Brooklyn Bishop Remembered In Maryknoll Exhibit

“The Maryknoll Society’s Causes For Beatification And Canonization,” a new exhibit that follows the path to sainthood of four Maryknoll priests, can be viewed through May 2015 at the Maryknoll Museum of Living Mission at the Maryknoll Mission Center in Ossining.

The exhibit features Maryknoll co-founders Bishop James A. Walsh (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Father Thomas F. Price (Wilmington, North Carolina), along with Bishop Francis X. Ford (Brooklyn, New York), Maryknoll’s first seminarian who was martyred in China, and Father Vincent R. Capodanno (Staten Island, New York), a U.S. Navy Chaplain killed in action in Vietnam.

The museum and the Maryknoll Gift Shop at 55 Ryder Road are open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Click here for directions.

Bishop Francis X. Ford

Francis Xavier Ford was born on January 11, 1892 in Brooklyn, New York. He was baptized with the name Francis Xavier after the great Jesuit missioner who brought Catholicism to Japan during 1594.

When Ford was 20, he learned that two U.S. priests, Father James Anthony Walsh and Father Thomas Frederick Price, were seeking students for the new foreign mission society they had formed during 1911. He applied and became the first priesthood candidate of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America that now is known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Father Ford spent his first seven years in Yeungkong. During 1925, he went to serve in mission in Kaying, and for the next 27 years his leadership was crucial to the development of Christian communities in that part of China. Pope Pius XI, during 1935, named him the first bishop of Kaying. By April 1951, the Kaying Diocese had 19 Chinese priests and 26 Chinese Sisters to serve 23,000 Catholics.

The establishment of political factions and the presence of violence in China created an uneasy way of life for Maryknoll missioners. When Japan began its attacks on China, Bishop Ford’s Kaying area was bombed. The situation became more dangerous for U.S. missioners after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The internal conflict between the Communist and Nationalist forces in China eventually exploded with the Communist party seizing power during May 1949. At the time, it was clear that Bishop Ford and other Maryknollers were viewed as agents of American imperialism. Bishop Ford was investigated and interrogated on false charges. Arrested during April 1951, he was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to indefinite imprisonment in the provincial prison in Canton. His health declined rapidly and he died less than a year later on February 21, 1952. He was 60 years old.

Path To Sainthood

The cause for the beatification and canonization of Bishop Ford was introduced by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn during 2004.

Next time: The cause for the beatification and canonization of Father Vincent R. Capodanno.