capture as darkness descended and allowed them to slip unsighted past the patrol boat. Bishop Paschang would have to take the same route and the same risks on his return visitations.[10] While Bishop Paschang was in Hong Kong, he performed the ordinations at the Dominican Rosary Hill chapel, in the absence of Bishop Enrico Valtorta.[10]

In May 1946, Bishop Paschang arrived at Maryknoll Stanley House in Hong Kong for a conference with more than a dozen Ordinaries of South China, including the four Ordinaries of Maryknoll. He arrived with a van dyke beard – only his Episcopal rank saved him from the customary Stanley practice of insisting on the removal of beards.[10]

After the liberation of Mainland China he chose to stay behind. He was captured and tortured[11] by the Chinese Communist authorities.

• On 5 December 1951, Paschang was forced to contact Stanley House in Hong Kong on three times to relay information that the Chinese Communists were demanding US$22,000.[12]
• On 7 December 1951, the ransom price was reduced to US$6,000, but nothing was paid.[13][14]
• On 19 December 1951, similar news was reported in The New York Times: “December 18 An official Roman Catholic spokesman said today that a 56-year-old Bishop, the Most Rev. Adolph Paschang of Kongmoon (now called Jiangmen), Kwangtung Province (now named Guangdong Province), had been beaten again there following the church's refusal to pay "ransom money" to the Chinese Communists as a means of saving him from the violence of the intensified "land reform" in that southeastern coastal province.”.[15] *Bishop Paschang was subsequently severely tortured and broken as a person.[16]

Fr. William Downs in his Maryknoll Hong Kong Chronicle recorded on 9 June 1952, “Bishop Paschang, after (being) very badly treated ... was finally expelled from China”. They marched Bishop Paschang “from his mission at Pakkai” (now called Beijie, where the Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral, i.e. cathedral of the Diocese of Jiangmen, was located), “placed him on a junk and sailed off – he did not know his destination and the thought of Father Sandy Cairns’ unhappy ending at the hands of the Japanese must have crossed his mind".[6]

• On 6 June 1952 Friday night, Paschang crossed the Chinese border into Portuguese Macao.[17]
• On 9 June 1952 Mondayand finally reached Hong Kong. Many reporters anxiously awaited him at the Hong Kong Pier. Upon arrival, Bishop Adolph Paschang recalled that he had been made to kneel on broken bricks in the winter of 1951, in a third-degree procedure,[18] but he had no hatred at all. After a long interview, Fr Paschang could finally return to the Stanley House for a very late dinner.