07/09/2026
Miracles Attributed to the Intercession of the Vietnamese Martyrs
Officially Recognized by the Holy See
Prepared for the internet by Vietnamese Missionaries in Taiwan
Excerpted from "The Cause of Canonization," by Monsignor Vincent Trần Ngọc Thụ, published 1987, United States
The miracles presented below were not attributed to any single individual martyr, but occurred when the faithful — both Vietnamese and foreign — prayed in a general manner: "Through the merits of the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam" or "Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, pray for us." These miracles are therefore collective in character, and their recognized value belongs to the entire group of the Vietnamese Martyrs.
The first three miracles (nos. 1, 2, 3 below) are the official miracles — that is, those formally examined by the Holy See with the assistance of the relevant medical commissions and officially recognized. They therefore carry canonical weight for the entire body of 90 martyrs beatified in the first three rounds (1900, 1906, and 1909). As for the remaining 27 martyrs (2 from the first beatification in 1900 and 25 from the fourth in 1951), the Holy See waived the requirement of a miracle prior to beatification, since the evidence of their death for the Faith was already abundantly clear.
Additional miracles (no. 4) and graces attributed to certain individual martyrs — in particular the two Bishops Valentino Berrio Ochoa and Melchor García Sampedro — have not been subjected to a formal canonical investigation and official recognition by the Holy See. Nevertheless, they remain extraordinary supernatural events, having brought about the remarkable cure of many patients; and they continue to occur to the present day.
Miracle 1
Mrs. Margarita Maria Goldsmit, England — Healed on April 4, 1853
In 1849, after a bath, Mrs. Margarita Maria Goldsmit suddenly experienced a severe chill throughout her body and suffered persistent pain for several months. In 1850, showing some improvement, she accompanied her husband to Paris — where the illness returned with greater severity. Her personal physician, Dr. Skrimpton, traveled from London to join forces with three French physicians, yet they could not enable her to walk within her own home. She remained bedridden, without appetite or sleep, until the end of 1852, when radiation treatment was attempted — only to weaken her further.
Mrs. Goldsmit was a devout woman who received Holy Communion frequently. At last, setting aside all earthly remedies, she followed her confessor's advice and made a novena in honor of the Martyrs of the Paris Foreign Missions — among them many Vietnamese martyrs whom Pope Gregory XVI had declared Venerable in 1840 and 1843. Throughout those nine days, she wore a reliquary containing the relics of several martyrs. The novena began on March 27, 1853. The final night brought an intensification of her suffering, but on the morning of April 4, 1853, after receiving Holy Communion, she remained kneeling in thanksgiving, the reliquary clasped tightly in her hands.
Suddenly she felt a stirring within her — as though an interior voice urged her to rise. She rang for the nurse, then asked for food, feeling hunger for the first time after many months of inability to eat. The nurse brought meat and bread, which she ate. She then asked to be taken by carriage to church for Mass. On the journey, she experienced none of the painful convulsions and cramps that had previously tormented her limbs. In church she sat and stood with ease, as any other worshiper. Arriving home, she felt no fatigue. Life had returned to its fullness — from that day forward, the illness was entirely gone.
Miracle 2
Sister Saint Bernard (Eleonore Rogé), Reims, France — Healed on August 23, 1854
A nursing Sister at the city hospital of Reims, she developed a bone disorder in her left leg at the age of thirty-two. Between May 1850 and April 1854, she underwent seven surgical procedures; the eighth operation on April 9, 1854 was the most serious of all. The physicians required her to wear a leg brace and subsequently a plaster cast. On May 25, 1854, her condition deteriorated severely, with the nerve pain spreading from her left leg to the entire cranial nerve network — the pain was so acute that she lost consciousness for an extended period and was believed dead by those present. In fact she lay in this state for fifteen days and nights. It was deemed appropriate to transfer her from the hospital to the motherhouse to prepare for death; she begged to remain and await whatever God would send.
Providence intervened. A priest, a family friend, came to visit and bid farewell before entering the Paris Foreign Missions seminary for the priesthood. A month later, he wrote to tell her that the Society was pursuing the beatification of the martyrs of China and Vietnam, and he proposed that she make a novena asking for their intercession; he promised to unite his own prayers with those of the Society on her behalf. The novena began on August 15, 1854 — the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of All Martyrs — invoking all the missionaries and faithful who had died for the Faith.
Meanwhile, her leg continued to swell daily and dark bruising was clearly visible; she could not sleep. But on the morning of August 23, 1854 — the last day of the novena — Sister Saint Bernard asked to go down to the chapel. Supporting herself on a crutch under one arm and leaning on another Sister with the other, she dared not let her left foot touch the ground. She sat in her place, fixed her eyes on the Tabernacle and the image of Our Lady, and felt an inner transformation she could not describe. She said to herself: "Could it truly be that I am to be healed through the intercession of so many Martyrs? Lord, it was for You that they shed their blood. Our Lady, it is your own Son for whom they suffered their torments."
