Born on February 14, 1913, in Arguedas, Navarra, Luis Aguirre García entered the apostolic college of Lodosa, Navarra, in September 1925. 1935, he made his solemn vows, and on July 12, 1936, he was ordained a priest. Aguirre was a military chaplain from 1937 to 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. After the war, in December 1939, he left for China.
Under the shadow of communism
After the death of Father Venancio Martínez, Father Francisco Lizarraga left Changkungtsi for Yucheng to cover his absence, and Father Aguirre went to Changkungtsi in place of Father Lizarraga. From 1946 to October 1947, he was in charge of the Huchiao mission, where he strongly felt the communist atmosphere already dominating that region. During the 21 months he was in Huchiao, he suffered insults and threats and was on the verge of being buried alive, but he was providentially saved.
On one occasion, I swallowed death. In the middle of the field, I saw myself surrounded by twenty or thirty communist soldiers, who were coming towards me, closing in, shouting like madmen and firing rifles. A soldier, about three meters away, fired me at point-blank range, a shot that grazed my head. They stripped me of my things and even my clothes, and they put the knife to my neck, but those savages, believing that cutting off my head would give me too good a death, they said: let’s not cut off his head, let’s bury him alive… Thinking humanly, that day, I should have died. But my Guardian Angel […] saved my life.
At the end of 1947, the situation became so unbearable that the mission had to leave, and the mission was occupied by communist troops the day after its departure.
Naturally, the Catholic Mission could not come out of this violent communist storm unscathed. And it did not. … On October 7, a group of Christians, men and women, said goodbye to me at the back door of the Mission. Before leaving, they told me, kneeling and wiping away some tears that ran down their cheeks: “Bless us, Father, for this may be the last blessing you give us.” I, overcome with great emotion, traced a large cross over them and my entire Mission with my hand…
On October 7, I left Huchiao, and the next day, the communist hordes attacked my Mission, taking everything there: images, altar, books, clothes.
Shortly before, the Mission of the Xiayi sub-prefecture, to which Huchiao belonged and which was looked after by Father Aguirre from Huchiao, had fallen into the hands of the communists, who burned it down and destroyed it, as Father Aguirre himself, who lived through those moments, tells us:
The communist authorities have taken or burned everything, absolutely everything. Then they burned the mission, and now you see they are knocking down the walls. […] Faced with the ruins, above all, of what was the missionary’s house and the house of the Lord, I have had to make superhuman efforts to repress my anger, and I have only uttered out loud these words, which have been comforting for my pain: Blessed be God! Blessed be his most holy will!.
Imprisonment in Ningling
Imprisonments in Ningling
After leaving Huchiao, he went to Ningling. There, he was imprisoned twice. The first time was for two days and two nights. The reason was that, due to heavy rain, which made the roads impassable, he could not return within the time allowed to be away from the mission, which he exceeded by three days. He was imprisoned on April 23, 1950, and after two days of imprisonment, he was released. He was summoned by the chief of police and was told that from then on, he could not leave the mission without notifying them, that he had to report all foreign individuals who came to the mission, and that all letters he sent or received from abroad had to first pass through the police. In addition, he had to write a report of his journey to stay at the headquarters and publicly confess his guilt.
On the morning of the 25th, when there were more people in the market, I went amid six soldiers, armed to the teeth, as if I were a criminal, to the most crowded part of the market. The soldiers and police suspended the market and made everyone congregate at the intersection of the city’s two main streets. I had no choice but to address that huge crowd and tell them the story of my trip to the Central and my imprisonment. After my speech, the chief gave them another, commenting on my case and urging them, in the end, to work for the new China. After the meeting, they let me go, and I returned to my home, where I received so many consolations and satisfactions that I did not know how to put them in a few words. […] I did not think that my imprisonment would move the people so much and that, upon my release, I would be the object of such demonstrations of love and affection.
Having limited his movements to visit Christian communities, Father Aguirre tried as best he could, even risking his life, to see and comfort his Christians. The spiritual good he provided them compensated for the fear of being arrested or imprisoned.
This visit has done much good to my Christians. I have administered several baptisms and some Extreme Unction and arranged some Marriages. Most of my Christians have heard the divine word, confessed and taken Communion, and have been calm because they were somewhat discouraged by what they said against the Church and the missionaries. My visit has strengthened them. If the hour of bloody persecution comes, it is possible, and almost certain, that there will be unfortunate people who prefer temporal life to the eternal and blessed life of Heaven because there is everything in this vineyard of the Lord. Still, I am also certain there will be no shortage of brave men who will loudly proclaim their faith and feel happy to suffer persecution and death in the name of Christ. “Father,” they told me in one Christian community, “they have preached against the Church to us, and they have told us that afterward, we will not be able to be Christians. Father, do not worry about this. If they kill us for being Christians, so much the better. Then we will be martyrs and go to Heaven.” “Father,” they told me in another Christian community, “tell us about martyrdom and martyrs.
Unable to leave the mission without permission, he was imprisoned in the mission for a year until he was arrested on March 18, 1951, for the second time. This time, it was indeed a three-week ordeal in jail. He had not reported that someone outside the mission had spent the night there. Father Aguirre had yet to learn about the matter since one of the catechists invited her to stay without the father’s knowledge. At night, the police arrested them and Father Aguirre for not giving notice.
