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Pokfulam and Bethanie, July 1972
During an address at the 1990 Annual Dinner in the presence of our Patron and Lady Wilson, I reminded members of this visit to the "Maison de Bethanie" in its centenary year, some eighteen years before. This particular local tour had meant a great deal to me; on its own account, and for its insights into bygone Hong Kong. Made in the height of the Hong Kong summer, it took in University Hall the former "Nazareth" of the French Mission's complex at Pokfulam with its famous Mission Press, operated between 1884-1953 together with "Bethanie" itself, and the old Pokfulam Village. As was stated in the programme notes for the visit, it was being made to a part of Hong Kong Island that had not witnessed the same degree of change as other districts. "Even today", I wrote in 1972, "it is easy to imagine what Pokfulam was like in 1841 when Britain occupied Hong Kong."
"Bethanie" had been built by the Fathers of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris; otherwise called for short, the French Mission. Suffice it to say here, that this particular Catholic Mission provided more workers and more martyrs than any other of the bodies that evangelized the Far East. It originated with some French priests who, in the mid 17th century, had been invited to Tonkin to help with the Jesuits' work there, and its first missionary to China had begun work there in 1681. By the time the Mission received a mention in Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica in 1917, it had under its care 12 Vicariats with 462,321 Christians, and more than 160 of its members had been made bishops.
But it was by "Bethanie" itself, the embodiment of so much heroic effort, that I was so stirred. As stated in the Journal, its chapel had then still contained beautifully finished ecclesiastical furniture and fittings that, in mediaeval fashion, had obviously been made by artisans working on and round the site for as long as required, when the building was nearing completion. Its walls carried memorials in marble to martyred priests, and the adjoining Mission cemetery had held the remains of a hundred former priests and high dignitaries, many of whom had come to "Bethanie" to die of sickness contracted elsewhere or to spend their declining years amidst its peace and safety - for the "Maison de Bethanie" was essentially a sanitarium for the entire overseas Mission, and Hong Kong had been selected on account of its climate and the medical facilities available. Father Caminondo, who permitted our visit and provided a valuable note,