God's Plan for an Unaccompanied Minor

Father Christian

(C) 2012 The Radiant Guidance Project (Fr. Joseph & P. Giddens)

God’s Plan for an Unaccompanied Minor

                  It is still all but impossible for me to realize that I am living in the United States of America – even at this moment.  As a little boy growing up in a city in Vietnam I was drawn to America through photographs in magazines.  They filled me with excitement and a secret desire to live there someday.  The very first images of America in my mind were snapshots of American Soldiers who were stationed in my country.  But my desire was mostly fueled by the pictures in the American magazines.  These were very inspiring influences during my childhood.  From that early age I believed that the gift of God’s Plan for me was wrapped in the American Flag, and tied with a red, white and blue ribbon.

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                  I still don’t believe it is possible that I am living in the United States – even at this moment.  I came all the way from Vietnam.  As a little boy, I grew up there and I knew about America through the magazines.  I saw pictures.  I think I saw some American soldier there when I was a little child.  But that was a short period of time.  Most of the time I saw America as it was pictured in magazines.  The American language as written was most interesting to me to learn.  It was my dream to someday learn the language and meet the people I saw in the magazines.  It is something that was very inspiring in my childhood.  But I grew up, and for some reason I believed that God’s plan is in there. 

                  I was born in a very big family of ten children.  The two older brothers were in danger because they had to hide from the Communists.[1]  In Vietnam every man of 18 had to enter the military.  At that time they usually sent the soldiers to fight in Cambodia, Laos.  The government sent people out to fight, and many ended up being killed, or never return home.  It was very serious.  I know two of my brothers went and somehow came home.  During that time they had to live underground.  The police came to our house to search for them every day.  They came usually when everyone was asleep.  In Vietnam there is only one door in most houses.  You can’t escape anywhere.  You open the door and the police come in.  They have a list of people in your house and they call each person.  Everyone had to wake up and they checked them out.  But my two brothers were in hiding.  The oldest brother said he escaped from the military and he had to hide himself in the forest.  He couldn’t go home.  My second brother would hide inside the house inside a tiny place under ground behind the house.  It was very dangerous.  Every time my brothers would go outside to the street they were afraid of being caught by the police.  So they lived like animals.  They had no rights of a human being.  It was dangerous. 

                  This was the time when people started leaving the country.  They escaped by boat, by walking, and many other ways to leave Vietnam.  It was very tough.  It was my parents’ desire to help my two older brothers escape from Vietnam first.  But they couldn’t do anything.  Then my oldest brother tried a couple of times with no success because usually at that time bad people would take money to organize an escape and then do nothing or even turn them into the police.  You would almost always lose everything, and often your life.  The second brother had the same experience. 

                  One day the neighbor came over to our house and talked with my Mom.  This man said that “we have a trip soon.  This one is organized by a Communist.”  If a Communist organizes a trip it is dangerous because how come a Communist would organize a trip?  So, my Mom told my Dad.  My Dad said no, it is not going to happen.  But my Mom persisted.  She said, “Look, if a Communist organizes the trip they must have connections.”  We did not know what to do.  At that time we had no choice.  So, my Mom secretly told that man “Okay, we will try it this time.  After so many failed trips, this one may be a success.”  We live in a city.  Usually, if you live in a village it is easier for you to go because many of the villages are often closer to the ocean front.  We lived in the center of the city and so it was very hard for us to escape.  Then my family started selling everything in the house.  We sold everything of value in order to pay for the trip.  Sure enough, that day came and my brother left the house and a few days after that we heard that he got caught by the Communists.  My parents thought that the Communists organized that trip for another group of Communists who caught him. 

