St. Ignacio Delgado y Cebrian

Having entered the Dominican Order, Ignacio Delgado y Cebrian, of Villa Felice, Spain, was in his late twenties when he was sent to the missions in Vietnam. Thereafter he spent nearly fifty years ministering to Vietnamese Catholics. He was not yet forty when he was consecrated a bishop and appointed vicar apostolic of the Vietnamese region of East Tonkin. In 1838, during the ongoing persecution of Vietnamese Catholics under the emperor Minh Mang, Bishop Delgado was arrested after a boy revealed his hiding place to government officials. When interrogated, the aged bishop refused to divulge any information that would have compromised the safety of his fellow Catholics. He was imprisoned in a cage, suffering prolonged exposure to tropical sunlight. Hunger and dysentery led to his death on July 21, 1838. Afterwards, soldiers beheaded Bishop Delgado's body and discarded his remains in a river, but sympathetic fishermen recovered these relics, which were subsequently given an honorable burial by his successor, (Saint) Jeronimo Hermosilla.