Zhu Wurui, John Baptist, St.
ZHU WURUI, JOHN BAPTIST, ST.
Lay martyr; b. 1883, Green Grass River Village, Qin County, Hebei (Hopeh) Province, China; d. there, Aug. 18, 1900. John Baptist Zhu Wurui (also given as Chu Wu-jui or Tchou-Ou-Joei) was born into a Catholic family. He was captured by the Boxers as he tried to escape his besieged village to warn Catholics in the vicinity. He remained steadfast in his faith under interrogation by the county prefect. After severing his head, the Boxers hung it on a tree as a warning to other Christians. John Baptist was among the 2,072 killed between June and August 1900 whose causes were submitted to the Vatican. Of these, 56, including John Baptist, were beatified by Pope Pius XII (April 17, 1955) and canonized (Oct. 1, 2000) by Pope John Paul II with Augustine Zhao Rong and companions.
Feast: July 20.
Bibliography: l. miner, China's Book of Martyrs: A Record of Heroic Martyrdoms and Marvelous Deliverances of Chinese Christians during the Summer of 1900 (Ann Arbor 1994). j. simon, Sous le sabre des Boxers (Lille 1955). c. testore, Sangue e palme sul fiume giallo. I beati martiri cinesi nella persecuzione della Boxe Celi Sud-Est, 1900 (Rome 1955). L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. Ed. 40 (2000): 1–2, 10.
[k. i. rabenstein]