Apostolic Delegate visits seminary at Jiangmen, China, 1927

This is a photograph of a visit from the Apostolic Delegate to the Kongmoon Seminary. Front row, Frs. Cairns, Walsh, Delegate, Downs, and Br. Albert. Fr. Paulus stands in the second row.; Fr. Cairns was born in Glasgow, Scotland and became a Maryknoll Missionary in 1918 at the age of thirty-four. He spent many years in China in Yeung Kong [now Yang-Chiang], Fachow [now Fahsien] and eventually Sancian Island. During WWII he was captured by the Japanese on Sancian Island and killed. His presumed date of death is December 14, 1941. -- Born in Maryland, Fr. Walsh graduated from Mt. St. Mary's College at age 19 and worked two years as a timekeeper in a steel mill. He entered the first class of Maryknoll in 1912 and in 1915 became the second priest ordained in the Society. Three years later. 1918, he was assigned to Kwong Tung (present Guangdong), China. Pope Pius XI named Fr. Walsh as the first Bishop of the Vicariate of Kongmoon. He was consecrated a Bishop in 1927 at Shepherd of the Church on Sancian Island the death place of St. Francis Xavier. In 1936, Bishop Walsh was elected second Superior General following the death of Bishop James A. Walsh, the founder of Maryknoll. In 1948 he as asked to return to China to head the Catholic Central Bureau in Shanghai. In 1951 the government closed the bureau. He was arrested in 1959 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1970 he was released after spending nearly 12 years in prison. -- Born in Pennsylvania, Fr. Downs came to Maryknoll in 1920 after being ordained in the Erie Diocese in 1916. He took a perpetual oath to Maryknoll in 1930. He was assigned to Kaying in 1925 and became Society Superior there in 1930. In 1939 he was assigned to teach the Hakka dialect in Hong Kong. He spent many years in Hong Kong and the South China region before returning to the United States in 1969. -- Born in Switzerland, Brother Albert entered Maryknoll in 1917 and was assigned to China in 1921. He took up his long mission career in Kongmoon and later in Hong Kong at the St. Louis School. He returned to Kongmoon in 1947. In 1950 he was arrested by the Communists, put on public trial and released three months later in Pak