QuickQuote...
From "Why the Missionary Remains (1951), in Zeal for Your House:
"At a time when the Catholic Religion is being traduced and persecuted with the design of eliminating it from China, I think it is the plain duty of all Catholic missionaries, priests, Brothers and Sisters ... to remain where they are until prevented from doing so by physical force. If internment should intervene in the case of some, or even death, I think it should simply be regarded as a normal risk that is inherent in our state of life, as a necessity concomitant to our responsibilities, and as a small price to pay for carrying out our duty, much as is the case of firemen and policemen who are sometimes required to give their lives in fires and robberies. In our particular case, moreover, I think that such an eventuality would be a privilege, too, because it would associate us a little more intimately in the Cross of Christ."
Born in Cumberland, Maryland, Walsh was ordained a priest in the Marynoll society in 1915. He was assigned to China in 1918 and made bishop of the Diocese of Kongmoon in 1927. In 1936, he returned to the United States to serve as superior general of Maryknoll. The Vatican recruited him to head the Catholic Central Bureau overseeing all Catholic mission activity in China and he arrived in Shangai in 1948. When Communists seized China in 1949, Walsh elected to remain in the country (see sidebar). He was arrested in 1958, served twelve years of a 20-year prison sentence, and was released to Hong Kong in 1970.
Wikipedia * J. O'Hare, "Remembering James E. Walsh"