DID ANYONE WITNESS
THE
MADONNA’S
APPARITIONS
IN
LA
VANG
I/
UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES WAS
THE PAGODA TURNED INTO A GOD’S HOUSE
A)
DOCUMENTS:
In
his article “Tinh-Thần
La Vang”
(The Spirit of La
Vang) published in
“Thằng
Mơ” (The
Town Crier)
Magazine, No. 832 on
28 Mar 1998, Mr. Trần
Văn Trí
wrote:
At the
beginning of the 19th
century, rumor
about the Sacred
Lady spread wide
everywhere.
During the
first years, 1820-1840,
the Catholics
of Ba
Trừ,
Cổ
Thành
and Thạch
Hăn
Villages made
contributions among
themselves to build
a
pagoda
[NB:
a pagoda is a
Buddhist temple,
with its specific
structure, and of
course with at least
one statue or
picture of the
Buddha] right
at the place
where the Madonna
had appeared,
called the Ba
Làng (Three
Villages) Pagoda. But
later
they discussed
with one another and
all agreed that the
Lady who had
appeared there
belonged to the Catholic
side,
so they yielded
the pagoda to the
Catholic side,
and the Catholic
families modified
the pagoda into a
God’s house
(Fr. Hồng
Phúc:
The La
Vang Lady,
page 35).
B)
REMARKS:
1-
Let us find out
about the situation
in which “the
pagoda was modified
into a God’s
house.”
In the weekly
“Thằng
Mơ”
Magazine, No. 852 on
15 Aug 1998, there
was the article “Sự-Kiện
La Vang: Trang
Sử Tử-Đạo”
(The La Vang Event:
The Martyrs’
History) by Mr. Nguyễn
Văn Thông,
in which we read the
following paragraph:
Bishop
Tabert
wrote:
About the South
Church, when
King Minh
Mạng
ordered a ban on
Catholicism, there
were hundreds
of believers jailed,
tortured, and exiled
or executed...
a.
In 1832,
Tống
Viết Bường,
the chief of Minh
Mạng’s
guards, together
with officers and
soldiers under him,
was obligated to
sign pledges to quit
the religion...
Mr. Bường
and 12 others did
not sign.
They were
ordered to be yoked
and lashed...
The
lead-covered end of
the whips tore the
flesh off...
Six soldiers
could not endure
such barbarous
punishments...
Mr. Bường
and the 6 others
were imprisoned and
tortured to the
utmost and then
decapitated in the
evening of 23 Oct
1833 at Thợ
Đúc,
Huế (Bùi
Đức Sinh:
The
Catholic Church in
Vietnam, vol.
III, pg. 46-47).
b.
On 8 Sep 1835,
Fr. Marchand
was captured in Gia
Định
[Southern
Region],
caged like an animal
and brough to Huế
[Central
Region]
together with
7-year-old Lê
Văn Viên,
son of Lê
Văn Khôi...
He was
accused of plotting
with Lê
Văn Khôi
to rebel against Minh
Mạng
royal court... The
executioner used red
hot pincers to
squeeze his hips,
the flesh got burned
sizzlingly and
smoking...
He and three
others were indicted
as accomplices and
sentenced together
with little Viên
to dissection.
All their
clothes taken off,
they were tied to
the stretches and
sent to the former
church now turned
into the execution
ground at Thợ
Đúc... One
executioner used
pincers to pinch out
each piece of flesh
for another to cut
it off with a
cleaver.
They began
with the
condemned’s penis,
then the two
breasts, the two
shoulder blades, the
two hands, the two
thigh muscles,
calves... until what
remained was only a
skeleton stuck with
blood-red bits of
flesh.
After that,
the executioner cut
the priest’s head
off... undid the
ropes for the body
to fall face down to
the ground, used an
ax to cut it
horizontally into
four chunks, then
each chunk
vertically into two
pieces...
Priest Marchand’s
head was sent to the
provinces to be
hanged in display at
the markets, then
put into a mill to
be ground (Phan
Phát Huờn:
Louvet:
La Cochinchine
Religieuse (The
Religious
Cochinchina), v. II,
pg. 92) and many
other cases.
