Saint Paul Tống Viết Bường

He had been stripped of his guardsman’s uniform; a heavy cangue was around his neck and chains on his legs. Yet he still carried himself with the dignity of an officer who had risked his life to protect the throne of two emperors, Gia Long and Minh Mạng. Around him, the soldiers — many of whom had served under him for years — wept quietly. The supervising mandarin came up and urged him gently one last time:

“Your Excellency, you have won so many glorious merits helping the king build the country, and now, just because you will not step over the cross, you must die such a painful death? Please think again — just pretend to step on it once, and the king will spare your life at once and restore your rank!”

That steadfast officer was the guard mandarin Paul Tống Viết Bường, the martyr saint who embodies the loyalty and sense of duty of the Vietnamese Catholic soldier. He showed the feudal court that people of faith are not traitors; loyalty to God is the firmest foundation for loyalty to one’s homeland.

Growing up in the fierce civil war of the late eighteenth century, when the struggle between the Tây Sơn and Lord Nguyễn Ánh plunged the whole central region into war for nearly thirty years, the young Tống Viết Bường joined Lord Nguyễn Ánh’s army. Tall, extraordinarily strong, skilled in martial arts and well versed in military strategy, he won many victories in the battles that drove back the Tây Sơn, battles that stretched from Gia Định all the way to the seaport of Thuận An. More than once he and his comrades had to cross the sea in flimsy warships, facing storms and enemy fire, returning to camp covered in wounds but with their loyalty intact.

In 1820, Emperor Minh Mạng succeeded to the throne. Seeing that the mandarin Bường was a talented, virtuous and utterly honest officer, the emperor continued to rely on him and gave him command of the guard always at his side. He married a devout Catholic woman and had many children. Though he held a position of great authority, the mandarin Bường always kept a devout and simple household: caring nothing for bribes, loving the soldiers under him, strictly forbidding them to oppress the people, and generously helping the poor and needy of the capital.

Emperor Minh Mạng was stunned and furious, but unwilling to lose a talented general who had long risked his life to protect him, he held back his anger and called him into a private room. The emperor gently urged him:

“Bường, I know how loyal you have been all these years to me and to the late emperor... I do not want to kill you! Just step over that piece of wood once, as the law of the land requires, and I will give you a high title!”

The mandarin Paul Tống Viết Bường bowed before the emperor and said quietly:

“Your Majesty, all these years your servant has had only a loyal heart to serve the king and help the country, and has never dared do anything deceitful! Your servant is ready to give this life on the battlefield for Your Majesty... But faith in God, who made your servant and grants Your Majesty the grace to reign, your servant can never betray! I beg Your Majesty in your mercy to let your servant keep faithfulness to God and loyal duty to the king!”

His former colleagues and soldiers came into the prison many times weeping and begging him to give in, but he smiled and comforted them:

“Brothers, don’t worry about me! The king’s lashes only hurt this passing body; but if I betrayed God, my soul would die forever!”

Some young soldiers he had trained himself stood outside the bars of the Trấn Phủ prison, not daring to look straight at their old commander’s battered body, and could only slip in a little clean water or a handful of rice — a silent way of showing a gratitude they did not dare put into words in a prison full of watching eyes and listening ears. From his dark prison he sent letters home to comfort his wife and children, telling them to hold fast to the faith and not to bear a grudge against the court because their father was imprisoned.

On May 27, 1900, Pope Leo XIII beatified him. And on June 19, 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized Paul Tống Viết Bường together with one hundred sixteen other Vietnamese Martyrs in Rome. The Church celebrates him on October 23 each year, and on November 24.