Pope Defies Vietnam, Canonizes Martyrs

Pope John Paul II, acting over bitter opposition from Vietnam’s Communist government, Sunday proclaimed as saints 117 martyrs of the Vietnamese Roman Catholic Church in the largest group canonization in church history.

More than 20,000 pilgrims, including 8,000 Vietnamese now living in other parts of Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the outdoor Mass, which proceeded uninterrupted for more than three hours through thunder and a brief rain shower.

The new saints included 96 Vietnamese priests and laity, 11 Dominican missionaries from Spain and 10 French priests belonging to the Foreign Missions of Paris, who were tortured and executed between 1745 and 1862 for refusing to renounce their faith.

They were decapitated, drawn and quartered or burned alive or died in cages too small for them to either sit or stand.

Plans for the canonization heightened church-state tensions, and the Hanoi government denounced many of the martyrs as imperialists who paved the way for France’s conquest of Vietnam in 1884.

‘Obstacle’ to Better Ties

Nguyen Quang Huy, Hanoi’s official in charge of religious affairs, warned in March that the canonization “creates an obstacle to the Vietnamese desire to have friendly relations with the Vatican.”

In reply, the Roman Catholic pontiff appealed for an end to modern day religious repression in Vietnam. Vietnamese Catholics, he said, are loyal to their country as well as to their church.

“They feel themselves authentically Vietnamese, faithful to their land. They also want to continue to be true disciples of Christ,” the Pope said in his sermon.

But in Vietnam, Radio Hanoi reported that the government requested Catholics not to celebrate the canonization because it fell on the same day that the South Vietnamese government, defeated by the north in 1975, used to celebrate Armed Forces Day.

“We will celebrate and solemnly hold canonization Masses on another Sunday that is approved by the administration,” the radio quoted Bishop Paul Huynh Dong Cac of Qui Nhon as saying in a pastoral letter.

Mass Broadcast Live

Vatican Radio broadcast the Mass live to Vietnam, and Radio Veritas, operated by the Asian Episcopal Conference, relayed it later from Manila.

The Vietnam martyrs were the largest single group ever canonized together, Vatican officials said. The largest previous canonization was in Seoul in 1984 when the Pope proclaimed 103 Korean martyrs as saints.

The Pope said he felt “at this moment deeply and particularly close” to all of Vietnam’s Catholics, estimated by the Vatican at 6 million, who make up 10% of the population.

“In addition to the thousands of faithful who, in centuries past, walked on the path of Christ, there are still today those who work, sometimes in anguish and abnegation, with the sole ambition of being able to persevere in the vineyards of the Lord,” he said.

John Paul, robed in red and gold, praised the “vitality and grandeur of the Vietnamese church, its vigor, its patience, its capacity to face difficulties of all kinds and to proclaim Christ.”