2-
The period 1820-1840
mentioned above by
Mr. Trần
Văn Trí
was exactly the span
of King Minh
Mạng
reign, and the
persecutions of
Catholics had been so
terrible. And
historian Trần
Trọng Kim
wrote in his
“Việt Nam
Sử Lược”:
“At that
time, not only King Minh
Mạng
hated Catholicism,
but most mandarins
were of the same
feeling, so the ban
on Catholicism was more
cruel.” Lê
Văn Khôi
and his
fellow-rebels (among
them priest Marchand)
were strong
enough to have taken
six provinces in one
month and
defended the Gia
Định
citadel against the
Imperial Court for
three years long,
and they were down
in the Southern
Region so
far from Huế;
but Minh
Mạng
could finally crush
and punish them so
horribly. Then,
how a group of bare-handed
Catholic refugees in
La
Vang could
avoid being tracked
out, since La
Vang was only
about 60
kilometers from the
king and his
influence*1, and,
moreover, dared
openly modify the
pagoda (Buddhist
temple)
into a church (God’s
house) while
the persecutions
were still continued
for
4-6 more decades
(until the French
domination began in the
1880s)?
*NOTE
1a:
Remember:
“Rumor
about
the
Sacred Lady
had spread
everywhere”
and the La
Vang
inhabitants
(including the non-Catholics)
living upon the
fire-wood still
could take it for
sale to the
non-Catholic
villages outside of
La Vang.
*NOTE
1b:
Bishop Tabert
wrote about events
happening in 1820-1840
in a Vietnam
already unified
since more
than twenty years
earlier (Gia
Long became King in 1802),
but he still called
the area “the
South (Miền
Nam)” as if there
still existed the Gianh
River which devided
the country into two
parts under the old
period of Trịnh-Nguyễn
conflict.
Moreover, Tabert
could not
remember the
place-name Phường
Đúc and called
it Thợ
Đúc.
How could people
believe him?
3-
If the Virgin Mary
did really appear in
La Vang in 1798,
why must those
Catholics have
waited until 22-42
years later (1820-1840)
to hear the rumor,
to build a pagoda,
and then to discuss
and come to an
agreement that the
Lady*2
who had appeared
belonged
to the Catholic side,
and then to modify
the
pagoda into a
God’s house?
Besides, they
had been “the Catholics
from the villages of
Ba
Trừ, Cổ
Thành and Thạch
Hăn,” who built
the “chùa”
(Buddhist temple),
why did they not
simply state (e.g.
that now it is time
for us to officially
declare
it the God’s
house, because the
Lady who had
appeared was
indisputably the
Virgin Mary), and notify
it to the
non-Catholics,
instead of having to
wait until long,
long later to discuss
(between the
Catholics
themselves) the idea
that the Lady belonged
to “our”
side*3?
In a word,
all was merely
rumor, and
there was nobody
who did witness
the Lady’s alleged
apparitions in La
Vang!
*NOTE
2: With the Buddhists,
there has also been
a Lady:
“Đức
Quán-Thế-Âm
Bồ-Tát”
(Kouan
Yin).
*NOTE
3: The term
“side”
means that there
were at
least two sides
involved in the
case; and such honest
use of the term
indicates that the non-Catholic
side had
previously
recognized that the
pagoda was a
Buddhist site.
II/
IN WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES DID
PEOPLE
BEGIN
TO HEAR THE RUMOR OF
THE
MADONNA’S
APPEARANCES IN LA
VANG?
A)
DOCUMENTS:
In his
article “The
La Vang Sacred Land”
printed in “Mother
Vietnam”
Magazine, issue #102
dated 15-8-1998, Mr.
Nguyễn
Lư Tưởng
wrote:
1-
In 1797,
while Nguyễn
Phúc Ánh’s
naval forces could
come so far from the
Southern Region as
up to Thừa
Thiên’s
Tư Hiền
seaport, Tây Sơn’s
mandarin Lê
Văn Lợi suggested
the king’s order
to arrest all
Catholic followers
and priests, on the
pretext that
Catholics supported Nguyễn
Phúc Ánh...
King Cảnh-Thịnh
secretly ordered the
local authorities to
arrest and kill all Catholic
followers as well as
priests,
not to miss anyone,
beginning in 5-1798.
Bishop Jean
De Labartelle
was then hiding in Di
Luân Village
(Quảng
Trị)...
