Vietnamese Martyrs (Vietnamese: Các Thánh Tử đạo Việt Nam), also known as the Martyrs of Tonkin and Cochinchina, collectively Martyrs of Annam or formerly Martyrs of Indochina, are saints of the Catholic Church who died between 1745 and 1862, and were canonized by Pope John Paul II. On June 19, 1988, thousands of overseas Vietnamese worldwide gathered at St. Peter's Square for the celebration of the canonization of 117 Vietnamese Martyrs, an event organized by Monsignor Trần Văn Hoài. Their memorial in the current General Roman Calendar, which refers to Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc and Companions (Vietnamese pronunciation: [zʊwŋ͡m laːk̚]), is on November 24, although many of these saints have a second memorial, having been beatified and inscribed on the local calendar prior to the canonization of the group.
The Vatican estimates the number of Vietnamese martyrs at between 130,000 and 300,000. John Paul II decided to canonize both those whose names are known and unknown, giving them a single feast day.
The Vietnamese Martyrs fall into several groupings: those of the Dominican and Jesuit missionary era of the 18th century, and those killed in the politically inspired persecutions of the 19th century. A representative sample of only 117 martyrs, including 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans, and 10 French members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions Etrangères de Paris; MEP), were beatified on four separate occasions: 64 by Pope Leo XIII on May 27, 1900; eight by Pope Pius X on May 20, 1906; 20 by Pope Pius X on May 2, 1909; and 25 by Pope Pius XII on April 29, 1951.
All 117 of these Vietnamese Martyrs were canonized on June 19, 1988. From 1925 to 1990, the Vietnamese Church commemorated the feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs on the first Sunday of September. The memorial was then assigned to 24 November in the General Roman Calendar. A young Vietnamese Martyr, Andrew of Phú Yên, was beatified in March 2000, by Pope John Paul II. Phú Yên is also known as the protomartyr or first martyr of Vietnam with his execution on July 26, 1644, at the age of 19.
Martyrs of the Dominican and Jesuit missionary era of the 18th century
Six of the canonised martyrs died during the 18th century.
The Nguyễn persecution in the 19th century
The Catholic Church in Vietnam was devastated during the Tây Sơn rebellion in the late 18th century. During the turmoil, the missions revived, however, as a result of cooperation between the French Vicar Apostolic Pigneaux de Behaine and Nguyen Anh. After Nguyen's victory in 1802, he was grateful for the assistance received and ensured protection for missionary activities. However, only a few years into the new emperor's reign, there was growing antipathy among officials against Catholicism and missionaries reported that it was purely for political reasons that their presence was tolerated. Tolerance continued until the death of the emperor and the new emperor, Minh Mang, succeeding to the throne in 1820.
Converts began to be harassed by local governments without official edicts in the late 1820s. In 1831, the emperor passed new laws regulating religious groupings in Vietnam, and Catholicism was then officially prohibited. In 1832, the first act occurred in a largely Catholic village near Hue, with the entire community being incarcerated and sent into exile in Cambodia. In January 1833, a new kingdom-wide edict was passed calling on Vietnamese subjects to reject the religion of Jesus and required suspected Catholics to demonstrate their renunciation by walking on a wooden cross. Actual violence against Catholics, however, did not occur until the Lê Văn Khôi revolt.
During the rebellion, a young French missionary priest, Joseph Marchand, was sick and residing in the rebel citadel of Gia Dinh. In October 1833, an officer of the emperor reported to the court that a foreign Christian religious leader was present in the citadel. This news was used to justify the edicts against Catholicism and led to the first executions of missionaries in over 40 years. The first executed was named Francois Gagelin. Marchand was eventually captured and executed as a "rebel leader" in 1835; he was put to death by "slow slicing". Further repressive measures were introduced in the wake of this episode in 1836. Before 1836, village heads had only to report to local mandarins about how their subjects had recanted Catholicism. However, after 1836, officials could visit villages and force all the villagers to line up one by one to trample on a cross, and if a community was suspected of harboring a missionary, militia could block off the village gates and perform a rigorous search; if a missionary was found, collective punishment could be meted out to the entire community.
Missionaries and Catholic communities were able to escape punishment through bribery of officials on occasion; they were also sometimes victims of extortion attempts by people who demanded money under the threat that they would report the villages and missionaries to the authorities. The missionary Father Pierre Duclos said:
with gold bars murder and theft blossom among honest people.
The court became more aware of the problem of the failure to enforce the laws and applied greater pressure on its officials to act; officials who failed to act or those who were seen to be acting too slowly were demoted or removed from office (and sometimes were given severe corporal punishment), while those who attacked and killed the Christians could receive promotion or other rewards. Lower officials or younger family members of officials were sometimes tasked with secretly going through villages to report on hidden missionaries or Catholics who had not apostatized.
The first missionary arrested during this (and later executed) was the priest Jean-Charles Cornay in 1837. A military campaign was conducted in Nam Dinh after letters were discovered in a shipwrecked vessel bound for Macao. Quang Tri and Quang Binh officials captured several priests along with the French missionary Bishop Pierre Dumoulin-Borie in 1838 (who was executed). The court translator, Francois Jaccard, a Catholic who had been kept as a prisoner for years and was extremely valuable to the court, was executed in late 1838; the official who was tasked with this execution, however, was almost immediately dismissed.
A priest, Father Ignatius Delgado, was captured in the village of Can Lao (Nam Định Province), put in a cage on public display for ridicule and abuse, and died of hunger and exposure while waiting for execution; the officer and soldiers that captured him were greatly rewarded (about 3 kg of silver was distributed out to all of them), as were the villagers that had helped to turn him over to the authorities. The bishop Dominic Henares was found in Giao Thuy district of Nam Dinh (later executed); the villagers and soldiers that participated in his arrest were also greatly rewarded (about 3 kg of silver distributed). The priest, Father Joseph Fernandez, and a local priest, Nguyen Ba Tuan, were captured in Kim Song, Nam Dinh; the provincial officials were promoted, the peasants who turned them over were given about 3 kg of silver and other rewards were distributed. In July 1838, a demoted governor attempting to win back his place did so successfully by capturing the priest Father Dang Dinh Vien in Yen Dung, Bac Ninh province. (Vien was executed). In 1839, the same official captured two more priests: Father Dinh Viet Du and Father Nguyen Van Xuyen (also both executed).
Pope Gregory XVI wrote to the faithful of the Apostolic vicariates of Tonkin and Cochinchina in August 1839 to express his shock at these executions and to offer consolation to those who remained, and spoke in similar terms to the Cardinals assembled in consistory in April 1840, referring to a number of specific missionaries and local converts executed for their faith.
In Nhu Ly near Hue, an elderly Catholic doctor named Simon Hoa was captured and executed. He had been sheltering a missionary named Charles Delamotte, whom the villagers had pleaded with him to send away. The village was also supposed to erect a shrine for the state-cult, which the doctor also opposed. His status and age protected him from being arrested until 1840 when he was put on trial, and the judge pleaded (due to his status in Vietnamese society as both an elder and a doctor) with him to publicly recant; when he refused, he was publicly executed.