Saint Peter Phạm Khắc Khoan

Father Peter Phạm Khắc Khoan was born in 1771 in the village of Diên Mậu, Hảo Nho parish, an area now in the Diocese of Phát Diệm. While still a catechist, he was entrusted with the care of the mission house at Kẻ Vĩnh. After his ordination as a priest, he became parish priest of Phúc Nhạc.

He taught the faithful to live justly and purely, and he lived what he taught. Beside him were two trusted disciples: the catechist Peter Nguyễn Văn Hiếu and the catechist John the Baptist Đinh Văn Thanh. Teacher and disciples walked the village roads together, looking after the small Catholic communities.

One day in August 1837, he went to anoint a sick person at Trại Bò. By the time he had finished it was dark, and he stayed the night at Đông Biên. On the morning of August 24, the village head sent men to arrest him and the two catechists and take them to Ninh Bình province. That year he was sixty-eight.

Before the mandarin, the old man’s answer was strikingly brief:

“In life or in death, I will not give up my religion.”

The officials separated him from his two disciples and then tried a trick. They told him that the two catechists had agreed to step over the cross:

“Your two servants have obeyed and stepped over the cross already; why do you still resist?”

The news grieved him deeply. But then someone slipped in to visit and told him the truth: the two catechists were still steadfast, and neither had given up the faith. The old priest took heart again. Teacher and disciples were kept apart, but their faithfulness still bound them together.

The years in prison dragged on through several sentences, several changes of punishment, even a new judge. Each time they tried to win him over, he answered:

“We have already thought it over; there is no way we could change our minds...”

At one point he told the mandarin, courteously but firmly, that he was sorry to trouble His Excellency, but he could not obey an order to give up his faith, and he asked to be told the day of his execution soon.

After nearly three years, the sentence of beheading was confirmed. On April 28, 1840, Father Khoan, the catechists Hiếu and Thanh were led to the foot of Cánh Diều mountain. On the way to the execution ground, teacher and disciples sang the Alleluia aloud together. No weeping, no lament, but the song of Easter joy.

The faithful took his body to Yên Mối, and then moved it to Phúc Nhạc, the parish he had cared for over so many years. He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is April 28.

People still remember the three as one: an old priest and his two disciples, separated in prison, deceived with false news, yet in the end walking together and singing together.