Martyrs of Vietnam

Feastday: November 24

Several groups of martyrs also called the Martyrs of Annam who were
slain for the faith in Vietnam from 1798 until 1861.

Martyrs of Vietnam

Feastday: November 24

Several groups of martyrs also called the Martyrs of Annam who were
slain for the faith in Vietnam from 1798 until 1861. Between 1798 and
1853, sixty-four were martyred, receiving beatification in 1900. Those
who died in a second group, between 1859 and 1861, were beatified in
1909. There were twenty-eight courageous men and women who died for the
faith during a long period of persecution. A Portuguese missionary
arrived in Vietnam, once called Annam, Indo-China, Cochin-China, and
Tonkin, in 1533. An imperial edict in Vietnam forbade Christianity, and
it was not until 1615 that the Jesuits were able to establish a
permanent mission there, in the central region of the country. In 1627,
a Jesuit went north to establish another mission. By the time this
missionary, Father Alexander de Rhodes, was expelled from the land in
1630, he had baptized 6,700 Vietnamese. In that same year the first
Christian martyr was beheaded, and more were executed in 1644 and 1645
. Father Rhodes returned to Vietnam but was banished again in 1645. He
then went to Paris, France, where the Paris Seminary for Foreign
Missions was founded. Priests arrived in Vietnam, and the faith grew.
Between 1798 and 1853, a period of intense political rivalry and civil
wars, sixty-four known Christians were executed. These were beatified
in 1900. In 1833, all Christians were ordered to renounce the faith,
and to trample crucifixes underfoot. That edict started a persecution
of great intensity that was to last for half a century. Some
twenty-eight martyrs from this era were beatified in 1909. The bishop,
priests, and Europeans were given "a hundred wounds," disemboweled,
beaten, and slain in many other grisly fashions. For a brief period in
1841 the persecution abated as France threatened to intervene with
warships. However, in 1848, prices were placed on the heads of the
missionaries by a new emperor. Two priests, Father Augustin Schoffier
and Father Bonnard, were beheaded as a re­sult. In 1855, the
persecution raged, and the following year wholesale massacres began.
Thousands of Vietnamese Christians were martyred, as well as four
bish­ops and twenty-eight Dominicans. It is estimated that between
1857 and 1862, 115 native priests, 100 Vietnamese nuns, and more than
5,000 of the faithful were martyred. Convents, churches, and schools
were razed, and as many as 40,000 Catholics were dispossessed of their
lands and exiled from their own regions to starve in wilderness areas.
The martyrdoms ended with the Peace of 1862, brought about by the
surrendering of Saigon and other regions to France and the payment of
indemnities to France and Spain. It is now reported that the "Great
Massacre," the name given to the persecution of the Church in
Vietnam, resulted in the following estimated deaths:

Eastern Vietnam - fifteen priests, 60 cathechists, 250 nuns, 24,000
Catholic lay men and women. Southern Vietnam - ten priests, 8,585
Catholic men and women. Southern Tonkin region - eight French
missionaries, one native priest, 63 cathechists, and 400 more
Christians slain - in all, an estimated 4,799 were martyred and 1,181
died of starvation. Some 10,000 Catholics were forced to flee the area.
Pope John Paul II canonized 117 Martyrs of Vietnam on June 19,1988.


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These 117 saints died under persecutions of Christians that in fact
lasted from 1625 to 1886 and costed about 130.000 lives. The group
consists of martyrs in the three Vietnamese kingdoms of Tonkin, Annam
and Cochin China. Among the 117 were 96 Vietnamese and 21 foreign
missionaries. Of the Vietnamese group were 37 priests and 59 lay
people, among whom were catechists and tertiaries. One of them was a
woman, mother of six. Of the missionaries was 11 Spaniards; 6 bishops
and 5 priests, all Dominicans, and 10 were French; 2 bishops and 8
priests from Société des Missions Etrangères in Paris. 76 were
beheaded, 21 suffocated, 6 burnt alive, 5 mutilated and 9 died in
prison as a result of torture. A detailed description of their
sufferings is found in a letter written by Paul Le Bao Tinh to the
seminary of Ke Vinh in 1843. Further beatifications are expected.