That
news spread among
the Catholic circle,
and believers from Trí
Bưu, Thạch
Hăn, Hạnh
Hoa Villages
fled
into the
La Vang mountainous
area as a refuge.
And it was at
this time
that the Virgin Mary
appeared to them.
2-
The legend
spread that the
Virgin Mary had
appeared at
the foot of
the old banyan tree.
The
woodcutters used to
get there to pray.
Later
on they heard
say that a
Sacred Lady
had appeared there,
so they made a
platform at the foot
of the banyan tree,
called the kowtow
platform, and raised
a fence around it.
Towards the
beginning of Minh
Mạng’s
reign, 1820,
inhabitants of the
three villages Thạch
Hăn, Ba
Trừ and
Cổ
Thành teamed
up with one another
to create there a joss-house
(“miếu”) [“miếu”
is a place where the
non-Catholics burn
incense to pray to
other dieties than
the Catholic God];
afterwards,
they heard
say that in
the old times
a Lady on the
Catholic side had
appeared at that
site; therefore,
people of the three
villages agreed to yield
that site to
the inhabitants on
the Catholic
side.
The Catholics
of that time
reported the
incident to the
vicar*4 of Trí
Bưu (Cổ
Vưu)
Parish, and the
local vicar had that
site modified
into a
thatch-roofed church.
This was the first
church ever
in La
Vang.
3-
Đồng-Khánh
became
king (in 1885,
towards the end of 19th
century); he
sought for peace...
Also at
this time the
Trí
Bưu (Cổ
Vưu)
Parish priest asked
the local
old-aged
believers
when these
were on
their deathbed,
awaiting exoneration
and anointment*5:
“You must
swear to say
the truth, did you
hear your parents,
grand-parents,
in
the past
mention something
concerning the
Virgin Mary’s
Apparitions in La
Vang?”
All those
persons answered
“Yes” and “The
event happened
nearly 100 years ago.”
The Virgin
Mary had appeared
about 100
years earlier.
The evidence
is that in 1886
Mgr Caspar
(Lộc)
in Huế decided
to build a temple
for the La Vang
Lady, and the Trí Bưu
parishioners at the
end of the 19th
century said
that the Madonna’s
Apparitions, as told
by their parents,
grandparents,
had taken place some
100
years before,
i.e. at the end of
the 18th
century,
under the Tây Sơn
reign.
B)
REMARKS:
1-
Pigneau
was both a bishop (high-ranking
among the
forbidden
Evangelists) and a
French (alien
aggressor); he also
was a supporter of Nguyễn
Phúc Ánh,
the enemy,
and a leader of the
local believers;
however, King
Cảnh-Thịnh
only aimed at the
faithful (mere
followers) prior to
the ringleaders?
Besides,
bishop Jean
De Labartelle,
a dignitary (the
king’s much
more-wanted
adversary, because
bishops are more
important than
priests and
followers), could
still remain safe in
Di
Luân Village
(Quảng
Trị),
the vulnerable zone,
not far from the La
Vang
hide-out?
And he had
not written anything
to Roma
about the
apparitions just
at that time
(1798)
in La
Vang, his
operational area?
2-
More strange is that
even the
very Catholics
who came from the
villages of Trí
Bưu
(yes, Trí
Bưu or Cổ
Vưu), Thạch
Hăn and Hạnh
Hoa to La
Vang as refugees
and who, according
to the legend,
had allegedly seen
the Madonna appear
and heard Her
promise to protect
them, at the very
time of her
apparitions
in 1798,
did not build even a
small altar
for Her; and people
had to wait for more
than two decades
later (1820-1840)
for inhabitants of
various religions
from two other
villages, Ba
Trừ and
Cổ
Thành, to
come there and join
the Catholics
of Thạch
Hăn Village
in La
Vang
to build a
pagoda,
naming it Chùa Ba Làng
Three
Villages Pagoda
(even
though called “miếu,”
joss-house,
in some articles) to
worship a Lady that they
initially considered
not to be the
Catholics’ Lady
(only until later
they heard
say
that it was the
Virgin Mary and then
“yielded”
it to the Catholic
side).