                  The Communists put my brother in prison.  Some time later, in the middle of the night, there was a knock on the door.  We thought it was the Communists coming. But it was my brother, who had escaped from prison.  His story from escaping the Communists is amazing.  He said that he had never prayed before.  But at that time he was so scared, he told me, “they put me in prison, shaved my hair, put me in a tiny cell.”  Then one day he had an idea.  One day he and his friend volunteered to take the bedding out for an airing.  The guards said, “Okay, you can do that.”  After he took that outside he started running.  The Communists came after them shooting.  My brother was so scared.  He said he was going to die any minute.  So he started praying.  He said a prayer, the rosary.  He said he needed a miracle or else he was going to die.  He and his friend jumped into a bush and the Communists started shooting behind him.  Then it started raining very heavily.  The Communists had them surrounded and were cursing and shooting all around the area.  However the heavy rain forced them to say, “Okay, let’s forget them for now because it is raining too heavily.”

                  So my brother, after hiding and his buddy, was able to get away from the Communists.  His clothes were torn and dirty.  He found a family in that village who gave him new clothes.  Clothes are so very expensive.  You have to work a whole year to have the money to buy one pair of pants or one shirt.  That family was so generous for giving him a whole suit of clothes.  They also gave him some money to get home from that village.

                  Now my brother returned secretly to our city and began hiding out in our house again.  We thought that the money for his trip that we had scraped together by selling everything was lost forever.  We were in big trouble because we had sold everything now.  There was nothing left, not even a radio in my house.  Everything:  my Mom’s rings, everything was sold.  We cry.  My Mom and Dad said “well, we have nothing left.”  Luckily, for some reason, the man who arranged the trip came by and said, “Well, you lost everything.  We had a trip for you and we tried, but it didn’t succeed.  However, because I know you paid a part.  We will try to do it again.”

                  Because my brother was so scared from the last trip, my parents decided that I would be the one to go this next time.  My brother was still scared.  He couldn’t go outside because they had shaved his head and this marked him as a prisoner and he would get caught.  So, that is why I had a chance to go.

                  It was God’s plan.  I had a chance to go after my two brothers couldn’t make their escape.  On the day I was scheduled to go my brothers woke me up.  I dressed in the one set of clothes that I had.  I didn’t have anything else.  My brother took me to a bus.  On the bus we went to a village where we spent a day and a night.  I still remember that day.  This is the day I successfully escaped from them.  That day is the day my brother’s anniversary of his death.  I had a brother who was three years old when he died.  And we believe he is a saint, and I have a very special bond with that brother.  Very special.  I took him everywhere.  I loved him so much.  After he passed away – he took sick one day and then died.  We miss him a lot.  That day was his anniversary. 

                  That day was also the day when the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs[2] were canonized by Pope John Paul, II.  The Church celebrated this event with a big Papal Mass in Rome.  However, in Vietnam at that time we were prohibited to have a mass for them.  The Communists said they have a reason because that day is the day of the old region festival.  They claimed that the Church needs that day to demonstrate against them.  So they don’t allow the church to celebrate that day.  In fact there were many police on the street, and if any church celebrated that mass with the Pope they would put the people in prison.  So people prayed in silence.  Sunday, June 19, 1988, my escape day, was very special. 

                  I was on the way to escape from Vietnam.  That day is very special because my family still talks about that day and they are thankful that they were able to provide for my trip.  That trip is so amazing.  I remember that day also because we were informed that there was a storm coming up – Category five or six.  In a storm like that, the people evacuated to the city and away from the coast to avoid the storm.  My trek began in the city and went to the village on the coast to the ocean.  It was very scary.  We went the opposite way.  The trip is so dangerous that we went to the boat.  It was very small.  People kept coming to the boat.  We were in a hurry.  Many people tried to get in the boat.  I believe the boat was meant to handle about 40 to 50 people.  But it ended up with over 100 people in the boat.  It was overloaded.  We got into the bottom of the boat and went out into the stormy sea.  We set sail.  A big huge storm came.  I was under the cabin, but I thought we were riding on a mountain.  It fell.  Every time it dropped down.  There was so much noise – the wind, the rain, the people crying.  We knew the storm was attacking us.  A few hours later the water started coming in boat.  At that time I was scared and confused.  Before that I prayed I could get out to become a priest, and now I was dying.  So I questioned the God wanted from me.  “I don’t know what you want from me!  I want to be a priest and I can’t if I die.”  I was so scared.  We were told we must get the water out of the boat by any means.  Everyone used whatever they could to get the water out.  We had to throw away all the food and water we brought in the boat.  We threw out everything to lighten the boat or otherwise we would all die.  We prayed and prayed.  I remember that day. 

