{
  "bookName": "HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS",
  "authorName": "BERNARD DE VAULX",
  "publisherName": "HAWTHORN BOOKS PUBLISHERS",
  "publicationYear": 2026,
  "chapterNumber": 11,
  "chapterName": "The Indochina Missions",
  "pageFrom": 148,
  "pageTo": 153,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 148,
      "ocrText": "CHAPTER XI\nTHE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\nUnder the reign of Gia-Long (Mgr Pigneau de Béhaine's\nprotégé), the flourishing Christianity of Annam had only one\ndifficulty, the shortage of missionaries. Everything changed\nwhen Minh-Mang came to the throne in 1820. His hatred of\nCatholicism was kept in check at first by the viceroy of Lower\nIndo-China, who had been one of Gia-Long's officers. After\nthis man's death, it knew no bounds. The edict of 1825 for-\nbade missionaries to enter the country and condemned the\n\"perverted religion of the Europeans\". The edict of 1833\ncalled on all Christians from the mandarins down to those\nin the most humble circumstances to abandon it in all sincerity.\nThose who trampled the cross underfoot would be pardoned\nbut once only. The edict ordered also that the churches and\nthe priests' houses should be destroyed. In 1836, a fresh edict\nbrought in the death penalty for every European priest \"cap-\ntured on a European ship in the act of landing in the kingdom;\nevery priest seized in the interior of the country; those who\nhid them in their houses; and all public officials in whose\nterritories one of these priests was seen, on the grounds that\nthey would be guilty of failing to make the necessary searches\nin order to take him into custody\". The Christian communities\nwere forced to go underground and the missionaries into\nhiding. There were many victims of this persecution between\n1833 and 1840. Fr Gagelin, who had given himself up in order\nnot to compromise the faithful among whom he was hidden,\nwas put to death by strangling. Fr Odorico and Mgr Delgado\ndied in prison. Fr Marchand suffered the frightful torture of"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 149,
      "ocrText": "THE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\n149\nthe hundred wounds. Two vicars apostolic, Hernandez and\nDumoulin-Borie and Frs Cornay and Fernandez were be-\nheaded and Fr Jaccard strangled.\nA few years of respite followed the accession of Thieu-Tri,\nMinh-Mang's son (1841). Not that he revoked the edicts, he\nmerely applied them less rigorously. Exile or imprisonment took\nthe place of the death penalty. One great missionary belonging\nto the Paris Foreign Missions, Mgr Retord, without further\nado acted as though liberty had already been restored. He in-\nvited his clergy to celebrate public worship once more in the\nopen. He himself, in company with several of his subordinates,\nundertook pastoral journeys. He officiated in makeshift\nchurches, administered the sacraments in them and then sum-\nmoned his congregation to join in processions at which public\nprayers were recited. Nothing hindered this movement, not\neven obstructions in the villages or the imprisonment of some\nof his priests on the instigation of zealous governors. And the\nbishop wrote: \"our little boat, which was letting in water on\nall sides and seemed doomed to shipwreck, is now repaired.\"\nAfter the death of Thieu-Tri (1847) his successor, Tu-Duc,\npromulgated three edicts whose aim was the extermination of\nthe European and Vietnamese priests.\nEvery village suspected of giving hiding to any of them\nwas surrounded and every house in it searched. So as not to\ncompromise the faithful, the missionaries sought refuge in the\nmountains and the forests. In his successive hiding-places,\nMgr Retord-the bishop of the maquis, as one of his bio-\ngraphers calls him-received news of the worst kind: churches\ndemolished or burned, Christians tortured, condemned to exile,\nhard labour, beheading and, alas, sometimes when under\ntorture, denouncing priests. Nothing could break his spirit.\nIn his last hiding-place, a hut made of branches and leaves, he\nwas drawing up a programme of restoration when he died on\nOctober 22nd, 1858.\nAfter a Spanish bishop, Mgr Diaz, had been beheaded\n(July 20th, 1857), Spain and France organized an expedition"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 150,
      "ocrText": "150\nTHE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\ncommanded by Admiral Rigoult de Genouilly. Turan was\ntaken. The expeditionary force occupied Saigon (1859), then,\nin the absence of sufficient intelligence, dug itself in there.\nThe outburst of violence which followed caused the year 1861\nto be given the name Phan-Tap (dispersion). All the Christians\nwere scattered among the pagan villages, while their own were\nsacked. The land they owned was shared out among the\nneighbouring pagan villages and their families broken up. The\nmost barbarous clause in the edicts placed Christians on a par\nwith mere cattle, and ordered that the two characters Ta Dao\n(perverted religion) should be cut into their left cheek, and\ninto their right the name of the canton or the prefecture where\nthey were to live. Amongst the martyrs of this period was one\nof outstanding character, a young priest of the Paris Foreign\nMissions, Théophane Vénard, who kept up his spirits even\nbefore his executioner. His exemplary submission to his fate,\nclearly expressed in his letters written in prison and later pub-\nlished, gave birth to large numbers of missionary vocations\nespecially in the United States. The expeditionary force set out\nonce more and in 1862 France and Tu-Duc signed the treaty\nof Saigon which ceded to France three provinces of Cochin-\nChina and guaranteed religious freedom. In 1867, the whole of\nCochin-China became a French possession.\nWhen peace was restored, the nursing Sisters of the order of\nSaint Paul de Chartres arrived and then the Brothers of the\nChristian Schools. The nuns of the Lisieux Carmel had\nfounded a convent in Saigon as early as 1861. It was the first\nCarmel in the Far East.\nOn the other hand, throughout the whole of Annam, the\nChristians continued to be ill-treated by the lettered classes\nwith the support of Tu-Duc. Then again, bands of Chinese\npirates were constantly playing havoc with Tonkin; France\nled two new expeditions there which finally brought about\nthe establishment of her protectorate (the treaty of Hué, 1883).\nWhat, we may ask, was the mental reaction at the time to\nthis series of interventions in China and Indo-China? An article"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 151,