*NOTE
4: Is it
believable, that
under King Minh
Mạng,
while the ban on
Catholicism was
getting more and
more cruel, and
hundreds of
Catholics (including
Priest Marchand
brought up from
as far as Gia
Định
in the Southern
Region) had
been captured and
killed, there still
was a vicar in
charge of Trí
Bưu (Cổ
Vưu) safely
living near the
refuge of La
Vang (Quảng
Trị)
for the followers
from in there to
come out to him to
report on the
situation?
*NOTE
5: Is it
believable, that
there was the presence
of a vicar in the
parish of Trí
Bưu
(including La
Vang, which
was the refuge for
Catholics from the
three
above-mentioned
villages and from
many other areas
such as “60
kilometers away”
namely Huế),
but that
vicar had not heard
the rumor
already spread since
1798,
and had waited until
more
than two decades
later
(1820-1840) for him
to be able to learn
the apparitions of a
sacred lady only
four kilometers from
him, and for
the villagers to
come to report to
him that they
themselves had just
“agreed to yield
that site to the
Catholic side”?
3-
Bishop Caspar
decided to build a
temple for the
Blessed Virgin in 1886
(after
the French
colonialists had
established their
domination over
Vietnam since 1884),
that means he had
enjoyed freedom in
the new situation
(the Catholics
gained the upper
hand), he could of
course have
carefully studied
the La
Vang
event, but he
finally did
not leave any
written document
(either an official
report to the
Vatican or a simple
phrase in his
personal diary) on
the Lady’s
apparitions in La
Vang:
is it not
that he himself
considered it unbelievable?
4- The
readers can see
right away that the Trí
Bưu
Vicar only took
advantage of the
critical time when
the old-aged
believers were going
to die and
were eager
to have their souls
received into
Paradise
(which they had been
promised to, and
afraid that the
vicar would not
allow them to go
there) to insist
that they must
swear*6
that they had heard
parents and even
grandparents
mention the Virgin
Mary’s
apparitions, some 100
years in the past.
Only
one simple word
“Yes” without
any details.
Why did not
this swearing take
place before 1885,
since the La
Vang
Catholics had
already been able to
publicly
turn the Buddha’s
temple into the
God’s house during
1820-1840, more than
40-60 years earlier?
And why did
not the vicar ask
the young
and healthy
believers for such
an answer? Surely
the reason was that
this “initiative”
only just arose in 1885
(pro-French Đồng
Khánh
enthroned king);
they saw that there
were no
more living people
so aged as 100 years
old
at that time to know
and say anything
against the alleged
event about nearly 100
years before.
*NOTE
6: The purpose
of the
vicar’s forcing
the followers to
swear so was
to base on it to set
up files on the
apparitions; and he
had to do so because
from 1798
to
1885 (when Đồng
Khánh was
crowned king),
during those 87
long years,
there had been no
documentation of the
Virgin Mary’s
apparitions,
although it was
later said that the
apparitions happened
in 1798,
the pagoda was
yielded to the
Catholic side in the
period of 1820-1840.
And why had
there been no
related documents,
since at least one letter by
Fr. Lôrensô
Lâu about
his visiting Cổ
Vưu (Trí Bưu)
could have already
been sent to Roma
in 1691
(more than one
hundred years
earlier than the
apparitions),
and since the
Vatican could have
already been able to
directly resolve the
La Vang internal
problems during
the period of 1717-1739
(more than half
a century before the
apparitions)?
Let
me answer:
Because the truth is
that there had been
no apparitions of
the Catholics’
Virgin Mary in La
Vang.
About this, I had read a document before 1975; but, after the Vietnamese Communists controlled South Vietnam (April 30, 1975), they launched a campaign to destroy all so-called “slavish and depraved cultural works,” I lost my bookcase.
At the beginning of 1998, especially on June 19, 1998, when Pope John Paul II publicly recognized the importance of “Our Lady of La Vang” and expressed desire to rebuild the La Vang Basilica in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the first vision, I published an article on some Internet newsgroups, including, as I remember, the English-language vnforum@vnforum.org moderated by Dr. Trần Đ́nh Hoành, to reject the “Yes” answer of the dying old-aged believers on which the Trí Bưu Vicar based to report about the apparitions.