                  Then the storm ended.  The sea calmed down.  Now the boat was broken.  The motor didn’t work anymore.  Someone – thank God some people are very handy – fixed the structure of the boat, but not the motor.  We had to just go with the wind. 

                  The next day we saw something at a distance.  At night we could see nothing but darkness, but in daytime we saw something.  We headed in that direction.  We thought some volunteers or Red Cross were coming to help us.  Because at that time a lot of people went to the sea to help.  We headed out in that direction.  People were so happy because they thought we were saved.  But the women at that time tried to use makeup and dress up.  As we got close enough we realized it was a pirate boat.  It was dangerous then that there were many pirates who raped the women and tried to get weapons.  They knew that when we left the country we took everything with us.  Now, the women started to take off their makeup and use oil and stuff to make them look bad and smell bad in the hope the pirates would be repulsed.  Someone had an idea to put a stick on the boat to make it look like a gun.  That may be the trick that made it possible for us to escape.  For some reason, the pirates turned to another direction, after we put that make-believe gun on the front of our boat.  Maybe that was God’s plan to save us that day.  We continued to go.  Now we were scared.  We didn’t know where to go.  I was very hungry and tired with all the sea sick people throwing up everywhere.  There was no food and no water.  I was very tired.  At some point we saw an oil spill on the surface of the sea.  We saw the fire and headed in that direction.  I somehow passed out.  I didn’t know what was going on.  I was sea sick and hungry so I passed out.  I don’t know how long I passed out.  When I woke up I asked “Are we safe yet?”  They said, “no, we are still going.”    The pointed in a direction and told me we are still going in that direction.  It took another day.  Next time we saw a light on the sea and it gave it some hope.  It gave us some hope because it meant that someone was out there.  Hope.

                  So we headed in that direction.  We stopped seeing the light shining.  For the first time in my life we saw many lights on the water.  We landed at that place and jumped out, screaming and happy to be on land.  Yet, we didn’t know where to go.  It was so risky.  Is it another country?  Is it Vietnam?  We kept walking because we were happy to be on land.  We had no water, no food, and no gasoline for our motor.  Only Hope.  We said this is the place.

                  Thank God it was an island of Malaysia.  We jumped in the sea.  I was so tired I could hardly walk.  The happiness was amazing.  We broke up our boat because it was still functioning.  Because of this the people might not help us.  So we break our boat.  Help us or not, we will stay here because we can’t go further.

                  So we stayed there.  A few hours later a Malaysian policeman came up and counted us.  We ended up 107 people in our boat.  So, thank God for the boat.  I don’t remember the time, but soon they took us to another island where we were checked in, washed to make sure we didn’t have lice.  They fed us.  I will never forget bowl of noodles in my life.  I was so hungry.  The noodles were wonderful.  That was the best bowl of noodles in my life.  People came to interview us.  We told them why we were scared.  They put us in a camp and my new life started from that time. 

How did you get in touch with your family after that?

                  After that?  When I got to the camp they gave us two free envelopes and stamps from the UN.  We could write to our family.  Usually at that time if you send directly from the camp to Vietnam, the mail would be lost.  So I had to send to another country in order to get around.  It took a long time for my family to know that I was still alive.  They received my first letter a couple of months after I mailed it in the camp.  It was a tough time for my family after I left because they came in asking for more money – we didn’t pay them enough at first.  My parents had nothing of value to pay. 

