Saint Andrew Nguyễn Mạnh Tường

Andrew Nguyễn Mạnh Tường was born in 1812 in the hamlet of Phú Yên, Ngọc Cục village, Nam Định province. He was the older brother of Vincent Nguyễn Mạnh Tương, who later became canton chief. The two brothers grew up in a family used to serving the community: their father had been head of the parish council.

Tường married and lived the life of an ordinary layman in the Ngọc Cục community. No title, no fame. Just a husband, a father, an older brother, living virtuously in a village of the Nam Định countryside.

In 1861, Emperor Tự Đức issued the edict of dispersal. In Nam Định, under Governor Nguyễn Đình Tân, it was enforced very harshly. A testimony from that time still records the order:

“Catholics must be driven out of their houses and tied up in groups of five, allowed to take only a few handfuls of rice, enough to eat for about two days.”

Try to picture those columns of people: old and young, men and women, driven out of their villages, hands tied, a small bag of rice on their backs. Behind them their homes, their rice fields, their church. Ahead of them a strange place, and no knowing when they would return.

Tường was arrested with many villagers, held in Nam Định, and then taken to the Bạch Cốc area.

He wore a heavy cangue, was chained and tortured. They carved the words “Tả Đạo” (“false religion”) on his cheek.

But he was not alone. Imprisoned with him were his younger brother, Vincent Tương, and three fellow villagers: Dominic Nguyễn Huy Nguyên, Dominic Nguyễn Đức Mạo and Dominic Nguyễn Đức Nhi. They prayed, fasted and did penance together. The older brother perhaps still kept the habit of looking after his younger brother, as when they were children.

On June 15, 1862, the mandarin laid the cross on the ground. Just step over it, and he would be sent home to his wife and children.

Home to his wife and children. After nine months away, what promise could be sweeter? For a father and a husband, that must have been the hardest thing to resist. The records do not say what he thought in that moment. They record only his decision: he did not step over.

On June 16, 1862, Andrew Tường was beheaded at the Bạch Cốc execution ground, also called Làng Cốc, together with his younger brother and three friends from his village. His body was taken to be buried in the grounds of the church of Ngọc Cục.

He was beatified on April 29, 1951, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 16.

Tường’s story cannot be separated from the story of the whole village of Ngọc Cục. Five sons of one village, including two brothers by blood, arrested on the same day and killed on the same day.

But each still had his own life, his own longings, his own family. Tường was a brother, a father, a husband. He was promised he could go home, and he chose another home, the home God promises to those who stay faithful to the end.