Subsequently, Pope John Paul II himself, two
months later, through “L’Osservatore
Romano,” on August 12, 1998,
was really honest
and straightforward to confirm
that: “Unfortunately,
there is no written
documentation of
these apparitions
(of
the Virgin Mary in La
Vang).”
By chance, engrossed in zealously contributing to the coming Bicentenary, one of the involved Catholic personages, Mr. Nguyễn Lư Tưởng frankly wrote and published, on August 15, 1998 as quoted above: “The Trí Bưu (Cổ Vưu) Parish priest asked the local old-aged believers when these were on their deathbed, awaiting exoneration and anointment: ‘You must swear to say the truth, did you hear your parents, grand-parents, in the past mention something concerning the Virgin Mary’s Apparitions in La Vang?’ All those persons answered ‘Yes’ and ‘The event happened nearly 100 years ago.’ The Virgin Mary had appeared about 100 years earlier.” Afraid of not being allowed to go to the paradise, those “witnesses” had to answer “Yes” to things supposedly happening long, very long even before they had been born. They themselves did not see (witness) anything. This explains why the Vatican negated it.
However, they
still defended
themselves by saying
that “such
documents were perhaps
kept in the Hué
church archives,
which were destroyed
during two local
wars: in 1833, under
King Minh
Mang,
and in 1861, in the
reign of King Tuduc*7.”
They
pretended to assume
that nobody had been
able to send
anything out of Hué
and Vietnam
during 42
long years
(from 1798
to 1840
when
Minh
Mạng
died); and they
forgot about the
period of 18
years (1802-1819)
in the reign of King
Gia
Long,
who did not
lay emphasis on the
ban on Catholicism
because he owed the
French a debt of
gratitude; moreover,
they turned away
from the fact that the
French did dominate
Vietnam
during 61
long years
(1884-1945)
and considered these
Catholic
colonialists as not
knowing how to serve
the Madonna right
in their own colony,
especially after the
apparitions in Lourdes,
France, in 1858,
and in Fatima,
Portugal, in 1917!
5-
We also met
with a strange
imagimation:
While the
other writings
affirmed that only
until 1820-1840
the Catholics in La
Vang
could hear the rumor
of Our Lady’s
apparitions in the
old days, Trần
Văn Trí
in his article “The
La Vang’s Spirit”
published in “The
Crier”
Magazine No. 832
wrote:
“Suddenly
(in 1798)
they saw a beautiful
overcoated lady
appearing near
a big banyan,
whom they recognized
right away
to be the Virgin
Mary.”
Those
“witnesses” had recognized
right on the spot
in 1798
that
the lady was the
Virgin Mary, yet the
Catholics
must wait until
22-42 years later
(1820-1840)
to hear
the rumor,
to build
the pagoda,
while still
not to discuss the
Sacred Lady’s
belonging to “our
side”;
and at that very
time (1798)
Bishop Jean
De Labartelle
himself was present
in the local
province, but he did
not gather either
evidence or written
documents relating
to this matter to
keep as archives.
That
sole detail suffices
to nullify all the
other details of the
apparitions.
The same as
in the other
writings, everything
was merely hearsay,
rumor,
legend,
and
each time with
certain different
and contradictory
details.
6-
Moreover, we
have got a precious
foreign source of
history, not of Our
Lady but of the Banyan
Tree:
Fr. Pierro
Gheddo, when
writing about the
Virgin Mary’s
apparitions in La
Vang and the
persecutions of
Catholics in
Vietnam, entitled
his book “The
Cross and the
Bo-Tree”.
Fr.
Pierro
Gheddo
was so exact to call
the great and old
tree by its name, Bo
(Bồ Để)
Tree
instead of Banyan
Tree.
Bồ
Đề Trees
are usually trees of
pagodas, of the
Buddha; and,
obviously, the
Catholics’ Virgin
Mary never wanted to
approach it, let
alone used it as a
meeting place to
appear before her
believers!
Anyhow, the banyan
tree here
undoubtedly belonged
to the non-Catholic
side, at that time
as well as at
present; and those La
Vang
inhabitants who came
there to pray were
polytheists (even
worshipping ghosts
and devils, the
flickering
silhouettes now and
then appearing at
the banian trees), very
long before
the Catholics came
to take refuge
there, and only
much later did they
hear the rumor
of the Sacred
Lady...
