A married Catholic layman of Guizhou province, China, martyred in 1861 during one of the province’s periodic anti-Christian persecutions.

Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin was a Catholic layman of Guizhou province in southwestern China who was martyred in 1861 at around thirty-five years of age during a wave of persecution against the region’s Christian community.

Quick Facts

• Died: July 29, 1861, Qingyan, Guizhou, China (age c. 35)
• Venerated as: Layman and martyr
• Status: Married

Who Was Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin?

Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin was a married Catholic layman living in Guizhou province in southwestern China. He was killed at Qingyan in 1861, one of a number of Catholics martyred in Guizhou during a mid-nineteenth-century wave of local persecution against the province’s growing Christian community, a period that produced numerous confirmed martyrs from the region.

Historical Setting

Guizhou in the mid-nineteenth century had one of the more established Catholic communities in inland China, built up over generations by missionaries and local converts despite recurring official hostility. The persecution of 1861 to 1862 in particular claimed a number of lives among the province’s Catholics, both clergy and laypeople.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin

Baptista Luo Tingyin is remembered as one of the lay faithful of Guizhou who paid with his life for his refusal to abandon the Catholic faith during a period of concentrated local hostility toward the Church in the province.

Canonization and Feast Day

No individual canonization record is given in the source, though martyrs of this Guizhou persecution are counted among the broader group of Chinese martyrs from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries whom the Church has since formally recognized, most notably in the canonization of the Martyrs of China by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Baptista Luo Tingyin’s death is a reminder of the real cost the Christian faith has carried for ordinary lay believers in many places and times, and of the quiet perseverance of communities that kept the faith alive despite recurring danger.

A Prayer to Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin

Saint Baptista Luo Tingyin, faithful layman of Guizhou who gave your life for Christ, pray for the Church in China and for all who suffer for their faith today. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology
• records of the Catholic Church in Guizhou province, China
• Acta Apostolicae Sedis on the canonization of the Martyrs of China (2000)