Lei Ming-yuan (19 August 1877-24 June 1940), also known as Father Vincent Lebbe, a Belgian priest and Roman Catholic missionary who became a Chinese citizen in 1927. From 1901 until his death he w^orked for the Sinification of the liturgy and the clerical hierarchy in China, his motto being "La Chine aux Chinois, et les Chinois au Christ." Ghent, Belgium, was the birthplace of Frederick Lebbe, the eldest of six children of a Belgian lawyer. His maternal grandparents were of English extraction, and his mother was a convert to Catholicism. Young Frederick showed early evidence of piety and interest in China. He wrote and played a leading role in a play, presented at his secondary school commencement exercises, about St. John Gabriel Perboyre, who had been martyred in China in 1840. In December 1895 he joined the Congregation of the Mission (generally known as the Lazarists or, in English-speaking countries, the Vincentians) in Paris and took the name Vincent.

The Vincentians had been entrusted with the China mission in Peking in 1773 when Pope Clement XIV dissolved the Society of Jesus. The young Belgian missionary sailed for China on 10 February 1901, reaching Shanghai on 16 March. Soon after his arrival, he observed Indian policemen beating a Chinese coolie. This cruelty outraged him and strengthened his desire to improve the lot of the Chinese people. He soon left Shanghai and went to Peking, where he was ordained a priest on 28 October. In 1902 Father Lebbe began missionary work in such places as Ta-k'ou-t'an, Huang-hou-tien, and Chochow. He became pastor director of Tientsin in 1906. Father Lebbe soon developed a deep affection for Chinese ways and worked hard to assimilate Chinese culture. He wore Chinese dress and a queue, smoked a waterpipe, studied the Four Books, became a good calligrapher, and developed great fluency in the Tientsin dialect. He proposed the Sinification of the liturgy and the clerical hierarchy, recommended the use of double genuflection on entering a church, and even suggested the adoption of the Confucian "three kneelings and nine kowtows." His motto was "La Chine aux Chinois, et les Chinois au Christ." His proposals, particularly those involving the appointment of Chinese bishops, were regarded as absurdities by many of his missionary colleagues. In 1909 Father Lebbe founded the Ch'uantao-hui [propagation of the truth society] in Yenshan, Tientsin. The following year, he joined the Red Cross and founded the Fa-cheng hsueh-hui, where he taught sociology and wrote Lectures on Sociolog}'. He opened nine missionary centers in Tientsin in 1911. He also helped Father Wang Chih-yuan and others to establish the Society of Catholic Action in Han-lo-yen, Hungting, Shansi. This organization opened headquarters in Tientsin as a result of Father Lebbe's zealous promotion of its cause. Soon afterwards, Father Lebbe assumed the chief editorship of the recently discontinued Bulletin of Catholicism, which had been founded by Wang Yao-hua, a Catholic from Yenshan, to promote better understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics. Father Lebbe renamed the publication Kuang-i lu, later changed to Kuang-i pao.

In June 1913 Father Lebbe traveled to Europe to raise money for the establishment of a normal school in Tientsin. He returned with the needed funds in the spring of 1914 and proceeded to open the school. He later used graduates of this school to found more than 70 primary schools. The manifestations of his concern for the Chinese people became increasingly varied. In May 1915, after the Chinese government had accepted the humiliating terms of Japans Twenty-One Demands, he convened a conference in Tientsin in an attempt to raise funds to save the country from submitting to the agreement. He also decided that China needed a propaganda organ to give voice to the people's views and to promote national spirit. Accordingly, he founded the I-shih pao, which began publication on the Double Tenth holiday i 10 October; in 1915 and which became one of the most influential papers in China.

Father Lebbe's efforts on behalf of the Chinese people brought him into conflict with the French authorities in China in 1916. On 18 October, the French ambassador demanded that the French concession be enlarged by 30 mou of land in Lao-k'ai-hsi by 20 October. Two days later, the French authorities occupied the land in question. Father Lebbe opposed this demand by sending telegrams to government officials and by publicizing the matter in the Tientsin I-shih chu-jih pao (^formerly the Kuang-i pao) and the Peking Social Welfare Newspaper. The French authorities responded by securing his expulsion from Tientsin. He was transferred to Chengting and then to Hochia, where he served as vice pastor. In March 1917 the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission ordered an investigation of the incident. On 25 March, Father Lebbe was ordered to establish temporary residence in Chiahsien, Chekiang. A month later, the apostalic vicar of Xingpo, Monsignor Paul Renaud, appointed him pastor of Shaohsing. Since 1914 Father Lebbe and his friend and supporter Father Anthony Cotta had been advocating reforms in Catholic methods in China in a series of remarkable letters and memoranda. A number of their suggestions were incorporated in the encyclical Maximum Illud, issued by Pope Benedict XV on 30 November 1919. Early in 1920 Monsignor Jean Baptiste Budes de Guebriant, the apostolic visitor of Catholic churches in China, convened a conference in Shanghai at which it was revealed that Father Lebbe was to return to Europe with him to oversee Chinese students in Europe. They arrived in France on 14 April. Father Lebbe's superiors instructed him to refrain from writing for the I-shih pao and from going to Rome. In July, Desire Joseph Cardinal Mercier read Father Lebbe's reports and asked to see him. When they met in August, Father Lebbe urged that the Curia Romana appoint Chinese priests to the dignity of apostolic vicar as soon as possible. On 16 December William-Martin Cardinal 'an Rossum summoned Father Lebbe to Rome and asked him to recommend suitable candidates for appointment. Father Lebbe also explained the necessity of appointing a permanent apostolic delegate to China to Cardinal Gasparri, the Secretary of State, who agreed with him and arranged an audience with Pope Benedict X'. The Pope received Father Lebbe on 28 July 1920. He was impressed by Father Lebbe's grasp of missionary problems in China, and he promised that the recommended appointments would be made as soon as the opportunity arose.

