China, Communism, Autobiography 

On September 16, 1955, a gaunt, broken old man emerged from four years of obscurity in the hell of communist prisons. The Very Rev. Harold W. Rigney, SVD, Divine Word Missionary and Rector of Fu Jen University in Peiping, was seized and thrown into prison by the Chinese communists when he refused funds intended for the school because they would not let him run it as a Christian University. Due to the untiring efforts of his mother, Mrs. Addie Rigney, and the overwhelming support of thousands of friends, the release of Father Rigney became one of the primary issues at the Geneva Conference. Finally, under great pressure, the communists were forced to release the heroic priest. This book is his story of the terrifying and meaningless years he spent in Red prisons.

Father Rigney devoted the weeks immediately following his release to recording his life as a Red prisoner. It is a horrifying account of starvation and abuse, of exhausting, meaningless interrogations. For his For his entire period of imprisonment Father Rigney lived under a death sentence, never knowing at what moment the communists might take him out and shoot him. The courageous priest's story is a monument to his faith, and a record of the utmost importance to the entire world, showing that the struggle against communism must not be allowed to die.

Harold Rigney was born in Chicago in 1900. After three years at the Quigley Preparatory Seminary, at the age of 17 he joined the Divine Word Missionaries at Techny, Illinois. After ordination, Father Rigney taught for several yeras at the Seminary in Techny,k interrupting his teaching long enough to receive his PhD in geology from the University of Chicago. His first mission appointment was to Africa. At the outbreak of World War II Father Rigney joined the Air Force as a US Chaplain in Africa.

Father Rigney was sent to China shortly after the end of World War II as Rector of the Fu Jen Catholic University of Peiping. His Rectorship was short - he was arrested by the communists following their seizure of the city. His account of his experiences at the hands of the Chinese Reds was written in Hong Kong in the weeks immediately following his release.

The Order of the Divine Word Missionaries was founded in Holland in 1875. Its five thousand members are active in thirty-one different countries, and carry on mission work in fourteen. The Order has made outstanding contributions in the field of ethnology and anthropology, and has been a pioneer in the training of a Negro clergy in America. It now maintains thirty-five parishes and schools for negroes.

There are Divine Word Seminaries at Techny, Ill., Girard, Pa., Bordentown, NJ, Bay St. Louis, Miss., East Troy, Wis., Conesus, NY, Epworth, Iowa, Perrysburg, Ohio, Island Creek, Mass., Marenisco, Mich., and two University Houses of Study in Washington, DC and Chicago.

Taken from the inside flaps.