Saint Emmanuel Nguyễn Văn Triệu

Emmanuel Nguyễn Văn Triệu was born in 1756 in Kim Long, Phú Xuân, near the imperial city of Huế. His father, an officer in the service of the Nguyễn lords, fell in battle when Triệu was small.

The fatherless boy grew up with his mother. At fifteen, like his father before him, he joined the army. The country was sunk in war in those years: the Tây Sơn, the Nguyễn lords and the Trịnh lords fought over every region, and the capital changed hands again and again. The young soldier went through battle after battle and saw a great deal of death.

At about thirty, Triệu left the army and entered the seminary. The soldier who had held a sword now held books, learning prayers and theology. After years of study he was ordained a priest.

Father Triệu’s life had two very different halves: a soldier in the thick of war, then a shepherd bringing peace. Perhaps the years of war helped him value all the more the peace God gives.

In the late 1790s the Tây Sơn government suspected Catholics of siding with Nguyễn Ánh, and searches and arrests began.

Soldiers caught him during a search of the convent of the Lovers of the Holy Cross at Thợ Đúc.

As he was being led away, he met his aged mother. Picture that old woman: widowed young by war, she had raised her son alone and watched him become a soldier, then a priest, and now she watched him led off by soldiers. What pain could be greater?

And her son, a priest of forty-two, could only look at her, with no way to comfort her except his eyes and his prayers.

The mandarin asked whether he was a priest, and promised to seek his release if he gave up the priesthood and went back to an ordinary life. Father Triệu answered:

“No, I am a priest. I would rather die than give up preaching the faith.”

As a soldier he had been ready to die for the Nguyễn lord. Now, as a priest, he was ready to die for his Lord.

On September 17, 1798, Father Emmanuel Triệu was beheaded at Bãi Dâu, Huế. His body was taken to Dương Sơn. In 1996 part of his remains was moved to Thợ Đúc.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is September 17.

People might have suspected him of politics, since he had been a soldier and was the son of a Nguyễn officer. But he never claimed to be anything but a priest. He did not die for any faction. He died because he would not stop preaching the faith.

Father Triệu’s life shows that it is never too late to change course. At thirty the soldier laid down his sword to take up the Cross, and that Cross brought him a glory no feat of arms could match.