Saint Michael Hồ Đình Hy

Michael Hồ Đình Hy (胡廷僖; 1808– 22 May 1857) was a Vietnamese mandarin official who was martyred for his Roman Catholic belief during the persecutions by Emperor Tự Đức. He was canonized in 1988 along with another 116 Vietnamese Martyrs. Hồ Đình Hy was born to Christian parents in Cochinchina, and was by profession a wealthy silk trader. The youngest of five surviving children out of twelve, he was married to a Christian from another family and had two sons and three daughters. Like other Christians at the time, they practiced their faith in private. At age 21, he was made mandarin of the fifth order and appointed Superintendent of the royal silk mills. Eventually, he rose to become grand mandarin of the third order and appointed to be Steward of the King's household. He was one of a few trusted officials who traveled abroad to conduct trades with other countries like Singapore and Malaysia. At the height of Christian persecution, when his eldest son requested to become a priest, he arranged to have him study in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). After his remaining son died at the age of 12, Hồ Đình Hy declined to have his elder son returned home, according to Confucian traditions, citing he could not protect his own faith. During his thirty-one years at the emperor's post, he performed many charitable acts to local unfortunates and helped to transport French and Portuguese missionaries on the waterways through his region under the guise of official business. His quick planning helped the missionaries to travel through Vietnam discreetly and safely. The memoirs wrote that he personally traded his official robe as payment when the ship that transported the bishop of Society of Foreign Missions of Paris accidentally caused damages to a local merchant ship. He also offered clemency to robbers of the royal silk mill when they were captured. He was entrusted to guard missionaries' written records.