The traditional Vietnamese religion is Buddhism, together with elements
of Taoism, Confucianism and local ancestors' cult. The catholic Church
came with missionaries at the beginning of the 16th century. It was
seen as a foreign element and subject for fanatical persecution. During
the first 200 years of Christianity in these parts it is believed that
about 100.000 were martyred, but of most of these all historical record
has been lost. The two first apostolic vicariates were established in
1659.

The earliest martyrs of whom there is substantial documentation are the
Spanish Dominicans Francisco Gil de Federich and Alonzo Lenziana, who
came to the country about 1580. Gil directed during nine years in
prison a fruitful apostolate, while Lenziana, a fugitive for thirteen
years, ministered faithfully but furtively to the native Christians. In
1773 two more Dominicans were beheaded, Hyacinth Casteneda, a Spaniard
who had evangelised in the Philippines and China for several years
before being deported to Vietnam, where he was imprisoned for three
years. There he was joined by Vincent Liêm, the first Indo-Chinese
Dominican to be martyred, who had ministered to his countrymen for
fourteen years before he was beheaded. In 1798 the first Vietnamese
diocesan priests, John Dat and Emmanuel Triêu, also suffered
martyrdom.

During the first twenty years of the 19th century Christianity made
steady progress, but this was dramatically interrupted by the
persecutions under the Annamite emperors Minh-Mang (1820-40) and Tu
Dúc (1847-83). From 1832 Minh-Mang excluded all foreign missionaries
and ordered Vietnamese Christians to renounce Christianity by trampling
on the crucifix. meanwhile churches were to be destroyed and teaching
Christianity forbidden. Very many suffered death or extreme hardship.

Bishops, hardly 30 years old, got a piece of bamboo as pastoral staff
and mitre of paper; older priests were exposed in cages for public
mocking, which led to conversations until the end, and poor peasant
were murdered because they refused to trample on an image of Christ.
The persecutions are compared with those of ancient Roman emperors.

The Spanish Dominican bishops Ignatius Delgado and Dominic Henarez,
each of whom had worked for 50 years there, were again arrested.
Delgado (76) died of hunger, thirst, and exposure in a cage before he
could be beheaded. Henarez and his Annamite catechist Francis Chiêu
were both executed. Other Vietnamese priests who were martyred included
Peter Tuân, Bernard Duê and James Nam. A doctor, Joseph Canh, and a
tailor, Thomas Dê, suffered the same fate.

Some of the victims seem to have been induced by drugs to make
temporary retractions: others endured fearsome tortures, including
cutting off the limbs joint by joint, A group of French missionaries,
including Joseph Marchand and Jean-Charles Cornay, also suffered: the
former, who was captured at Saigon, died like St. Bartholomew while the
flesh was torn from his body with red-hot tongs; the latter who was set
up by weapons being buried in the plot of land he was cultivated, was
imprisoned in a series of cages: being young and endowed with a fine
voice, was obliged to sing to his captors. Eventually on 20 September
1837 the sentence of the supreme tribunal «that he is to be hewn in
pieces and that his head, after being exposed for three days, is to be
thrown into the river» was accomplished.

A Vietnamese diocesan priest who suffered martyrdom in this persecution
is *Andrew Dung-Lac, who is honoured by being the representative of the
117 martyrs in the Roman Calendar. His name was originally Dung An
Trân, and he was born about 1795 in a poor and pagan family in
Bac-Ninh in North Vietnam. When he was twelve the family had to move to
Hà-Nôi (Hanoi) where his parents could find work. There he met a
catechist and got food and shelter from him. He also got education in
Christian faith for three years, and was baptised in Vinh-Tri with the
Christian name Andrew (Andrew Dung). After learning Chinese and Latin
he became a catechist, and thereafter taught catechises in the country.
He was chosen to study theology, and on 15 March 1823 he was ordained
priest. As parish priest in Ke-Dâm he was tireless in his preaching.
He often fasted and lived a simple and moral life, he was a good
example for the people, and many were baptised. In 1835 he was
imprisoned under emperor Minh-Mang's persecutions (he was called
Vietnam's emperor Nero), but his freedom was purchased by donations
from members of the congregation he served. To avoid persecutions he
changed his name to Lac (Andrew Lac) and moved to another prefecture to
continue his work. But on 10 November 1839 he was again arrested, this
time with Peter Thi, another Vietnamese priest whom he was visiting so
that he might go to confession.

