Saint of the Day – St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions

November 24 is the feast day of the Vietnamese martyrs, St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions. He was born Ahn Tranh around 1795 in northern Vietnam. At the age of twelve, his parents moved to the city of Hue. St. Andrew Dung-Lac was instructed by a lay catechist, who also gave him the basic education that was denied to poor children like the young Ahn Tranh. His baptismal name was Andrew and he became a catechist. Later, in 1823, he was ordained a priest. After imprisonment and repeated torture, he was beheaded on December 21, 1839 for the crime of being a parish priest. St. Andrew’s 116 companions include those martyred between 1820 and 1862. They include bishops, priests, laity and 2 dozen Spanish and French missionaries. Many of these martyrs had been declared blessed. However, Pope John Paul II declared all 117 as saints in 1998.

The policy of the kingdoms that would later become Vietnam was to exclude foreigners and their influence. Catholicism came to the region by way of the Spanish and the French. Jesuits translated the Bible into Vietnamese. Being a Christian was seen as a dangerous link to the outside, tied to powerful empires seeking to advance their interest in southeast Asia. Despite the persecution and absence of clergy, the faith spread and endured. Catholics became a substantial minority, including around 5% of the population. French rule in late 19th century Viet Nam brought a degree of security and status to Catholics. The Communist takeover of the northern part of the country by Ho Chi Minh in 1954 caused an exodus of Catholics to the south, where they received preferential treatment by the ruling elite, typified by the Catholic Diem family.

The corruption and oppression of the Diem regime led to protests by Buddhists and the eventual overthrow of the government. Catholics were caught up on both sides of this struggle. The fall of South Vietnam to the Communists in 1975 led to 30 years of brutal repression. The canonization of St. Andrew Dung-Lac and the other Vietnamese martyrs by Pope John Paul II in 1998 marked the beginning of overtures by the Vatican to begin a dialog. By 2003, substantial progress had been made. In January 2007 the Vietnamese Prime Minister visited the Vatican and began the process of establishing diplomatic relations and better, if not yet ideal, conditions for the Church in Viet Nam.

This opening out to the world by Viet Nam coincides with the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States and the emergence of Viet Nam in the age of globalism. Vietnamese Catholics are now part of a wider controversy about the independence of Christian churches in Asia. There are also important theological issues regarding the unique Asian experience of the faith and its relationship to much larger Asian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.

How does one’s membership in a worldwide church effect one’s own sense of identity and culture? To the extent that we as Christians experience the faith in our own culture are we limiting it? What is the role and importance of non-Christian faith traditions in our world? St. Andrew Dung-Lac and the Vietnamese martyrs lived the tension of these questions and witnessed to them with their lives. These questions now belong to us.

Saint of the Day – St. Josaphat Kuncevyc: East Meets West?

November 12 is the feast day of St. Josaphat of Polotsk. St. Josaphat was born John Kuncevyc (Kunsevich) in 1580 or 1584 in Lithuania. He was a successful merchant and an advantageous marriage seemed imminent, when young John Kuncevyc decided to follow a religious vocation. This might have been remarkable enough in itself except that he decided to become a priest in a formerly Eastern Orthodox church that had re-united with Rome in 1596. The Union of Brest led to the entry of millions of Ukrainians and Belorussians in what was then Poland-Lithuania into union with Rome, but preserved many of their customs and forms of worship in the Byzantine Rite. The people were actually called Ruthenians, which is a Latinism for Russian. This act of union actually caused a serious split among the Ruthenians, since the decision was made by their key bishops at a time when the area was under the control of Catholic Poland. Many people and priests were actually opposed to giving up their Orthodox heritage.

St. Josaphat – the name he was given at his religious profession as a monk – came of age and was killed in the maelstrom of Cossack, Polish, and Austrian struggles for dominance in eastern Europe. The Catholic view, as presented by the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907, is that the Orthodox Church had become so corrupt that key bishops felt that the only hope of reform was to leave their affiliation with the Patriarch of Constantinople and place themselves under the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope. The Ukrainian Orthodox view is that religious affiliation was part of nationhood and Poland sought more effective control of Ukraine and Belorussia by “Latinizing” them.

It is interesting to note that although, the Uniate bishops negotiated an agreement with Rome which required little change from their traditional form of worship and organization, western influence became strong, even among the Orthodox, because of the dominance of western education among the ruling elite and the higher clergy. St. Josaphat became a bishop and later archbishop of Polotsk in the eye of a political and cultural hurricane. He was a man of great holiness and learning and he was also a Catholic partisan. Unfortunately, because he did not adopt the Latin Rite, Polish bishops distrusted him. Those members of the Ruthenian public and clergy who resisted the union did not look favorably upon him.

Mattters were made more difficult by the appointment of rival Orthodox bishops. The support of the Polish King for the Uniate bishops, including St. Josaphat, and the removal of the Orthodox bishops by the Polish Crown, only increased the tension.

