MARTYRS OF LAOS

It is fitting for us that we consider saints of Asia at this time as we have 2 past interns in far away places teaching.  One is in Lathoso  (Africa) in a high mountain village- no cars, so one must hike up with all supplies.  The other just started her teaching in Malaysia.  Both write of the early days of loneliness, with no other English speaking people around. But they also write of the kindness of their new people. The photos they send back  bring these far away people close to us and a bit of an idea of what our early missionaries faced.

THE BLESSED MARTYRS  of LAOS includes the Laotian priest, Bl. Joseph Tien, 10 European missionaries (from the Paris Foreign Mission Society and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate) and five Laotian lay-catechists. The martyrs lost their lives between 1954 and 1970 under the Pathet Lao, the communist political movement that began to take control of Laos after the French colonials withdrew in 1954. The Laotian catechists chose to stay with the priests, knowing that to do so would mean certain death for them. Among those killed was Bl. Joseph Outhay whose last recorded words were, “For us, as well as for the priests, mission means to follow Christ all the way to the end.”

While there are only approximately 60,000 Catholic Christians in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (representing .9% of the total population), the faith and courage of Laotian Catholics is a powerful witness of the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel in every time and place.

The cause for their canonization was opened as two parallel processes with one for Mario Borzaga – an Italian Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate – and his companion Paul Thoj Xyooj – a Laotian catechist – and another for a group of fifteen martyrs that included ten French missionaries as well as five Laotian Catholics.  Pope Francis approved both beatifications in 2015 and their beatification took place in Vientiane Cathedral on 11 December 2016.

1953, communist guerrillas with the support of Vietnamese fighters invaded the northeastern part of what was then the French Protectorate of Laos.  In Easter of the same year, the guerrillas stormed the town of Sam Neua, resulting in the death of civilians and the start of the persecution of Christians.

A young Laotian priest, Joseph Thao Tien, chose not to flee but to stay behind with the people. "I am ready to lay down my life for my Laotian brothers and sisters," the priest was quoted as saying.

He was marched to a prison camp amid a wailing throng of people who were praying on the roadside. "Do not be sad, I'll come back," he assured them.

A year later, on June 2, 1954, Father Joseph Tien was shot to death when he refused to give up the priesthood and marry.

In a remote valley in central Vietnam, Father John Baptist Malo of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris was also detained with four companions.He died of exhaustion in 1954 en route to a prison camp.

Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato, who presided over the beatification on the pope's behalf,  an Oblate missionary himself, said the martyrs "gave up their lives for the sake of Jesus ... in the service of the Lord and in the service of their brothers and sisters….We have to tell and retell their individual stories of heroism to every generation."

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The young Kmhmu catechist, Luc Sy, a father of three, and his companion, Maisan Pho Inpeng, died in 1970 while giving catechism and tending to sick villagers.

In 1960, Hmong catechist, Thoj Xyooj went with Father Mario Borzaga on an apostolic trip to the villages. Both never came back.   In April and May 1961, Fathers Louis Leroy, Michael Coquelet, and Vincent L'Henoret were abducted in the province of Xieng Khouang and killed.  Father Lucien Galan, who started his missionary life in China, visited some isolated catechumens on the Boloven plateau in 1968 with a student, 16-year-old Khampheuane. They were killed on their way back to the town center.

Cardinal Quevedo said that even though Laos has "a very small flock" they should remember that, if the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, "then we shall surely see the fruit of their spilled blood."

"The grain of wheat has fallen to the ground and has died. With the utmost certainty it shall bear fruit in the number of Catholics, in the quality of your faith and in the number of vocations to the priestly and religious life," the cardinal added.

Their feast is December 16.