St. Elizabeth Parish, Ottawa, Ontario
1303 Leaside Avenue K1Z 7R2 Ottawa, ON, Canada

St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions - November 24 During his papacy, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 117 martyrs who died for the Roman Catholic Faith in Vietnam during the nineteenth century. The group was made up of ninety-six Vietnamese, eleven Spaniards, and ten French. Eight of the group were bishops, fifty were priests and fifty-nine were lay Catholics including a nine-year-old child. Some of the priests are Dominicans, others were diocesan priests who belonged to the Paris Mission Society. The feast day, and the witnesses of the lives of the martyrs, give testament to the sufferings inflicted on the Vietnamese Church, which among the most terrible in the long history of Christian martyrdom.