Was a French missionary in China a saint or a spy?

To the Catholic Church, French missionary Auguste Chapdelaine is a saint, martyred for his faith 160 years ago in China. To Communist Party officials, he is a devilish rapist, bandit and spy.

The finishing touches are being put to a new museum in Dingan, the village where he died, celebrating the “patriotism” of his execution and condemning the “spiritual opium” of religion.

Inside, Catholic vestments and chalices are displayed near a life-sized diorama of a white-robed Chapdelaine kneeling before the Qing dynasty magistrate who had him tortured and killed.

The centre is part of a local tourism drive, but also fits into the ruling party’s nationalist narrative and comes as increasingly assertive authorities in Beijing decry the influence of “Western values”.

Chapdelaine, born on a farm in Normandy, was ordained in his early twenties and sent in the early 1850s to the southern Chinese region of Guangxi, where he was known as Father Ma.

He was arrested in 1856 with several Chinese believers in Dingan by the newly appointed magistrate, Zhang Mingfeng.