The noble army of martyrs has a new recruit. Last week the U.S. heard the story of his heroism.
At Yukiang in China's northeastern Kiangsi province, Italian-born Father Humbert Verdini carried on his quiet missionary work, following in the footsteps of other Vincentians since the 18th Century, when the Paris-founded order first entered China.
When the Japs swarmed into Yukiang to take savage reprisal for help given by missioners and laity to Jimmy Doolittle's Tokyo flyers, the able-bodied and most of the missionaries, including Bishop Charles Quinn, eight American priests and five nuns, took to the hills. Father Verdini stayed with the children,...