By Rita McInerney

Prayers of thousands of Vietnamese Catholics will be answered Sunday, June 19, when Pope John Paul II canonizes 117 Vietnamese martyrs. On hand in St. Peter’s Square for the historic event will be 15 members of the Vietnamese Catholic community at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hapeville, and their priest, Father Francis Pham Van Phuong.

They will be in the company of about 3,000 Vietnamese Catholics from the United States, and about 5,000 from Spain, France and West Germany, according to Father Francis, as he is popularly called.

Canonization has been many years coming for the 117. While their beatification took place during the papacies of three different popes; Pope Leo XIII who beatified 64 in 1900; Pope Pius X who beatified eight in 1906, and 21 in 1909, and finally Pope Pius XII, who beatified 25 in 1951, the process was stalled for a long time.

In February of 1986, Father Francis was among a group of 30 Vietnamese priests and lay people who had an audience with the pope after a trip to the Holy Land. At that time they urged him to step up the process of canonization for the 117.

Churchmen and countrymen from around the world rallied to the cause, collecting signatures, writing to the religious authorities, publishing biographies of the martyrs, and asking people everywhere to pray for the canonization.

The pope is canonizing saints from many nations, Father Francis says. Now it is the time for the Vietnamese Catholics and, as it has in other countries so favored, the new saints will give strength, will uplift the people of this beautiful and tragic Asian country. Of the 117 martyrs to be canonized June 19, 96 are Vietnamese, 10 are from France and 11 from Spain. The 42 lay people to attain sainthood among the 117 include one woman. There are eight bishops, 50 priests, 16 catechists and one seminarian.

Christianity first came to Vietnam in 1533 with the arrival of the first missionary, now known only as Ignatius. Spanish Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits from France followed to spread the Catholic faith. They managed to do so despite unrelenting persecution by successive dynasties and national forces.

During the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries, the Vietnamese Church lost an heroic 130,000 martyrs, 60,000 of this number between 1862 and 1885. But the native Church survived and matured until it came to be termed “The eldest daughter of the Catholic Church in Asia” by Pope Pius XI in the 1930s.

The Vietnamese Church documented for the Vatican 1,000 cases from the 130,000 Christians killed and tortured over the three centuries. From this number came the 117 to be declared saints on June 19.

Today while communist Vietnam allows Catholic Masses, the faithful worship under difficult conditions, Father Francis says. Churches are infiltrated. There are no schools, no seminaries and no ordinations. Government meetings and activities are often scheduled for Sunday morning, making it necessary for Catholics to attend Mass very early before appearing at the required functions.

But, the priest says, “the more (Vietnamese) Catholics feel they are persecuted, the more they are unified and fervent.” This is the way it has always been for them as a small minority in a country where Buddhists are the majority. In earlier times Vietnamese practiced Taoism, Confucianism, ancestor worship or a combination of these religions and systems.

Father Francis was ordained in 1966 and came to the United States in 1972 when the diocese of Bien Hoa sent him to study at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He received his master’s in education in 1976.

That same year, Father Richard B. Morrow, then pastor of St. John the Evangelist, and chairman of the personnel board of the archdiocese, was hearing from other priests of the archdiocese. They felt unprepared to deal with the tide of Vietnamese arriving in north Georgia after the fall of South Vietnam. Many parishes had sponsored entire families felling from the harsh Communist regime and while priests and people could help the refugees in securing the basic necessities there was a wide culture and language barrier.

The pastor from Hapeville and the priest from Vietnam met in a Catholic hospital in Stamford, Conn. Father Morrow’s mother was undergoing surgery. Father Francis was filling in that day for the hospital chaplain. The two priests talked and Father Morrow suggested the Vietnamese priest come to Atlanta and give a mission or renewal. This would give him an opportunity to look over the area and for Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan to size him up.

“They clicked,” Father Morrow said. When the two met in March, 1976, the archbishop told the Vietnamese priest, “We need you desperately.”

After the fall of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, 140,000 Vietnamese fled the war-torn country. “I believe there are about 1,000 scattered around the archdiocese,” Father Francis said.

Since his arrival in1976, Father Francis has been building a sense of community among his fellow countrymen and women. Anywhere from 300 to 400 attend Mass each Saturday at 4 p.m. at St. John the Evangelist. About 200 attend the Mass he regularly celebrates at St. Michael’s in Gainesville. Also on his circuit for Masses are St. Thomas the Apostle in Smyrna and St. Mary’s in Rome.

“Now we are planning to have a church,” Father Francis says. “The Vietnamese community is growing in numbers and in needs. We are asking permission (of the archdiocese) to raise money and to have a church. Things are moving along.”

“He’s very pastoral,” Father Morrow says of Father Francis. “He looks after their needs,” both the Catholics and some of the Buddhists in the area.

Here in the United States, while the Vietnamese enjoy a freedom they didn’t have at home, “They do have a feeling of being uprooted. Loneliness is still a problem for many of them,” Father Francis says.

But the bonds of family remain strong, he says; respect for the elders, the desire for children to please their parents and the willingness of parents to sacrifice for the children.

“I think the people, as well as Father Francis, ought to be praised,” Father Morrow says. “He has been taking courses all along. And the people were here just a short time before they were off welfare, had jobs, automobiles and homes. All before they could even speak the language well.”