St. Josaphat made substantial gains in catechizing and reforming the clergy. He also led by his own example. However, his personal austerity became an obstacle. It was a testament to his courage and his commitment to communication that he returned to Vitebsk in October 1623 to address the unrest. St. Josaphat and his staff were attacked by a mob outside his residence and he was killed. The actual heroes of the day were the Jewish community, who moved in to prevent more deaths and break up the fighting. The Catholic side points out that this violence actually helped swing more support for the Uniates. While the Orthodox side regrets the killings, they point out the martyrdom of Athanasius Filipovich, who was tortured and killed by Catholic partisans in 1648.

Given all of this tragedy, what is the best way to achieve Christian unity? How can millions of people overcome centuries of political and cultural conflict and theological differences? Four hundred years after the Union of Brest and over a decade after the fall of the Soviet Empire, Catholic and Orthodox in eastern Europe are still far apart. Perhaps before the next century comes to an end, we will find a way to reach beyond the division, to communicate with respect, love, and repentance, and to build a new united future in which neither Christian tradition is denied or diminished.

Saint Saves Europe for Christianity – St. John Capistrano

The feast day of St. John Capistrano (1385-1456) is October 23. He was born in Perugia and practiced law in the courts of Naples. He was later appointed governor of Perugia. St. John Capistrano’s life changed unexpectedly when he was captured, as Governor, in a dispute with a neighboring town. When he was released, instead of resuming his former life, he joined the Franciscans in 1416.

Certainly, St. John Capistrano would have been remembered for his preaching in many countries and setting up convents as part of the Franciscan renewal. His travels took him through Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Russia. At the age of 68, his long life, at a time when people were lucky to make it into their 50’s, seemed like it might be summarized by his accomplishments as a jurist, governor, and evangelist.

However, Providence, in the form of Pope Callistus III, would call on St. John Capistrano to play a major role in shaping European and Christian history. The Pope called on him to preach and lead a crusade against the Turks, who were laying seige to Belgrade. Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and the Sultan planned to be on his way to Vienna after Belgrade.

Prior wars and skirmishes with the Turks and other groups in the Balkans had depleted the ranks of the nobility who made up the armies. Peasants were conscripted to make up the shortfall. The Hungarians, under Janos Hunyadi, had waged several successful campaigns against the Turks, but they were surprised by the rapid arrival of the Sultan’s forces at Belgrade. It is worth taking the time to read the whole story at TheHistoryNet.

We have seen this scene in movies and on TV many times. A rag tag army is up against a much larger, better, equipped and trained imperial force. Before reinforcements and St. John Capistrano’s Hungarian crusaders arrived, the city garrison was down to 5,000 men. The Turks probably had about 100,000 troops and blockaded the city’s harbor on the Danube. St. John Capistrano probably led a group of about 30,000 peasants, to bring Hungarian forces up to about 60,000 or 70,000.

Now, we all remember the fictional Hollywood scene in which a courageous leader launches a futile sally that leads to a rout of the imperial troops. Well it actually happened. The walls had been breached. The elite Janissary troops had entered the city. Hunyadi had the defenders set the moat on fire and slaughtered the invaders inside the walls. The next day, as the Turks were burying their dead, a small group of peasants – against orders – came out through the walls and started to fight. St. John Capistrano, while trying to get them to retreat inside the walls, found himself surrounded by 2,000 men and advancing on the Turks. He lead the advance with the words, “The Lord who made the beginning will take care of the finish.”

In a sequence of events that seemed highly improbable, other units joined in a cascade that led to a complete rout of the Turks. The Hungarian forces lost about 10,000 men. The Turks lost 50,000 in the battle and another 25,000 were slain by Serbs during the retreat. The Sultan lost most of his officers and almost all of his equipment.

Hunyadi and St. John Capistrano died shortly thereafter. With them died hopes that Christian forces could retake Constantinople. Today 550 years later, the Ottoman empire is gone and the former Christian Byzantium, now modern, secular, Moslem, and known as Turkey, is trying peacefully to join the European Union.

Certainly, St. John Capistrano never sought his place in history. His Franciscan vocation was a renunciation of the life of a jurist and governor. It is also probable that he saw his crusade as highly unlikely to succeed. Courage, holiness, learning, and leadership make a combination that is exceptionally rare. It is the stuff of legends, Hollywood sagas, and saints.

  Mission Gardens, San Juan Capistrano, California

Saints of the Day – St. Isaac Jogues & Companions

St. Rene Goupil (1642), Jesuit brother: St. Isaac Jogues (1646), Jesuit priest: and St. John Lalande (1646), lay missioner: St. Jean de Brébreuf (1649), Jesuit priest: and four others.

Upstate New York in late September, with its rolling plains of story book farms, was a long way from my hometown of Ventura in southern California, where I first read about the North American Martyrs. It did not disappoint. In fact, the beauty of the place still showed some of its original state, when it could only be traversed by canoe. As I walked in the ravine, the peace was at great odds with the torture and murders that occurred there. Then again it was also the birthplace of Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha.

The French had been allied with the Hurons. The Jesuit missionaries and some of their Huron converts had been captured by the Huron’s enemies, the Mohawk Iroquois. Their suffering and eventual death revealed an amazing courage, but what kind of courage did it take to leave France for such a dangerous mission?

St. Isaac Jogues and his companions did not come to seek their fortune in the New World. They heard a call and came. We are all different because they answered that call.