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in fluent English, “I’m a priest, not a POW.” But his interrogator didn’t agree, “You come from an enemy country and we consider you a prisoner of war.” Father Zhang argued back, “In the eyes of God, there is no such a thing as an enemy country. There is only Satan.” The interrogator laughed, “In a time of war, our enemies are Satanic.” Father Zhang was held as a prisoner of war and sent to a camp, probably like those you see in movies about World War II—barbed wire, spotlights, and guard towers. Father Zhang spent his time ministering to the allied prisoners, caring for the wounded, praying for those who needed his prayers, and led Mass every Sunday. Father Zhang made quite a name for himself; even Mussolini went to meet him. After that meeting, Father Zhang was made chaplain for all POW camps in the region and was relatively free to move around. After Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces in late 1943, the POW camps were taken over by the Germans and, in late 1944, Father Zhang learned that four thousand British and American prisoners were to be executed. He went to the camp on a rainy night, opened the gate wide and declared: “You are the children of God. Nobody, except God, has the right to deprive you of your freedom. Follow me and leave this hell on earth. Go home and reunite with your relatives. May God bless you!” The prisoners rushed and disarmed the guards and successfully escaped.

As to what happened to Father Zhang, there are two versions of events. The one on the Internet says Father Zhang was caught by the Nazis and sentenced to death by a military court in Germany. He was supposed to be executed on January 15, 1945, but was rescued in an allied air operation and he spent the remainder of the war in the Vatican. The version I heard in Shaanxi, and for this I can find no corroboration, is amusing. After the prisoners escaped, Father Zhang put on a woman’s dress, covered his head with a shawl, and trekked across Italy to Rome and snuck into St. Peter’s by a back door. He tailed a priest through the cavernous halls, trying not to get lost, when he lost sight of the priest. As he tried to figure out where to go, he was tripped and fell to floor. It was the priest, who thought he was being followed by a woman. Upon discovering that what he thought was a woman was actually an Asian man in drag, he pulled the shawl off Father Zhang and asked. “Do all oriental men wear head scarves?”

Liao: That’s certainly a . . . dramatic rendition.

Liu: Father Zhang had an audience with the pope. Touched by his story, the pope asked him to continue serving in Vatican City. When the war was over, Father Zhang asked to return to his native China. “The Vatican is merely a city, but its spiritual territory will cover the West and the East,” Father Zhang was quoted as saying. “We as missionaries will leave God’s footprints around the world.”

Before his departure, Father Zhang was awarded a medal by the postwar Italian government for saving the prisoners of war and was invited to say Mass in a cathedral in downtown Rome. At the beginning of 1947, Father Zhang arrived in China. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek met with him in Nanjing, the then capital city, and awarded him a “National Hero” medal. He returned to southern Shaanxi province and continued to preach. By the end of 1949, the Chinese civil war was coming to an end and the Nationalist government was on the verge of total collapse. Many of his friends tried to persuade him to leave China, but he chose to stay. “God has chosen me to serve the Chinese people who have been afflicted with catastrophes and sufferings, and to stay here in this chaotic world.”

In 1950, Father Zhang was banned from preaching in Ankang. He went home to Sanyuan and, in 1959, was among those who boycotted the government-sanctioned Three-Self patriotic church and maintained their allegiance to the Vatican. He was arrested as a counterrevolutionary spy and sentenced to life imprisonment.

By 1980, as China opened to the West, the government had somewhat relaxed its control over religion and, toward the end