Once again Andrew was liberated, along with Peter Thi, in exchange for
money. Their freedom was brief. They were soon re-arrested and taken to
Hanoi, where both suffered a dreadful torture. Finally they both were
beheaded 21 December 1839. Andrew was beatified in the first group on
27 May 1900.

Persecutions were revived in 1847 when Christians were suspected of
complicity in rebellion, while French and Spanish efforts to protect
their nationals caused a xenophobic and anti-Christian ferocity. Once
more foreign missionaries and native clergy and laity suffered death
for Christianity. The most famous include *Théophane Venard of the
Paris Mission. He was a schoolmaster's son, born at
Saint-Loup-sur-Thouet (Deux-Sèvres) in 1829, he joined the Society of
Foreign Missions of Paris as a young man, transferring to it from the
seminary of Poitiers diocese. In 1852 he was ordained priest and in
1854 he was sent to Tonkin in a time of severe persecutions. Expelled
from Nam-Dinh in 1856, he went to Hanoi, where however the renewed
persecutions obliged him to hide in caves and sampans. At last he was
arrested, placed in a bamboo cage, and ultimately in 1861 beheaded for
the Christian faith. His letters and his example inspired the young St.
Theresa of Lisieux to volunteer for the Carmelite nunnery at Hanoi. But
she got tuberculosis and could not go. In 1865 Vénard's body was
translated to his Congregation's church in Paris, but his head remains
in Vietnam. With 19 other martyrs from this area he was beatified in
1909.

Others to suffer in the same persecution were Augustus Schoffler from
Lorraine, and John Louis Bonnard, who wrote a fine letter of farewell
to his family before being executed on 1 May 1852. Also should be
mentioned Stephen Cuénot, a bishop who had established three
vicariates during 25 years' episcopate, was hidden by a pagan during
persecution until he had to emerge for water, and died of dysentery
just before the edict for his execution arrived.

Christians were marked on their faces with the words ta dao (=false
religion); husbands were separated from their wives, and children from
their parents. Christian villages were destroyed and their possessions
distributed. Among those who suffered death in this persecution were
Laurence Huong, Paul Lôc and John Hoan (priests), Andrew Nam-Thuông
(catechist), Michael Hy-Dinh-Hô (official) and Agnes Thành Thi Lê,
mother of 6 children, who carried letters from the confessors in
prison.

In the persecutions under emperor Tu-Dúc (1857-62) two more Spanish
bishops were killed and a Vietnamese judge, Dominic Kham, as well as
two fishermen, Peter Thuan and Dominic Toái, who along with Peter Da
were burnt alive in a bamboo hut.

Others who were mentioned by name in the canonisation mass were *Thomas
Tran Van Tien, a seminarian, *Emmanuel Le Van Phoung, father of a
family, the Dominican bishops *Jerome Hermosilla and *Valentin Berrio
Ochoa.

In June 1862 a treaty between France and Amman guaranteed religious
freedom. This marked the beginning of the end of the persecutions, some
of whose features recall the sufferings of the martyrs in the early
ages of Christianity.

The 117 martyrs were beatified in four groups, the first of them on 27
May 1900 (Pope Leo XIII), the second (all Dominicans) on 20 May 1906, a
third on 2 May 1909 (both by Pope Pius X) and the last (including two
Spanish bishops) on 29 April 1951 (Pope Pius XII). They were canonised
in Rome on 19 June 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

At the canonisation in Rome was no delegation from the communist regime
in Vietnam. But 8000 Vietnamese in exile participated as
representatives for their catholic countrymen in Vietnam, who not were
allowed to leave the country. In addition came pilgrims especially from
Spain, France and the Philippines, who have missioned in Vietnam for
300 years.

On 24 November 1960 Pope John XXIII established the catholic hierarchy
in Vietnam. It included (1989) 1 cardinal, 35 bishops and 25 dioceses
with about 6 millions Catholics, i.e. about 10 % of the population.
These are the fruits from the martyrs' blood.

The group is also called Martyrs of Vietnam, of Indo-China or of
Tonkin. Feasts: Formerly 2 February (the 1909 group), 11 July and 6
November. Now together on 24 November.

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