                  One old lady from our neighborhood sold her house and let us borrow her money and pay them.  Then my Mom had to borrow the money.  She lives with now to this day.  She is 85 or 90.  We take care of her like family.  I only received a few letters while I was in the camp.  I was in that camp for a year and a half.  I was very lucky – very blessed.  Some people were there seven to ten years with nowhere to go.  The reason I stayed for that short time was because at that time they did not want to have any more refugees.  They announced that they set a date, and after that date anyone who entered the camp would be kicked out.  They would not allow any more into the camp.  Anyone who came after that date were pushed out.  Whether alive or dying, they were pushed out.  They didn’t care.  They never let them in.  Those refugees would stand outside the fence and cry “help us, save us.”  We said, “okay,” and let them in, but they didn’t count as people and they were treated like they didn’t exist.  They had no papers, very little food.  One time a boat carrying all of my neighbors from my home town in Vietnam.  They came to the camp.  They were not counted as refugees anymore.  I heard that a few years after they arrived they all went back to Vietnam.

How did you get from Malaysia to the United States?  And, how many days did it take you to get from Vietnam to Malaysia?

                  It took us four days to get to Malaysia from Vietnam.  You went three or four days without food or drink.  Most of the people on the boat had brought their own food and water with them.  I did not.  And, they didn’t share with me because they had no idea how long we would be at sea.  Sometimes the voyage lasted a month or more.  A number of people died.  I didn’t take any food because I thought it was just like a one day trip. 

When you were on the boat, you were saying before that the Communist soldiers came into the house.  Well you weren’t there.  What happened at home when the soldiers came and found you gone?

                  We had to report to them every time.  After time my family knew that I wasn’t dead, they went to the Police station and said that I had run away from the family.  They crossed my name off their list and that meant that I no longer existed.  I don’t have any right to return to Vietnam.  My family was never at risk for me having been gone after they reported it.  The police could have asked come to the house and asked questions.  You see, in Vietnam, everywhere you go, like visiting grandparents in a village, you have to go to the local police station and report your presence.  You can leave your house but you must report to the local station.  It’s not really bad if they find you gone. 

You are at the boat between Vietnam and Malaysia during the storm.  What kind of prayers were you praying?  Were you just praying “God Help Us!”

                  When you panic you pray everything.  I would pray about my vocation.  I’d say “I’m ready to be a priest.”  Then I pray the rosary and every other prayer I know.  Everything.

I think what the blessing was, and this was the miraculous event, was on the feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs.  I remember that day.  That was a very beautiful day. 

                  When I entered the seminary, one of my friends there said that he was there and that they all prayed.  Also, the prayer while in the boat to your brother (Tran) is a miracle also.  It is amazing.  God works in wonderful ways. 

Is your family still in Vietnam?

                  I came here myself, started working, and somehow brought my parents over.  I sent money and needed to support my family.  There was no way to pursue my vocation and become a priest because I needed to care for my family.  Then one day, for some reason, after I became a student, the Vietnamese Government interviewed my parents and let them go.  That is a miracle because it happened in a little over a year.  They came here on the Feast of St. Mary.  My parents came here and I have another barrier to my vocation.  My family is with me but they don’t speak English and they don’t work.  So I can’t leave to the seminary.

                  After they were here for one year I told them that I wanted to become a priest.  My Mom started to cry.  My father was confused.  “What if something happens?  Will you be able to help us?”  I was the only one working at that time.  I said, look, “America is simple.  You can call 911.”  They were still concerned.  My whole family was against me going into the seminary because of this.  I talked them into trying one semester.  My Mom said go.  She recalled that when I was two years old for some reason I was so sick that the doctor said I was dying.  The doctor refused to treat me anymore.  He told her to take me home to die.  Mom prayed that if God spared my life she would offer me to be a priest.  That’s how she prayed.  Later she said, when you were young I prayed and promised God, and so I need to let you go.  I had never known that before.  That’s how I managed to get to the Seminary.

                  There were some people who helped support my family.  They said that if anything happened to call them.  In Vietnam my Mom was sick a lot.  Every day I saw her with medicine.  Then she always got better.  Here I don’t think she ever gets sick. 