      "ocrText": "THE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\n151\nin L'Ami du clergé et du roi (February 3rd, 1842) informs us.\nThe Opium War had just begun and two missionaries had\nbeen arrested in Tonkin when the review wrote:\nFrance has a few ships stationed in the China seas; they are\ninsufficient to engage in hostilities against an organized power,\nbut they would be adequate to make our name known among\nthe barbarians and to save the lives of those Frenchmen who\nhave marched forward with the advance guard of civilization.\nAnd when Asia hears the sound of British cannon would it not\nsurely be worth while for France to let the 400,000 Christians\nof these new missions know that they have found a protector?\nShould the missionaries receive less consideration than the\nBritish business men who were selling the drug? It would have\nbeen a sorry affair to allow opium to go in and the Gospel\nto be rejected. This was the way Catholic circles reasoned.\nAnd the others, even though hostile to Catholicism, considered\nthat the State had an inalienable right to avenge its nationals\nwhen they were ill-treated. But once the Western States had\nentered on this path, they were to find themselves caught up in\na web of circumstance from which there could be no escape.\nMeanwhile what of the missions? During the periods of\nwarfare, the Christians, since they were accused of being in\nsympathy with the invaders, could not fail to be treated even\nworse than before. In Annam, the most deadly persecutions\ntook place at the same time as the 1883 expedition. In the half\ncentury of persecution dating from Minh-Mang down to the\ntreaty of Hué, 115 Annamite priests suffered martyrdom, and\n100,000 Christians died for their faith. St Pius X and Pius XII\nbeatified more than a hundred of them. Such was the quality\nof these Vietnam Christian communities that at the height of\nthe final persecution they continued to grow. In the year 1885,\nthe vicariates depending on the Paris Foreign Missions regis-\ntered 19,705 baptisms.\nWhen peace was restored it lasted for fifty years. This was\nthe pax gallica, as Fr Brou had written, and it made possible\nthe expansion of the work begun by sacrifice. The Sulpicians"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 152,
      "ocrText": "152\nTHE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\ntook charge of the international seminary at Hanoi; the\nCanadian Redemptorists and the Franciscans devoted them-\nselves to giving parish missions and retreats and to youth\nwork. The Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Sisters\nof Saint Paul de Chartres developed their own foundations.\nOther congregations devoted themselves to teaching and\nsocial work-the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul, the Franciscan\nMissionaries of Mary, the Canonesses of St Augustine, the\nSisters of Providence of Portieux, the Sisters of Our Lady of\nthe Missions. The centres of the contemplative life made their\nappearance. These were founded by the Trappists at Phuoc-\nSon, by the monks of Lérins and of La Pierre-qui-Vire through-\nout Vietnam, by the Carmelites at Hanoi, Hué, Phat-Diem and\nTranh-Hoa, and by the Poor Clares at Vinh. Native vocations\nwere developed in these houses. Finally, purely Vietnamese\ncongregations were founded by the already existing European\nVotaries of the Cross, the Sisters of the Third Order of St\nDominic, the Brothers of the Holy Family, the Catechist\nBrothers of Christian Doctrine.\nThe evangelization of the other territories of the Indo-\nChinese peninsula-the plateaux to the west of the Annamite\nmountain chain, Cambodia, Siam (now Thailand), Burma-\nfollowed a parallel course to that of Vietnam. The first priests\nfrom the Paris Foreign Missions arrived in 1842 among the\nBanhars, one of the savage tribes of western Vietnam. They\nhad much to suffer from the climate and the insalubrious\nnature of the country, and still more from the fickleness and\nsuperstition of the natives. A. rebellion drove them out in\n1867. They came back and by their pertinacity succeeded in\nfounding a permanent mission.\nThe first mission to the Tais, the people of the mountainous\nregions of Tonkin, dates from 1878. After satisfactory begin-\nnings, sickness carried away several of the missionaries and,\nin 1883 and 1884, an outburst of xenophobia, parallel with that\nin Vietnam, brought about the massacre of missionaries,"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 153,
      "ocrText": "THE INDO-CHINA MISSIONS\n153\nnative priests and 2,000 Tai converts. Evangelization began\nagain under Mgr Gendreau's direction but it achieved only\nslight successes during the nineteenth century. The same is\ntrue of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, where Buddhism\nremained in a strong position.\nIn Burma, the vicariates of Pegu and Ava, which were\nentrusted to the Barnabites, numbered some 3,000 converts at\nthe end of the eighteenth century. After half a century of\nvirtual neglect, due to the shortage of missionaries, the mission\nwas handed over, from 1839 to 1856, to the Oblates of Turin\nwho were later succeeded by the priests of the Paris Foreign\nMissions.\nOne of these, Fr Bigandet, completely mastered the Burmese\nlanguage. He was appointed vicar apostolic in 1858 and won\nthe favour of the king of North Burma. He was then able to\nappeal for help to medical, nursing and teaching institutes: the\nGood Shepherd Sisters of Angers, the Little Sisters of the\nPoor, the Brothers of the Christian Schools. With their colla-\nboration and in the course of a large number of pastoral jour-\nneys, he developed the former mission posts, established new\nones and ordained fourteen Burmese priests.\nThe Church of Burma had been founded. In 1868, the initial\nvicariate was divided into three sections: East Burma, Central\nand South-west Burma. The Milan Foreign Missions were\nallotted the eastern region, the two others were left under the\ncare of the Paris Foreign Missions. New districts were to be\nformed after 1914."
    }
  ]
}