FREEDOM BRIDGE: Maryknoll in Hong Kong

A freelance writer and an ex-newspaperman reports a human interest story of American Maryknoll missionary work in Hong Kong. Through interviews with the Order's priests and nuns who survived the horrors of the 1950 Communist takeover in China and re-grouped in Hong Kong, a terrifying picture is built up of the iseries of some million and a half Chinese refugees who flooded the overcrowded British Crown Colony. Helped by generous American donations, the pioneer priests part of Maryknoll's twenty-one other Roman Catholic missionary societies headed by an Italian contingent) rolled up their sleeves and started in. They built homes and founded medical clinics and schools. Individual flashes of ingenuity started a chain of noodle-making machines and contacts in the United States brought orders to the thousands of Chinese sewing women whose employment enabled them to support their families. The chief result of their work was to restore a measure of self respect and pride in family life to the rehabilitated Chinese. This book is both a tribute to Maryknoll's fine record of practical Christianity and pro Chiang Kai-shek propaganda sheet, with the emphasis on the inspirational.