Saints
Andrew Dung-Lac and the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam are 117 individuals who endured
tremendous suffering and eventual death because of their Catholic Faith. They weren’t all martyred at the same time,
but persecutions went on for nearly three hundred years. And there were far more than these 117
martyrs – there were some 100,000 people martyred for their faith, but their
names are known only to God.
Christian
missionaries first brought the Catholic faith to Vietnam during the 16th
century. The traditional Vietnamese
religion is Buddhism, mixed with elements of Taoism, Confucianism and the cult
of ancestors. When Christianity came with missionaries early in the 16th
century, it was seen as a foreign element and during those following three
centuries the Faith became the object of persecution.
Over
that time various emperors banned all foreign missionaries and ordered
Vietnamese Christians to renounce Christianity by trampling on a crucifix.
Churches were to be destroyed and teaching Christianity forbidden. Very many
suffered death or extreme hardship.
Imprisoned
bishops, hardly 30 years old, were mocked in prison, and were given a piece of
bamboo as crozier and a paper mitre to wear – much like Jesus was mocked by the
soldiers when he was arrested, and made to wear a crown of thorns. Older priests were put on display in cages to
be publicly mocked, and simple poor peasants were murdered for refusing to
trample on a crucifix. These tortures were barbaric and the persecutions have
been compared with those of ancient Rome.
During
the persecutions, Christians were marked on their faces with the words which
meant “false religion,” husbands were separated from their wives, and children
from their parents. Christian villages were destroyed and their possessions
distributed. It wasn’t until 1862 that
there was religious freedom, which marked the beginning of the end of the
persecutions.
O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before thee St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his Companions, the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
