ASIA/VIETNAM - The Church's grateful memory of the martyrs and the present of the Church

Thursday, 1 August 2024 martyrs mission persecutions

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Hanoi (Agenzia Fides) - The Roman Martyrology celebrates on August 1 the memory of two priests who were martyred "in the city of Nam Dinh in Tonkin, today Vietnam" and "beheaded for their Christian faith under Emperor Minh Mang".
They are Saints Dominic Nguyen Van Hanh and Bernard Vu Van Due.

Little is known about their lives and even the news of their martyrdom is reduced to this one detail: "Beheaded for Christ". Christian memory needs few words to preserve and transmit from generation to generation gratitude to those who joyfully followed Jesus and bore witness to him, also taking up his cross.

In Vietnam, a total of 53 edicts were issued, all signed by kings or authorities, leading to long periods of bloody persecution of Christians that lasted for over two and a half centuries and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

In Vietnam, too, not only local priests but also missionaries were martyred.

Over the centuries, these martyrs were buried anonymously, but their memory has always remained alive in local Catholic communities. The blood of the martyrs has also given rise to the blossoming of a living Church, which today numbers 27 and 6 million baptized.

Since the beginning of the 20th century to the present, 117 of these martyrs have been selected and raised to the honor of the altars.
The first Pope to beatify the martyrs of Vietnam was Leo XIII, who beatified a total of 64 Vietnamese in 1900. Six years later, it was Pope Pius X who raised another eight Vietnamese martyrs to the altar honors. Pius X again beatified another 20 martyrs three years after the first ceremony. Finally, in 1951, Pope Pius XII beatified a total of 25 martyrs in the Asian country.
On April 18, 1986, the decree was issued that merged the canonization processes of the 117 martyrs into one. After the decree "de signis" of June 5, 1986, which confirmed signs and miracles in relation to all of these martyrs, John Paul II canonized them on June 19, 1988.
Among the martyrs canonized, 96 are Vietnamese, including 37 priests (including 11 Dominicans), one seminarian, 16 catechists, 10 Dominican tertiaries and one woman. A total of 21 missionaries from other countries were martyred in Vietnam and canonized: 11 Spaniards (all from the Order of Preachers, including six bishops and five priests) and 10 French missionaries from the Society for Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP) (including two bishops and eight priests).

Thanks to the various royal edicts, the tortures that led to the victims being recognized as martyrs are also known: seventy-five were sentenced to beheading, a sentence also pronounced on the two saints commemorated on August 1st; 22 were killed by hanging; six were burned alive; five were sentenced to have their limbs torn off; nine died in prison as a result of torture. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 1/8/2024)