Catholic News Service: Phu Nguyen, a University of Portland sophomore, is descended from a saint.
Phu’s great-great-great-grandfather died for abiding by his faith. The Vatican considers the torture endured by the renowned Vietnamese martyrs among the worst in the history of Christianity.
St. Matthew Nguyen Van Phuong was born in Vietnam in 1801. After his parents died, he was raised by the local priest in Quang-Binh, in the central part of the Southeast Asian nation.
Matthew married and became a devoted layman. One of his tasks was finding homes where a priest could say Mass out of sight from government officials. In a country already marked by two centuries of bloody persecution of Catholics, this took pluck. Read more here.