On 27 January 1921, five days after the death of Pope Benedict X', Father Lebbe left Rome. On 12 August, Pope Pius XI appointed Celso Constantini the first apostolic delegate to China. Father Lebbe's efforts again bore fruit when Father Odoric Ch'eng was appointed apostolic prefect of Puchi on 12 December 1923 and Father Melchior Sun was appointed apostolic prefect of Ankuo on 15 April 1924. After the work-study program {see Li Shihtseng) was discontinued in 1921, many of the Chinese students in France went to Father Lebbe. During the next five years, despite the fact that the program had espoused an antireligious attitude, Father Lebbe helped a number of these students to learn French so that they could attend school, and arranged factory jobs for them. He also worked to obtain scholarships for them and asked Catholic families to house them. More than 200 students matriculated at European colleges and universities because of Father Lebbe's efforts, and he constantly journeyed through France, Belgium, Germany, England, and the Netherlands on their behalf China remained Father Lebbe's prime concern, and he never ceased to hope that he would be permitted to return. Catholics in Tientsin petitioned the Curia Romana to allow his return, but foreign missionaries in Tientsin and the Congregation of the Mission voiced considerable opposition to it. In April 1926 Cardinal an Rossum summoned Father Lebbe to Rome and informed him that the Curia Romana had decided to appoint Father Philip Chao apostolic vicar of Hsuanhua. On learning of the appointment. Father Lebbe reportedly remarked, "My Lord, Your servant may now die in peace." On 28 October, six Chinese apostolic vicars were consecrated by the Pope. Father Lebbe wept with joy during the ceremony. At the request of Monsignor Melchior Sun, the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission finally granted Father Lebbe permission to return to China, though not to Tientsin. On 11 February 1927 Father Lebbe set off from Marseilles. After arriving in China, he proceeded to Kao-chia-chuang. At this time, the Kuomintang was divided into two major factions, with rival governments at Wuhan and Nanking. On 1 August, the Curia Romana sent a telegram to Chinese Catholics, ordering them to obey the existing government and indirectly implying recognition of Chiang Kaishek's regime at Nanking. Father Lebbe gave aid to the National Revolutionary Army in October, when he and Monsignor Philip Chao established a medical corps and refugee reception center in Hsuanhua. In 1927 Father Lebbe became a Chinese citizen, taking the Chinese name Lei Ming-yuan. On 19 December, he founded the Society of Theresian Sisters. He established the Congregation of St. John the Baptist a year later.

When the League of Nations sent the Lytton Commission to China in 1932 to investigate the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931 and subsequent charges of Japanese aggression, the governor of Hopei (Chihlij asked Father Lebbe to receive the commission. Because his Vincentian superiors prohibited him from undertaking the task, the six Chinese apostolic vicars met the commission. In August 1933 Father Lebbe resigned from the Congregation of the Mission; on 24 December he joined the Congregation of St. John the Baptist, which he had founded five years earlier.

The remainder of Father Lebbe's active life was devoted largely to the organization and administration of medical units. His first such effort was on behalf of the 29th Division of Sung Che-yuan (q.v.), which fought Japanese troops along the Great Wall in 1933. On 20 March, 260 men who had been recruited, trained, and equipped by Father Lebbe joined the Chinese Red Cross and went to Work at Hsi-feng-kou, Ku-pei-k'ou, and Lengk'ou. In December 1936, at the request of Fu Tso-yi (q.v.). Father Lebbe took charge of the medical units serving on the Suiyuan front. When the Sino-Japanese war began in the summer of 1937, he mobilized his order to serve as stretcher bearers in the Ihsien area. He also served as a company commander in charge of medical aid for the 12th Division of the Third Army. The commander of the division, T'ang Hui-yuan, later said that "it was mainly due to the efforts of Father Lebbe and other Catholics that our people were able to remain calm, that the morale of our troops was high." In July 1938 the National Government awarded him a medal. Chiang Kai-shek received him on 4 September at Wuchang and appointed him director of special medical and educational services for the north China theater. Although Father Lebbe was in poor health, he worked vigorously to carry out educational programs and to build medical facilities in the region under his jurisdiction.

In February 1940 Father Lebbe, w^ho w-as then in southwestern Hopei, was obliged to retreat from the area because of the Chinese Communist military threat. On 17 March, he and two other members of the Congregation of St. John the Baptist were captured by the Chinese Communists and taken to Shih-chiakang. He was subjected to interrogations and was forced to move with the Communists to Shehsien and Liaohsien. His release finally was secured on 14 April. He arrived at Loyang on 8 May, having crossed the intervening Japanese-occupied territory at night and on foot. By this time, he was seriously ill. On the morning of 1 3 June, he was flown to Chungking on a special plane dispatched by Chiang Kaishek. He died on the evening of 24 June 1940, the centennial anniversary of the martyrdom of St. John Gabriel Perboyre. On 18 July, the National Government issued a statement of tribute and decreed a national day of mourning for Father Lebbe.