Saint Augustine Zhao Rong and Companions - July 9

breski1 AGOSTINO ZHAO RONG
Priest and martyr (+ 1815)
and Companions
Martyrs in China

While Chinese emperors tolerated Catholicism in the past, Emperor Kia-Kin (1796-1821) unleashed a wave of persecution on Catholics. Kia-Kin's edicts of 1805 and 1811 criminalized the bestowal of sacred orders, preaching and promotion of the Faith. A decree of 1813 exonerated voluntary apostates from torture and execution.
In 1815, two more State decrees approved the beheadings of Monsignor Dufresse of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (M.E.P) and some Chinese Christians by the Viceroy of Sichuan. As a result, there was a worsening of the persecution.
Another martyr, St. John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse, M.E.P, Bishop, was arrested on the 18th of May 1815, taken to Chengdu, and executed on the 14th of September 1815.
St. Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese diocesan priest. Having first been one of the soldiers who had escorted Monsignor Dufresse from Chengdu to Beijing, he was moved by Dufresse's patience and asked to be numbered among the neophytes. Once baptised, he was sent to the seminary and then ordained a priest. After being arrested, St. Zhao Rong was tortured to death.
None of the pain ever made them change their love for Jesus Christ.