World's oldest Catholic priest, 110, dies, Chinese

Hat tip to Wikipedia for his death announcement and article, and for the Standard link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Kao_Se_Tseien


Read this great 2005 interview of him when he was 108 years old:

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=3031&sid=4908247&con_type=1&d_str=20051008

snip

A resident at Lantau's Our Lady of Joy Trappist monastery for the last 32 years, Kao's gospel for a long life combines common sense and religious devotion. Eschew tobacco, intoxication, gluttony, anger and rudeness in favor of exercise, humility, charity, goodness, prayer, patience and piety.

"My life has been marked by two words: patience and death," he said through a translator. "Patience in the struggle for excellence of conduct; in learning from Jesus's patience on the cross. Death in learning to die without fear and to die in innocence."

A thin, gentle and good-humored man with a full, flowing white beard who walks with the aid of a three-legged cane and peers at the world through large tortoise shell-rimmed spectacles, Kao spoke while sitting at his desk in his small monastic cell.

A large painted portrait of Kao on white tapestry cloth hangs on a wall beside his simple bed. The rest of the cramped room is filled with boxes, books, newspapers, magazines, tracts, photos, religious pictures and icons and a collection of ceramic cats.

"Cats are my favorite animal. We have eight here and caring for them gives me determination to carry on. Some people play mahjong. Cats are like my mahjong."

Kao, one of four brothers, converted to Catholicism at age 18 while attending a Fuzhou school run by Spanish Dominican friars. His Buddhist father, a school teacher, was "very open- minded," Kao recalled with a smile, "and let me do it." Members of his family later followed his example and were baptized as Catholics.

Though trained as a teacher and studying law at night, Kao decided to become a priest after the sudden death of a dear friend, a Spanish friar.

In a life that has bridged three centuries, Kao said he is fortunate to have lived through 10 popes and two Chinese emperors and to have voted for Sun Yat Sen as president of China in 1912.

The biggest change he has seen in mankind? "People are becoming more violent," he said rather sadly. "But the technology is wonderful," he added, though he does not use a computer and rarely watches television except for "major events" such as the funeral of Pope John Paul II. His years, which have taken him from the mainland to Taiwan, Malaysia and finally Hong Kong, have not been without peril.

In a summary of his life he wrote: "Six times I have been rescued from [near-fatal] accidents: sea, land, knife, rock and mountain." He did not say, however, in which place or by which implement he was saved twice. He credits the Virgin Mary for saving his life each time and as such Kao has erected six shrines in her honor, three in Taiwan, one in Fuzhou (later destroyed by the Communists), one in Malaysia and the other in Lantau.