Saint Valentín Berrio-Ochoa (Vinh), Bishop

Valentín Berrio-Ochoa was born on February 14, 1827, in the village of Elorrio, in the Basque country of Spain, into a poor family. He entered the seminary, at times had to go home to help his parents, and then went back again. He was ordained a priest, and in 1854 joined the Dominican Order.

It was then that he spoke his famous words:

“I am going so that my homeland may have a saint.”

At the end of March 1858 he arrived in Vietnam, just as the bishops were being hunted relentlessly under Emperor Tự Đức. He wrote home:

“This mission field never sees a single clear day.”

Less than three months after arriving, he was consecrated coadjutor bishop, at night, in a Catholic home at Ninh Cường. The miter was made of paper. The crosier was made of bamboo. Perhaps there has never been a simpler episcopal consecration. But few have been more moving.

He took the Vietnamese name Vinh.

Not long after, Bishop Melchor García Sampedro (Xuyên), who had consecrated him, was executed. Bishop Vinh found himself in charge of the vicariate, at the height of the persecution.

He lived for a long time in a pit at Hương La. From that dark pit he taught theology to seminarians, wrote letters, looked for books, and kept in touch with the Catholic communities. An underground “bishop’s house”, yet still looking to the future, still forming those who would serve when the storm had passed.

Even so, he kept his cheerfulness. In August 1860 he wrote to his mother:

“Though I am an ‘old bachelor’, I still leap over puddles as nimbly as a squirrel.”

His mother at home must have laughed and wept at once reading those lines.

In 1861 he wrote:

“It is very likely that in a few months my vicariate will have no missionaries left.”

He took a boat with Father Pedro Almató (Bình), looking for a hiding place in Hải Dương. The faithful arranged for him to stay in the house of a deputy village headman. But the man’s nephew went and reported him to the mandarin.

On October 25, 1861, Bishop Vinh was arrested. In Hải Dương he met Bishop Jerónimo Hermosilla (Liêm) again, who had also just been arrested.

On November 1, 1861, the very feast of All Saints, the three of them, two bishops and a priest, were beheaded at the Năm Mẫu execution ground. Bishop Vinh was only thirty-four and had been a bishop for less than four years.

His body was later moved through several places, and finally taken back to his homeland of Spain.

He was beatified on May 20, 1906, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is November 1.

The young man of long ago had said: I am going so that my homeland may have a saint. He left, and did not come back, at least not while he lived. But his body came back, as a saint.

And in between stands a most lovable man: a bishop with a paper miter and a bamboo staff, living in a pit and still joking with his mother that he leapt over puddles as nimbly as a squirrel. Holiness, it turns out, can be very joyful.