In June 19, 1988, St. John Paul II canonized a group of 117 martyrs who died for the Roman Catholic faith in Vietnam between 1820 and 1862.
The Vietnamese Martyrs were made up of 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spaniards and 10 French. Eight of the group were bishops, 50 were priests and 59 were lay Catholics. Some of the priests were Dominicans, while others were diocesan priests who belonged to the Foreign Mission Society of Paris. One was a mother of six, and one was a 9-year-old child. Of the 117 martyrs, 76 were beheaded, 21 were suffocated, six were burnt alive, five were mutilated and nine died in prison as a result of torture.
St. Andrew Dung-Lac, who represents this group of heroes, was a Vietnamese diocesan priest. Born Tran An Dung in Bac-Ninh, North Vietnam, about the year 1795, he came from a poor, non-Christian family. When he was 12 the family moved to Hanoi so his parents could find work. There he met a catechist and got food and shelter from him. He also received education in the Christian faith for three years, and was baptized in Vinh-Tri. He took the name Andrew (Anrê) at his baptism.
After learning Chinese and Latin, he became a catechist, working in the missions with the priests of the Foreign Mission Society of Paris. He was chosen to study theology, and on March 15, 1823, he was ordained a priest. As parish priest in Ke-Dâm, he was tireless in his preaching. He often fasted and lived a simple and moral life, he was a good example for the people, and he baptized many people.
He was imprisoned and repeatedly tortured during the reign of Minh-Mang, emperor of Vietnam from 1820 to 1840, who was infamous for his persecutions of the Christians and often compared to Nero.
The tortures these individuals underwent are considered by the Church to be among the worst in the history of Christian martyrdom. Emperor Minh-Mang expelled all foreign missionaries and ordered Vietnamese Christians to publicly renounce their faith by trampling on a crucifix. Christian families and entire villages suffered widespread extortion or were destroyed, and teaching Christianity was forbidden. Torturers hacked off limbs joint by joint, burned people alive in bamboo cages, tore flesh with red hot tongs, and drugged people into recanting the faith. Christians left alive were branded on the face with the words "ta dao" ("false religion").
To avoid capture by the emperor's authorities, Andrew Dung changed his surname to Lac and moved to another prefecture to continue his work. But on Nov. 10, 1839, he was arrested once again, this time along with St. Peter Thi (whom he was visiting so that he might go to confession). They were freed in exchange for bribe money, but soon were arrested again and taken to Hanoi where they were tortured.
The two priests were beheaded on Dec. 21, 1839, in Hanoi.
The 117 martyrs were beatified in four groups: the first of them on May 27, 1900, by Pope Leo XIII; the second (all Dominicans) on May 20, 1906, and a third on May 2, 1909, both by St. Pius X; and the last (including two Spanish bishops) on April 29, 1951, by Pope Pius XII.
This feast day, and the witnesses of all the Vietnamese martyrs (estimated by the Church to be between 130,000 and 300,000), give testament to the sufferings inflicted on the Vietnamese Church, which are among the most terrible in the long history of Christian martyrdom.
— Sources: Catholic News Agency, www.catholicculture.org
In honor of the Nov. 27 Marian feast, explore the history of devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in the Gate City
St. Benedict Catholic Church in Greensboro features a niche with a statue of Our Lady. The reverse side of the Miraculous Medal adorns the niche. Parishioners of St. Benedict have been praying the Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal for decades.A powerful and popular sacramental, the Miraculous Medal has roots in Greensboro that have grown and blossomed for well over a century, working miracles in souls and spreading the Catholic faith in the city.
For as long as anyone can remember, parishioners at St. Benedict Church in Greensboro have prayed the Perpetual Novena in Honor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. However, devotion to Our Lady under this title likely began at the church before the novena was written in Philadelphia in 1930.
It may have started as early as 1899 when construction was complete for St. Benedict Church, the permanent home of the city’s first and only Catholic parish at the time. Photos show that the medal appeared above a statue of Mary in the original sanctuary and may have ties to the church’s benefactress, St. Katharine Drexel, also from Philadelphia. The popularity of the medal grew in 1906 when the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul arrived in Greensboro from Emmitsburg, Md., to open St. Leo’s Hospital and serve at St. Benedict.
The religious order, which was dedicated to the Blessed Mother from its founding, has strong ties to the Marian apparition depicted in the medal. Our Lady appeared three times in 1830 at the order’s Paris motherhouse to Sister Catherine Labouré, a Daughter of Charity and future saint whose feast day is Nov. 28.
