A crisis of confidence haunted various sectors in Hong Kong in the 1980s, particularly after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and the priests at the Hong Kong mission of the Society of Jesus were not immune. On April 20, 1990, less than a year after PLA tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, 58 Jesuits held a provincial meeting at which they debated whether they could stay in the city after China 's resumption of Hong Kong 's sovereignty in 1997. The Jesuits, who operate the two Wah Yan colleges, a primary school, Ricci Hall at the University of Hong Kong , Adam Schall Residence at Chinese University and a retreat house on Cheung Chau, weighed various worst-case scenarios, including those institutions being taken over by mainland authorities after 1997.Father Alfred Deignan, Superior of the Jesuits in Hong Kong , said the experience of communist takeovers elsewhere was that churches were targeted. "You know, many foreign priests were expelled from mainland China after 1949. The reality was there and we didn't know what the future would be," he said.
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