After Mass, she left the chapel at eight o'clock, using the crutch under both arms, and cautiously allowed her left foot to touch the floor. She continued to the end of the novena. By midday, she was moving with the support of only a cane.
At half past three in the afternoon, she attended Vespers with the community, seated beside the Mother Superior. Near the end of the hour, she suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her left leg — then complete relief. Sister Saint Bernard rose unaided, her hands free of any support, and walked the twenty meters to the statue of Our Lady to kneel in thanksgiving. The entire community looked on in astonished joy. Then all rose with the Mother Superior and together sang the Magnificat in thanksgiving to Almighty God.
Miracle 3
Miss Dolores Conflans, Vic, Spain — Healed of Spinal Paralysis on June 8, 1888
Miss Dolores Conflans, a native of the city of Vic, had been completely paralyzed in the spine since the age of eighteen and had lain bedridden for eleven years. The pain had spread to her shoulder blades and both arms. She was emaciated — barely skin and bones — unable to eat substantially. The slightest movement of her fingertips required enormous effort and prolonged time. Five physicians had taken turns treating her, yet none could enable her to take more than a few steps. When Dr. Torres first examined her in 1879, he described her condition as "a concrete lesion" — more precisely, "total physical destruction of the organ" (lesione materiale, o distruzione dell' organo).
At the suggestion of others, she asked to be taken to the shrine of the Vietnamese Martyrs then being prepared for their second beatification in 1906. There she prayed fervently — above all to the martyr-priest Father Amato, a native son of Vic whose relics were enshrined in that very church. She attended Holy Mass. At the moment the celebrant received the Most Blessed Sacrament, she felt a sudden ease and comfort within her body. Spontaneously, she knelt on the floor — at first steadying herself with a hand on the pew in front — made the Sign of the Cross, then rose to her feet unaided and remained standing through the reading of the final Gospel.
Miss Dolores Conflans remained in the shrine, attended a second Mass, heard the homily, received Holy Communion, and then went to the adjacent Dominican Sisters' convent, where she had breakfast. She remained there until eight o'clock in the evening. That afternoon she walked through the convent, and in the evening joined the Corpus Christi procession held in the convent courtyard — carrying a candle and participating like any other Sister.
Dr. Pellegrini, one of the five treating physicians, re-examined all the affected areas of Miss Dolores Conflans's body and attested: "After consulting with the other four physicians, we cannot explain by any medical means the extraordinary recovery of Miss Dolores Conflans."
Miracle 4
Miss Adela Mac Master, Mexico City — September 4, 1959
Miss Adela Mac Master had developed cancer of the middle finger of her left hand. What began as a small growth at the tip of the finger swelled day by day to the size of a lychee fruit, spreading pain throughout the entire hand — an agony every time she moved or accidentally touched anything. The physicians declared that the only recourse was surgery and amputation of the finger. The patient wept in terror at the prospect.
To comfort his beloved daughter, her father decided to act as an impromptu physician himself — rubbing the finger with Bengué ointment and then, when bandaging the wound, wrapping around it a piece of cloth containing a relic of the martyred Bishop Valentino Berrio Ochoa, who had died for the Faith at Hải Dương in 1861.
On the morning of September 4, 1959, the entire family went to a Dominican church, intending to request a Mass of petition "through the merits of the martyr-saint." The rector informed them, however, that the earliest available date was September 27, as all previous dates had already been reserved. Nonetheless, that very afternoon, young Adela — aged twenty-three — jumped up from her place, ran to find her mother and sister, and cried out joyfully: "Mama, look at my finger — it doesn't hurt anymore!" The cancerous growth had completely disappeared; the finger had returned entirely to normal, without any trace of the lesion. The physicians called in to examine her were left speechless before this extraordinary act of divine power.
Miracle 5
Saint Bishop Valentino Berrio Ochoa Continues His Intercession
A particularly notable feature is that Saint Bishop Valentino Berrio Ochoa continues to work healings in a great many cases. In the city of Bilbao, Spain, a Secretariado Berrio Ochoa Dominicos (Berrio Ochoa Secretariat) was established, and a document on the miracles received through the patronage of "Saint Valentino Berrio Ochoa and His Fellow Martyrs" was published on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, 1827–1927.
That document records the following:
From June 1908 to May 1985, counting only petitions addressed specifically to Saint Valentino Berrio Ochoa alone: 116 miraculous healings were recorded.
From December 1978 to February 1986, counting petitions addressed to Saint Valentino Berrio Ochoa and his fellow martyrs: 21 collective miracles (miraculum globale) were recorded.
Additionally, two miraculous healings were obtained through the intercession of Saint Melchor García Sampedro (martyred in Nam Định on July 28, 1858).
In reality, all the patients healed did return to give thanks and record their names. However, the miracles described in items 4 and 5 above did not undergo the formal canonical process of investigation as did miracles 1, 2, and 3. Nevertheless, these events bear powerful witness to the deep and widespread devotion that the faithful — especially the sick — hold for the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, and they testify to the fact that Divine Providence confirms the authority of these holy martyrs before the throne of God.