They put him in a room of barely 12 square meters full of prisoners (one hundred and thirty) lying on the floor and arranged like sardines in a can. They led him to a small space next to clay pots that served as urinals and toilets. To relieve himself, to scratch himself (the cell was full of lice), or to turn around, he had to first ask permission from the guard. Those who got up to relieve themselves had to step over his body. In the morning, they forced him to pick up one of those filthy pots and empty them. “When I saw that my hands were going to be filled with that misery, I wanted to resist, but then (that day was Holy Monday), I remembered the passion of Our Lord. I imagined our Savior suffering all that He suffered for us, and that memory gave me strength to take that large and disgusting chamber pot with both hands. It also gave me strength to respond with a slight smile to the devilish laughter with which the soldiers celebrated that humiliation that made me suffer. For three days, I lived next to the chamber pots. At the sight and proximity of so much filth, my stomach went into an uproar, went on strike, and did not want to receive food during that time.”
The day he was imprisoned was Palm Sunday, and it was the beginning of a very special Holy Week: “The Passion of the Lord helped me to suffer that Holy Week with resignation and even with joy. Yes, with joy.”
In prison, 5 or 6 prisoners were taken out to be killed every day, and the prisoners knew it. Father Aguirre, in this situation of death, condemnation, and chains, announced to the prisoners the Good News of eternal life, forgiveness, liberation, and the Love of God. In those 21 days he spent in prison, he baptized three prisoners. Let us listen to Father Aguirre’s moving account.
During so many calamities, I also had great consolation. One of the greatest things I felt was when I baptized three prisoners. On the first day, I began to preach some truths about our religion to the prisoners, but the soldier guarding us told me to be quiet. […] However, in private and in a low voice, I spoke to many prisoners about God, the soul, Heaven, hell, etc., etc. And I encouraged them to become Christians. There was everything among those unfortunate people. Some laughed at my doctrines and “superstitions”; many believed everything I told them, but because of their fear of the atheist authorities, they answered me that when they leave prison, they will become Christians. Only three were fortunate enough to receive baptism. I baptized an old man of seventy a few seconds before leaving prison to be shot. The evening before, neither I nor he knew that he would be shot the next day; I explained to him the main truths of our religion. At first, like the other prisoners, he told me that in prison, he did not want, out of fear, to be a Christian, but that when he got out, he would be baptized. “And if you do not leave here except to be shot,” I replied, “where will your soul go? Do not fear those who can only kill your body; fear only God and hell.” These words of mine made a great impression on him. The next day, when we were lining up to go to the toilet, I stayed behind and stood next to him to ask him if he wanted me to baptize him when no one was watching. Before speaking to him, a soldier named the poor old man said, “Take your clothes and leave immediately.” We all, including him first, understood that his last hour had come. I, quickly and running, grabbed the kettle with clean water and said to him: You know, in a few moments, you will be shot.
Do you want to go to Heaven? Do you want to be baptized? The poor old man, trembling with fear, answered me: “Yes, Father, I want to go to Heaven, baptize me.” And while the old man bent down to pick up his clothes from the floor, I took the cap off his head and, trembling, not with fear, but with an emotion such as I have never felt before, I washed his forehead down, which were running drops of agonizing sweat, with the life-giving and saving waters of Baptism. With a smile, between sad and joyful, the good old man said goodbye to me and thanked me for the great benefit that God, Our Lord, through my sinful person, had just granted him. I smiled at him and said these consoling and hopeful words: “Trust in Jesus, do not be afraid, for today you will be with Him in paradise.” I left the other two baptized prisoners, young men of about twenty-five, in jail dragging heavy chains. I suppose that they will soon leave this world because every day they take out many people to be shot.
After 21 days, weighing 35 kilos, the authorities called him and told him that he could return home, but on the condition that he acknowledge his guilt in writing and promise not to break the orders of the authorities again.
They rejected his self-incriminating letter three times, saying it was poorly written. The last time, they told him clearly that they would not accept his letter because it did not contain the real reason for his imprisonment, which had been none other than the missionary’s “bad relations” with the Christian woman they found at the catechist’s house. They threatened that if he did not include this accusation in the letter, they would imprison him again.
During the entire time, the missionary was in prison, the communists had tried to extract false statements from the catechist and the Christian woman involved, accusing the missionary of maintaining “bad relations” with that Christian woman, first offering them benefits and then threatening them with death Since they did not get anything, they went through the main street of the city where the mission was, going house to house trying to get a confession of accusation from the missionary.
Instead of the infamous accusations they expected to hear against him, they listened to the apology of the missionary and the Catholic mission, stating that there was no person so honorable or with such a good reputation, saying that the Catholic mission was the safest place and that during the military occupations of the nationalists, everyone took their things and their daughters to the mission so that they would be guarded by the missionary, in whom everyone had complete confidence.
Father Aguirre refused to defame himself, the clergy, and the Catholic Church, ready to return to that horrible prison. Ultimately, everything was resolved without demanding that he acknowledge anything else.
Back to Spain
Three months later, on July 7, 1951, Father Aguirre left the mission, arriving in Hong Kong on the 14th of the same month. Back in Spain, his next mission was in formation: he was prefect (1951-1952) and vice-prior (1961-1964) at the Colegio San José in Lodosa (Navarra) and vice-master of professed priests in Marcilla. He also had a brief presence in the parishes of Santa Monica (Zaragoza) and the Most Holy Trinity (Chiclana, Cadiz). In 1964, he began.
An extended period of ministry in Santa Rita, Madrid. For 34 years, he worked as a parish vicar, leaving behind in the Chamberí neighborhood, where this parish is located, a large number of people who valued and loved him very much. Due to his advanced age and for the sake of his health, he was transferred to the novitiate convent of Monteagudo in 1998, where he lived until he died in 2007.
Aguirre, as he liked to be called, had a strong and defined character, which gave him the air of a brave missionary and a determined pastor, united with the people in his daily life, on the street, and in his homes. He was a light of hope for many sick people, and he never stopped having the China Mission in his heart and mouth. The legacy of Father Aguirre lives on as a testimony of his dedication and sacrifice for the sake of his faith and the sake of others.