                  They are both here now.  Also I have two brothers here.  They are studying English.  They all live together as a family.

Tell us how you got to the United States from Malaysia.  How did you finally get here?

                  I don’t know how it happened, but at that time it was very strange.  In order to go to other countries you had to have people in your immediate family to sponsor you, or your parents had to work for the government.  I was told that I had to remain in Malaysia forever, maybe 10 years or more or till they send me back to Vietnam.  So I remember that they told me that if I wanted to go to Europe or France I had to speak French, and someone had to sponsor me.  I love the French language and learned it.

                  I was an unaccompanied minor.  No countries wanted to accept a minor because minors were troublemakers.  Most of the people from my boat had already left.  They had family and were over 18.  For me, I had to stay in the camp.  One day my uncle in London said he had no way to sponsor me.  But if I wanted to become a priest, the church would sponsor me.  I told him “Yes, I want to become a priest.”  I sent him a letter, but never received anything back from him.

                  Then my parents contacted some family from Quebec, Canada.  They arranged that they find a church to sponsor me.  It would cost a couple thousand dollars.  I said I would sign a paper stating that I would pay them back when I got there.  I had the paper indicating that I was supposed to go to Canada.  At the same time someone in the camp called me to the office and said, “Do you want to go to America?”  I said, “Sure.”  I filled out a paper and they helped me.  I went through all the proper interviews.  To go to America I had to go to 4 times the interviews as to go to any other country.  It was extremely difficult.  I remember the last interview – the decisive interview to go to America.  There were a bunch of people from the camp trying to get to America and they were all standing in line for the interview.  I was in the middle of the line.  They tried all kinds of ways to scare me.  All the people before me in the line were rejected.  I went in.  They interviewed me.  They asked me a lot of questions.  I told them exactly what I felt.  At the end, they said, “Guess what.  We want to accept you.”  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  All my friends were waiting outside the back door, and they were jumping up and down, happy for me to be accepted.  The translator said, “You are lucky!  I thought they rejected you a long time ago.  I don’t know why they accepted you.” 

                  I was so nervous.  Usually when they accept you they ship you out right away.  But it took a long time – five or six months – for me.  I thought something was wrong, and that they changed their mind.  I lived in vulnerable time.  One day they came and told me “You are going to Texas!”  I said, “I don’t know where Texas is.”  They said, “Texas is where they ride horses.”  So I thought there were only cowboys here.

                  I think it took five or six months because I was a minor, and needed a sponsor.  I think nobody wanted to accept be because I was young.  Perhaps they finally found a sponsor.  It was a cousin, but I never knew them.  They took me here. 

                  After they accepted me the American government bought me a ticket.  But I had to sign a note saying when I started working I had to pay them back.  They flew me to Texas and I started working and got paid monthly to pay back the ticket.  I sent money home to my family and after awhile I was able to get my parents to Houston.

                  My first job was working for a company making equipment for football players.  I worked almost five years for them.  Then my family was here for about a year or two before I went into the seminary. 

I think your whole life has been a divine intervention.  Your whole life has been one thing after another.  From the promise your Mom made to God that you will be a priest, to your brother not making it and by chance you got to go.  You were 18, just graduated high school when you left Vietnam.  I don’t believe in coincidences.  Just by chance you left Vietnam on the anniversary of your brother’s death and the feast of the Vietnamese martyrs- how amazing is that.  What happened on the Feast of Mary.

                  That is when my parents arrived here in Houston. 

You seem like a very pious man.  When you look back on your life you can actually see God’s Hand at work in your life.  You see miracles.  How does that make you feel?

                  I feel I am very special.  He has a plan for each of us.  But we must realize that God approaches the needs of people in different ways.  I enjoy it.  Thank God for the gift.  The key is a trust in God and prayer.  God has the bigger picture.  When I was in the Camp I could believe my life would end up somewhere.  I didn’t have much hope.  But friends lived there for 10 years.  I don’t understand how I got to America and out of the camp when my friends there were there before I arrived and remained long after I left.