An Unexpected Visitor
In an apparition on Nov. 27, 1830, the Blessed Mother asked Sister Catherine to have a medal struck in the way she appeared during the vision. First the front of the medal was shown: Mary standing on a globe, with the head of a serpent beneath her feet. Rays representing graces beam from jeweled rings on her fingers. Encircling the oval shape around Our Lady is the signature, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” On the reverse, 12 stars surrounded a large “M,” surmounted by a cross. Below the “M,” were two hearts: one circled with thorns, representing Jesus, the other pierced by a sword, symbolizing Mary.
During this dazzling vision, St. Catherine heard a voice tell her: ‘Have a medal struck after this model. All those who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for those who wear it with confidence.’”
The medal was struck and spread far and wide in a short amount of time as its wearers reported miracle after miracle, such as dramatic healings and conversions. Devotion to Our Lady under this title has worked subtler miracles too.
“It’s been a great source of comfort, especially after the loss of my husband George in July and my daughter just three years ago,” said Roberta Van Pelt after the Nov. 19, 2023, recitation of the Miraculous Medal Novena at St. Benedict.
Van Pelt has prayed the novena since 2015 and now leads the novena recitation before the Sunday Vigil Mass each week.
“When my husband was in hospice, I prayed that I would be with him when he died,” she said. “I was there when he closed his eyes.”
Font of Religious Vocations
Devotion to Mary under this title is known to foster religious vocations and has a famous example in Alphonse Ratisbonne, an Austrian Jew, who was intensely anti-Catholic. Ater reluctantly agreeing to wear the medal and pray The Memorare, he experienced an apparition of Mary as she appears on the medal and was eventually ordained a Catholic priest.
The people of St. Benedict parish have sought the intercession of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal for decades. Some of them must have been praying for vocations because there have been an impressive number of them from the small parish.
Monsignor Joseph Showfety, the first chancellor of the Diocese of Charlotte, was one of three examples of priestly vocations from the early days. He was ordained in 1955. Another was Father Thomas Berry, who was ordained in 1942 and had two sisters with religious vocations. In fact, eight young women at the parish went on to become religious sisters. More religious vocations sprang up, but somewhere along the way the parish lost count. There are records, however, of a boom during the 1985-1993 pastorate of Father Kimbrough. Nine men from St. Benedict went into the seminary, and three women became religious sisters.
Spreading the devotion in Greensboro
A limestone carving of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and related figures such as St. Catherine Labouré adorns the main entrance of Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro. Also on the carving are the words that appear on the medal: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."
Devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal spread in 1928 to St. Mary’s, a mission of St. Benedict serving Black Catholics in Greensboro. The Emmitsburg motherhouse sent three Daughters of Charity to Greensboro to start a teaching apostolate at the mission’s Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal School with the church also bearing this title from 1948 to 1972. Around this time, devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal was skyrocketing in the United States, thanks to the work of Father Joseph Skelly, CM, who commissioned a shrine to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia. On Dec. 8, 1930, Father Skelly started the perpetual novena at the shrine, now prayed at St. Benedict and many other churches throughout the world.
In 1952, something grand happened to grow the Catholic faith and Marian devotion in Greensboro: the dedication of Our Lady of Grace Church. A memorial to St. Benedict parishioner Ethel Clay Price, the church’s patroness is the same as the one on the medal. She is seen in an array of colors in the stained-glass window behind the altar. A limestone carving of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal graces the main entrance to the church along with key figures such as St. Catherine in her religious habit and the words the Blessed Virgin spoke to her. The devotion continues to be passed down to new generations. Leading up to the feast in 2023, children in all grades of Our Lady of Grace School learned more about the apparitions and created their own Miraculous Medals.
Today, the perpetual novena at St. Benedict is prayed before a statue of Our Lady within a niche once again adorned with the Miraculous Medal after the church's 2017 restoration. Parishioners come each week with their petitions seeking the Blessed Mother’s aid as well as her love and comfort. In the apparition, Our Lady told St. Catherine that the rings on her fingers that weren’t emitting rays of light represented unasked for graces, gentling reminding her children of what her Divine Son told us: “Ask, and it will be given you.”
— Annie Ferguson. This article includes research the author conducted for her book, “Pioneering Spirit: The History of St. Benedict Catholic Church From Inception to Restoration.”