Introduction
The Vatican estimates the number of Vietnamese martyrs at between 130,000 and 300,000 were killed. Pope John Paul II decided to canonize those whose names are known and unknown, giving them a single feast day in 1988. The Vietnam government refused to allow the church hierarchy in Vietnam to participate in this occasion citing various reasons about the validity of the martyrs, such as, the Vatican chose the date that coincided with the foundation of South Vietnam and the Vatican relied only on anti-government South Vietnamese abroad to support the canonization process[1]. More recently, the Vatican's delegation to the beatification of Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was blocked from entering Vietnam, on grounds that the elevation of a figure hailed from the First Republic days would not help to heal the united Vietnam[2].
Background
The Vietnamese Martyrs fall into several groupings, those of the
Dominican and
Jesuit missionary era of the (17th century) and those killed in the Christian persecutions of the 19th century. A representative sample of 117 martyrs — including 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans, and 10 French members of the
Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions Etrangères de Paris) — were
beatified on four separate occasions:
Fortissimorum Virorum - 64 by Pope Leo XIII on May 27, 1900,
Purpurata Sanguine - 8 by Pope Pius X on May 20, 1906,
Purpurata Sanguine - 20 by Pope Pius X on May 2, 1909,
Albae jam ad Messem - 25 by Pope Pius XII on April 29, 1951.
All these 117 Vietnamese Martyrs were canonized on June 19, 1988. A young Vietnamese Martyr, Andrew Phú Yên, was beatified in March, 2000 by
Pope John Paul II.
The martyrs died during these periods:
- Chúa Trịnh Doanh (1740-1767): 2 people
- Chúa Trịnh Sâm (1767-1782): 2 people
- Emperor Cảnh Thịnh (1782-1802): 2 people
- Emperor Minh Mạng (1820-1840): 58 people
- Emperor Thiệu Trị (1840-1847): 3 people
- Emperor Tự Ðức (1847-1883): 50 people
The tortures these individuals underwent are considered by the Vatican to be among the worst in the history of Christian martyrdom. The torturers hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs, and used drugs to enslave the minds of the victims. Christians at the time were branded on the face with the hieroglyphics
左道, for
heterodox doctrine, while their families and villages were destroyed.
The letters and example of
Théophane Venard inspired the young
St. Theresa of Lisieux to volunteer for the
Carmelite nunnery at Hanoi, though she ultimately contracted tuberculosis and could not go.