Servant of God Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe

Father Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe (Chinese name: Lei Mingyuan 雷鳴遠;: 1  19 August 1877 — 24 June 1940) was a Roman Catholic missionary to China whose advocacy led Pope Pius XI to appoint the first native Chinese bishops. Born in Belgium, he chose to become a Chinese citizen at a time when missionaries, like all Westerners, enjoyed legal privileges in China, including immunity from Chinese law. Lebbe supported China in the Second Sino-Japanese War and served as the Director of the Military Commission North China Battlefront Supervisory Corps. The Corps' support role included rallying peasants against the invading Japanese and intelligence-gathering. Historical perspectives differ regarding whether the Corps engaged in anti-communist intelligence work, whether Corps members included Blue Shirts, and if so, whether Lebbe was aware. He was detained by the Chinese Communists for 55 days in early 1940. He died later that year, likely of exhaustion and undiagnosed pancreatic cancer. Lebbe was born on 19 August 1877 in Ghent, Belgium into a devout Catholic family. His father was Flemish a public notary, and his mother was of half French and half English descent. He was the eldest son and was baptized under the name Frédéric. When he was 11 years old, he read about the martyrdom of French Catholic missionary Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, a member of the Lazarists, in China in 1840, inspiring him tell his mother he was "going to be a [Lazarist] and go to China to be martyred.": 10  In 1895, in Paris, Lebbe entered the Lazarist order. While Lebbe was a seminary student in 1900, the Boxer Rebellion occurred in China, and the Belgian missionary Ferdinand Hamer was martyred in Inner Mongolia. Lebbe nonetheless decided to go to China to promote Catholicism.