                  God has his own plan for each and every one of us, and it’s different. 

Your life has been an incredible gift.  So, do you use what has happened to your life?  You lived this miraculous moment.  You must be an incredible source of inspiration to others. 

                  I did one time share my story in a homily, but sort of shy away from it.  Sometimes during counseling it makes sense to share the story.

The scriptures tell us that to whom much is given, much is expected.  People have sacrificed for you to be here.  The woman sold her home to pay for that.  Your brother, your parents, and so on.  What do you think God has in store for you?

                  I think that if God has a plan, you can’t escape it.  I wanted to be a priest when I was little.  When a teenager I said I didn’t want to be a priest.  When I left Vietnam I said I wanted to be a priest.  When I came here I said I didn’t want to be a priest.  I changed my mind all the time.  There were all sorts of excuses for not being a priest.  God made all things possible for me so I could be a priest.

                  The more I was generous to the Lord, the more He was generous to me.  That you can never compare how much more generous God can be.  I loved my family, but now I have a whole church as my family.  And I never had many friends in my life till I entered the seminary.  I love to travel, and I can now go anywhere in the world as a priest.

                  God pays me a hundred fold.  I can never outdo God’s generosity.

What was your spirituality like growing up?  How did you learn about your faith?

               

                  I learned from my grandparents and parents who prayed every evening.  I loved to read the scriptures.  A priest from my hometown inspired me to learn the scriptures.  He is now here in Houston, too.  Every day at 5:30 in the morning I had to pass the cemetery to go to church.  I got so scared as a little boy.  I ran past that cemetery every morning.  That was the strength to learn the scriptures.  This is why I want to teach children here.

                  It was not very easy for us to practice our religion or study it when I was growing up.  It wasn’t illegal, but the Communists made it very difficult for us.

Last question.  Let’s say I’m talking about you.  What is it that you want to make sure we portray about you, your relationship with God?

                  I think that it is just be happy and know that God cares for you, even some time when we don’t realize it.  Never loose hope and trust in God.

                 

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[1]       North Vietnam Takes Control (The Third Indochina War)

        30 APR 75       Saigon surrenders.

        APR – AUG 75 Per UC Berkeley demographer, Jacqueline Desbarats’ article “Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation,” research show an extremely strong probability that at least 65,000 Vietnamese perished as victims of political executions in the eight years after Saigon fell.  Desbarats and associate Karl Jackson only counted executions eye witnessed by refugees in the USA and France to project the rate of killings for the population remaining in Vietnam, and so discarded about two-thirds of the political death reports received, so their figures are likely very conservative.  Their death count did not include victims of starvation, disease, exhaustion, suicide, or “accident” (injuries sustained in clearing minefields, for example).  Nor did they count Vietnamese who inexplicably “disappeared.” 

        2 JUN 75         Official Communist Party newspaper “Saigon Gai Phong” declares that the Southerners must pay their “blood debt” to the revolution.

        1975 – 1985    Within Vietnam, postwar economic and social problems were severe, and reconstruction proceeded slowly.  Efforts to collectivize agriculture and nationalize business aroused hostility in the south.  Disappointing harvests and the absorption of resources by the military further retarded Vietnam’s recovery.

        1975 – 1985    A massive exodus from Vietnam began with the change in government.  Eventually 2 million people tried to escape.  Many braved typhoon-lashed seas only to languish for years in detention camps throughout Southeast Asia.  Hong Kong took in many Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s and 1980s.  By the mid-1980s, Asia and the rest of the world was suffering from what was dubbed “compassion fatigue” and Hong Kong started trying to force Vietnamese to repatriate, efforts that produced regular riots in the camps.

        1776                South Vietnam and North Vietnam are united in a new Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.

