Patron Saint of Propriety

Today is the feast day of Saint Fu, the patron saint of propriety. Xiang Xiao Fu is one of only a few saints designated by the Catholic Church from China. Fu was born in Chi Hau, China, in 1879. He converted to Catholicism at the age of 27 as a result of a the hard work of a missionary from Finland. Years after his conversion he became known as the Arbiter of Chi Hau because he was adept at applying Christian principles to disputes among town members. Fu was famous for getting each side of a bitter dispute to not speak for 24 hours so that they could reflect on what they had said and done. Usually after the 24 hour period of silence, each of the parties involved in the dispute would approach the conflict in a new light and realize that what they had said or done previously was prompted by anger and not reason or consideration. His gentle arbitration skills brought peace to his town. That peace won many townspeople over to Christ. As a result, Chi Hau has one of the highest per capita Christian populations in all of China. Saint Fu was martyred by the communist regime of Mao Zedong. His last works were trying to create a dialog between townspeople and the communist insurgents The communists would not be silent while insisting that the townspeople be silent. Saint Fu was pilloried and finally executed by the communists on June 12, 1956 while trying to encourage the communists to consider the protestations of the townspeople. With today being the 50th anniversary of his death perhaps we should commemorate it with a moment of silence.

In recent years, there has been a movement on internet weblogs to invoke his name when one side of a debate will not be quiet and listen to the other side of the debate. Many times prayers of propriety have been offered for a person to St. Fu.

UPDATE : Marty has discovered that as the Mazurland brothers were growing up, we had a picture of Saint Fu in our house, really!