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Celebration of the Vietnamese martyrs, 'their seed bears fruit in today's society'
November 17th, 2010 |
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HANOI, Vietnam - Hundreds of thousands of people, from all over Vietnam, celebrated the Feast day of the Vietnamese Martyrs on Sunday, 14 November, in the belief that God has given us the seeds of the martyrs so they can bear fruit in today’s society. 'We truly admire our martyrs', said the former archbishop of Hanoi, Mgr. Ngo Quang Kiet. 'They sacrificed material benefits, positions of prestige and glory in the company of kings, they wanted to die for the faith.' The anniversary this year falls during the Jubilee Year of the Vietnamese Church, which commemorates the 350 years since the creation of two dioceses in Church of the North and the South and 50 years since the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in the country.
The celebration of the feast day demonstrates the strong faith of the 117 Vietnamese martyrs - 8 bishops, 50 priests and a seminarian and 42 faithful – who along with a further 130 thousand people were put to death by the kings between 1638 and 1886. On June 19, 1988, John Paul II decided to canonize and celebrate in one annual festival all the those whose names are known and unknown.
As the auxiliary bishop of Ho Chi Minh City, Msgr. Peter Nguyen Van Kham, said they were 'good citizens at the time of kings. In their local communities, working with all their enthusiasm and well behaved, they lived their being citizens in harmony and having faith in God, they loved their country and contributed to the development of the population'.
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