        9 SEP 76          Chinese leader Mao Zedong dies

        1976                In China, the Deng-era’s Four Modernizations Program stressed a need for improvement in agriculture, industry, science and defense.  Part of this was introducing the responsibility system for family farm plots, where the government received some of what the family produced, but the family was allowed to keep the remainder.

        20 SEP 77        Viet Nam admitted to the United Nations

        1978                Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van dong declared that a million people who had “collaborated with the enemy” (about 7% of the South Vietnamese population) had been returned to civilian life from reeducation camps and jails.

        1975 – 1978    Border tension with the Communist government in Cambodia escalated rapidly after the fall of Saigon, and tension remained high throughout the Pol Pot regime’s forced relocation and mass murders of the population.

        21 DEC 78       Vietnam Invades Cambodia.  The Vietnamese PAVN forces invade Cambodia and install a pro-Vietnamese government.  They will remain for 12 years, with the last Vietnamese troops leaving Cambodia in 1990.

        17 FEB 79        China Invades Vietnam.  China launches an invasion of Viet Nam.  Chinese suffer approximately 50,000 casualties.

        5 MAR 79        Chinese forces withdraw from Viet Nam under a United Nations-brokered agreement.  With the Chinese withdrawal from Viet Nam, General Vo Nguyen Giap has defeated the Japanese, the French, the Americans, the Cambodians, and the Chinese.  Now somewhat out of favor with the government, he has recently been in charge of family planning.  Birth control is treated as another form of warfare.

        Mid-1980s        Socialist Republic of Viet Nam Stumbles Along.  Viet Nam maintains about 140,000 Vietnamese troops in Cambodia and another 50,000 troops in Laos.  As in other Communist countries, corruption hinders reforms.

        DEC 86            The World Changes.  “Doi Moi, “New Openness,” declared.  Free market economy begins.  Greater personal freedom.

        1991                The Cold War ends with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

        http://www.ichiban1.org/html/history/1975_present_postwar/the_aftermath_1975_1978.htm, 2 July 2009

[2]       The 117 Vietnamese Martyrs. 

                The Vietnamese Martyrs, also known as the Martyrs of Tonkin, Martyrs of Annam, Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions, or Martyrs of Indochina, are saints on the Roman Catholic calendar of saints canonized by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II on 19 June 1988.  Their memorial is 24 November (although several of these saints have another memorial, as they were beatified and on the calendar prior to the canonization of the group).

                The earliest martyrs mentioned in written sources are the Spanish Dominicans Francisco Gil de Federich and Matthew Alonzo Lenziana, who arrived in the country about 1580. 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, and Vincent Liêm, the first Indo-Chinese Dominican to be martyred, who had ministered to his countrymen for fourteen years before being beheaded. The first Vietnamese diocesan priests, John Dat and Emmanuel Triêu, also suffered martyrdom in 1798.

                It is not known precisely how many Catholics died for their faith between 1516 (when the first Portuguese missionaries arrived in what is now Vietnam) and the twentieth century; the Vatican estimates that between 130,000 and 300,000 were killed. John Paul II decided to canonize those whose names are known and unknown, giving them a single feast day.

                The Vietnamese Martyrs fall into several groupings, those of the Portuguese missionary era (16th century), those of the Dominican and Jesuit missionary era of the (17th century), those killed in the politically inspired persecutions of the 19th century, and those martyred during the Communist purges of the 20th 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, 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 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 words "ta dao" (左道, lit. "Perverse religion") and families and villages which subscribed to Christianity were obliterated.

                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. In 1865 Vénard's body was transferred to his Congregation's church in Paris, but his head remains in Vietnam.

                There are several Catholic parishes in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere dedicated to the Martyrs of Vietnam (Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Parishes), one of which located just outside of Washington, DC. Others can be found in Arlington, TX, Austin, Texas, Denver, San Antonio, Texas and Richmond, Virginia. There are also churches named after individual saints, such as St. Philippe Minh Church in Saint Boniface, Manitoba.

         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_Martyrs, 3 July 2009.