Saint Andrew Nguyễn Kim Thông

A heavy wooden cangue weighed on his neck and shoulders, and iron chains clanked on his legs with every step. His coarse brown tunic was in tatters from the floggings at the courthouse months before. Whenever he collapsed from exhaustion, the soldiers’ rattan whips came down until he struggled to his feet and walked on, not because they hated him, but because their orders had to be carried out on time.

The old man was no dangerous criminal. His name was Andrew Nguyễn Kim Thông, and the people of the area called him Ông Năm Thuông — once a highly respected canton chief and head of the Catholic parish of Gò Thị, one of the oldest communities of the diocese of Quy Nhơn. For decades he had used his authority and wealth not to feather his own nest, but as a shield for the missionaries, the seminarians and the poor of the area. And when the storm of persecution finally broke, he met it with the same patient endurance he had shown all his life.

Intelligent, upright and outspoken, yet full of compassion, Andrew Thông studied Chinese characters from childhood and knew both the classics and local custom well. He married a devout Catholic woman of the parish, and they had two children, both of whom gave themselves to God: the son became a priest, Father Nguyễn Kim Thủ, and the daughter entered a religious congregation. Through hard work and shrewd planning he built up a comfortable farming and trading business, but unlike many rich men of his time, he never used his wealth to throw his weight around. Whenever bad harvests or drought struck, he opened his granaries to feed the hungry villagers, Christian or not.

Because of his ability, virtue and standing, the people and the court together made him canton chief, the head of a canton of many villages. Under his honest rule, thieves and bandits were brought under control and the poor were protected, and Christians and non-Christians alike called him by a respectful nickname: “Old Cai Thông.” At the same time, the Catholics of Gò Thị chose him as their Ông Trùm, the head of the parish lay council, so that he became the mainstay of a large Catholic community.

As both canton chief and parish head, Andrew Thông skillfully used his position to shield a whole underground network of faith:

• he secretly took in and hid Bishop Stéphane Cuénot (whom the Vietnamese called Đức cha Thể), the relentlessly hunted vicar apostolic;
• he protected a small seminary that quietly trained dozens of seminarians and catechists right in Gò Thị;
• he sheltered a community of Lovers of the Holy Cross sisters who were also hiding in the area.

Whenever word came that troops were about to search the village, he raised the alarm in time for the missionaries and sacred objects to be moved safely into the deep forest before dawn.

He often told his children, his grandchildren and the people of the parish what his whole life had shown: earthly wealth will vanish like smoke and clouds, and office is only a garment worn for a while — only faithfulness to God and to the Church is worth keeping to the end.

At the beginning of 1855, on receiving the report, the governor of Bình Định at once sent hundreds of soldiers to surround Gò Thị. They searched the seminary and the convent from end to end. Bishop Cuénot and the seminarians managed to escape in the night. But the soldiers burst into Andrew Thông’s house and arrested him, together with four other members of the parish council.

As the cangue was fastened around his neck, his family and parishioners rushed out weeping, ready to use bribes or even clubs to get him back. But he raised his hand to stop them:

“Brothers, children and grandchildren, be calm. Do nothing against the law of the land. All my life I have served the court and served the community with an upright conscience. Now, if God wants me to wear a cangue for His name, I gladly accept. Go home and look after your families, keep the faith firmly, and pray for me.”

Then he let the soldiers tie his hands, lock his chains and take him to the provincial prison of Bình Định.

He knelt upright, looked the mandarins in the eye and answered with the dignity of a man who had lived an honest life:

“Your Excellencies, I am over sixty; earthly fame and rank mean nothing to me anymore. For more than sixty years I have worshiped God, who made me, and I have been wholeheartedly loyal to the king and his officials. I have never done anything deceitful or harmful to the people or the country. The Cross is the holy sign where my Savior died for me; I worship and adore Him — how could I dare trample on the One who is the source of life for my soul? If you wish to behead or kill this old body, go ahead, but I will never deny my God.”

When persuasion failed, the mandarins, who had to satisfy the court in Huế, ordered torture. They stripped off his outer garment, tied him to a wooden post, flogged him with thorny rattan whips, tore his flesh with pincers and tried to drag him over the cross. But the lash could not break the will of this man in his sixties. He clenched his teeth and endured it in silent prayer. Seeing that he was too old and frail to survive more floggings, the judge petitioned the capital for a sentence of exile for life, all the way to Vĩnh Long, a strange land thousands of kilometers south of his home in Gò Thị.