7-
Trần
Văn Trí
in “The
La Vang’s Spirit”
in “The
Town Crier”
Magazine No. 832
dated 3-28-98 wrote:
“The Bishops of
South Vietnam
[then divided from
North Vietnam],
on April
13, 1961,
assembled in Hué,
made a vow to the
Immaculate Heart of
Mary to consecrate
the La Vang Temple
to the Blessed
Virgin, and
recognized it as a
national Marian
Centre.”
But the
Vatican’s “L’Osservatore
Romano” on
August 12-19, 1998
wrote:
“In their
joint Letter of 8
August of the
same year (1961),
La Vang was
recognized as a
national Marian
Centre.”
Then,
was it on 4-13-61
or on 8-8-61
that La Vang became
a national Marian Centre?
*NOTE 7:
They said
that the written
documentation of
these apparitions
were perhaps
kept in the Hué
church archives,
which were destroyed
during two local
wars: in
1833
under King Minh
Mang,
and in 1861
in the reign of King
Tu
Duc.
But, in
truth, in 1833
the royal court only
had to quell Nong
Van Van’s
revolt at Lang
Son
and Cao
Bang
far
in the Northern
Region,
and Le
Van Khoi’s
revolt at Gia
Dinh
far
in the Southern
Region;
and in 1861
the
French and Spanish
troops came to Quang
Nam
Province, far
from Hué and Thua
Thien Province,
and incited Ta
Van Phung
to rebel at Quang
Yen,
far
in the Northern
Region.
During those
times, Hué,
the capital, was
quite safe:
how could the
documents kept in
the Hué church be
destroyed?
Besides, the
written
documentation of
these apparitions,
if any, should have
been preserved in
many other places
than only in the Hué church.
Even
Nguyễn
Văn Thông
wrote:
“About
those
historic documents,
we have so
many to collate
with... such
historic documents
as handwritten
letters,
lists
of fellow-believers...,
reports
from each evangelizing
areas
sent to the Evangelization
Ministry
in Roma,
to Paris,
to the Jesuit
and Dominican
Monasteries
with branches in
Macao,
Penang,
Japan,
the Philippines,
Thailand...”
And, as Nguyễn
Lư Tưởng
wrote:
“Fr. Stanilas
Nguyễn Văn
Ngọc
quoted a passage in
Fr. Lôrensô
Lâu’s
letter about his visit
to Cổ
Vưu
(Trí
Bưu)
in Dinh
Cát
(Quảng
Trị)
area, dated 2-17-1691
that was sent to
Roma,”
this shows obviously
that reports from Dinh
Cát
area (including La
Vang)
had definitely been
sent to and
evidently reached
Roma, more
than
one
century
(1691-1798)
before
the so-called “Our
Lady’s Apparitions
in La Vang” event.
Additionally,
Trần
Văn Trí
also wrote:
“A
Few Historical
Features of La Vang:
1717-1739:
there happened
certain disorder
that the
Vatican had to
directly interfere...”:
This, once
more, shows patently
that the Vatican had
already had a
thorough grasp of
the situation in La
Vang
since more
than half a century
(1739-1798)
before
the so-called
“apparitions.”
In short,
evidence of the
Virgin Mary’s
Apparitions in La
Vang,
if any, must
have been present in
the Vatican about
one and a half
century
(since 1691),
before
the first of the two
wars in 1833
and 1861, which L’Osservatore
Romano
blamed for
destroying written
documentation (Ref
Part
VIII).
8-
Finally, people
might say that the French
colonialists,
and also the Chirstian
dignitaries of
various
nationalities,
during at least one-and-a-half
centuries
long (1798-1945)
were indeed so honest
as to not
recognize the La
Vang Apparitions,
merely because it
was groundless,
nobody
ever eye-witnessed
the Virgin Mary
appearing.
And
only
until Catholic
Ngô Đ́nh
Diệm
had been made
Premier then
President of the
Republic of Vietnam
(1954-1963)
could this issue be
brought to the
highlights.
Irrefutably, the Vatican’s stand on this issue mainly depended on the reports and proposals from its local servers and representatives who were at that time mostly influenced by President Ngô Đ́nh Diệm and his brother, Archbishop Ngô Đ́nh Thục, of South Vietnam.
ĐỨC
CỐ LÊ
LaVang