Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:08 Page 1

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan

by Ethel Tolansky and Helena Scott

All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:08 Page 2

2

Contents Archbishop Thuan and Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Early Life: Joy and Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Bishop Thuan: Witness to Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Cardinal Thuan: The Final Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Note on the name Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan Nguyen is the family name. Van is a second family name. Thuan is the given name. Vietnamese Christians often place their Christian name – in this case Francis Xavier – before the family name.

The Vietnamese never call people by their family name, so Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan may properly be referred to as Cardinal Thuan.

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:08 Page 3

3

Archbishop Thuan and Vietnam The feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, 15th August, had always been one of the favourite feast-days of the Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon, Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan.

In 1975 it was a day that changed his life dramatically.

Archbishop Thuan had been appointed to his post the previous April, and had now been in the former Saigon, now re-named Ho Chi Minh City, for just over three months, a period of uneasy quiet between himself and the new Communist authorities. He knew that they would eventually make a move against him, since he was, through his mother, a member of the well-known Ngo Dinh family, whose members had been prominent in the service both of the Church and of the State of Vietnam before the Communist takeover. Moreover, as Bishop of Nha Trang, he had warned the faithful of his diocese against the errors of Communism in pastoral letters. Wellintentioned intermediaries now tried to persuade him either personally or by letter, to return quietly to his former diocese, Nha Trang, or at least leave Ho Chi Minh City, to avoid being arrested. Archbishop Thuan explained simply that he could not leave his new diocese unless ordered to do so by the Vatican. As always, he left everything in God’s hands, prayed, and waited.

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:08 Page 4

4

Communist take-over On 13th August Archbishop Thuan heard that the Communist authorities had ordered all the Catholic priests in Ho Chi Minh City to attend a meeting on 15th August at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, at the Old Parliament Building. On that day, he and Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh were officially summoned to meet Communist officials at the Independence Palace, in a different part of the city. It was clear that the meeting for priests had been set up in order to prevent them from interfering with anything that was done to the two Archbishops.

The Communists of North Vietnam had taken over Saigon on 30th April, 1975. Just seven days before that, Pope Paul VI had appointed Bishop Thuan as Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon, with automatic right to succeed Archbishop Binh. The Communists smelt a plot: to set up, as leader of Vietnam’s Catholics, a highly successful and popular man, and furthermore, one with family connections in politics – his uncle Ngo Dinh Diem had been a former President of South Vietnam, assassinated in 1963.

Arrest The outcome of the summons to Independence Palace on 15th August 1975 was Archbishop Thuan’s arrest. Then he did indeed return to Nha Trang, being put under strict house arrest in the parish of Cay Vong there. So began thirteen years of various types of imprisonment, nine of

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:08 Page 5

5

which he was to spend in solitary confinement in horrendous conditions. When first ordained a bishop, Thuan had taken as his episcopal motto the Latin words Gaudium et Spes – Joy and Hope – the title of one of the outstanding documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Circumstances had been difficult and challenging enough at the time, but now this motto was to mean more and more to him as his pastoral and spiritual life took a completely new turn. As he was driven the 250 miles from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang, he prayed: “I have been arrested on the Feast of the Assumption, on the day the Church celebrates the glorious ascent of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven. She, who shows me the way to eternal life, will tell me what to do with my remaining days on earth.”

Background history Vietnam, now an independent Socialist state, is a long narrow country running down the east coast of the Indochinese peninsula in South East Asia, bounded on the east and south by the Gulf of Tongking and the South China Sea, on the west by Laos and Cambodia, and on the north by China. Vietnam was under Chinese domination for many centuries. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to land there, in the sixteenth century.

They were followed in the seventeenth century by Dutch, French and English traders, and French missionaries. In

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 6

6

1802 the regions of Tongking in the north, Annam in the centre, and Cochin-China in the south united to become the Empire of Vietnam. This was soon, however, to be overrun by the French, who first established protectorates in the three zones of the country and then, in 1887, formed the “French Indo-Chinese Union” comprising Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

In part, this progressive takeover was in response to the fierce persecutions of Christians, both French missionaries and native Vietnamese, which had been a constant feature of Vietnamese history for the previous three hundred years. In the fifty years leading up to the French takeover, it is estimated that 300,000 Christians were either martyred or subjected to extreme hardships designed to make them renounce their faith. The memories, both distant and recent, of the sufferings the martyrs had gone through and the witness they had borne to Christ, have always been an inspiration to Vietnamese Catholics and have strengthened them in their faith.

World War II During the Second World War (1939-1945), Vietnam was occupied by the Japanese. In 1941 the North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, formed a political/military force including both Vietnamese nationalists and Communists, called the “League for the Independence of Vietnam”, or Viet Minh, whose aim was to liberate Vietnam from the

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 7

7

Japanese and then gain independence from France. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, moves to gain independence from France resulted in the War of IndoChina, which started in 1946 and concluded in 1954 with the withdrawal of the French after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in the north of Vietnam.

The Emperor, Bao Dai, abdicated as Head of State in 1955 and the Republic of Vietnam was partitioned into the Communist Republic in the north, often referred to as the “Vietcong�, and the State of Vietnam in the south.

The last French troops finally left South Vietnam in 1956, and great numbers of refugees fled from North Vietnam to the South to escape the Communists.

Vietnam War Armed conflicts between the two parts of the country escalated into full-scale civil war in 1964, and America, fearing the spread of Communism in South-East Asia, sent troops and military supplies to support the south, while the Soviet Union in response supported the north.

The war lasted until 1975, causing huge numbers of deaths and immense suffering, with refugees constantly moving from one part of the country to another in search of safety. Relying on informal American promises of continuing support, the President of South Vietnam signed a peace deal with the North in 1973 (the Paris Peace Accords), and the last American troops left

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 8

8

Vietnam at the end of March that year. With a change of President in America, however, it became clear that no American support was to be forthcoming, and by mid1975 the Communists of North Vietnam had completed their takeover of the South.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese emigrated over the following thirty years to escape the Communist regime, some by normal channels, but very many as “boat people” – escaping by sea without tickets or documents in the hope of being granted asylum in any country they managed to reach. They underwent terrible sufferings and many died en route. Communities of Vietnamese expatriates now exist in very many countries around the world.

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 9

9

Early Life: Joy and Hope Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was born on 17th April 1928 in the parish of Phu Cam, in the city of Hue in central Vietnam. His father was Thaddeus Nguyen Van Am, and his mother was Elizabeth Ngo Dinh Thi Hiep. He was the eldest of their eight surviving children; their first baby had died in a cholera epidemic at the age of two, just six months before Thuan’s birth. This early tragedy, in which they were supported by their devout faith, may have been why his parents chose the name “Thuan” for their son: it means “conforming to the will of God”.

Thuan’s family, on both his father’s and his mother’s side, were closely united, intelligent and gifted. They were deeply religious, and also ardent patriots working for an independent Vietnam. It was a Catholic family, proud to be the descendents of martyrs. His father was very strict, but a wise and dedicated man; his mother was also wise and capable. He had a very happy childhood. His parents taught their children to be devout and truthful. All his life Thuan preserved a deeply-felt love for the beauty of the Vietnamese landscapes and the sea.

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 10

10

Early Vocation Between the ages of six and twelve, Thuan went to school at the Pellerin Institute in Hue, run by the Brothers of Christian Schools, a French missionary religious order.

He made his First Holy Communion when he was ten. He always loved to learn about and practise his faith, and soon came to feel that God might call him to the priesthood when he was old enough. Accordingly he asked his parents if he could enter the An Ninh Minor Seminary, which was about a hundred miles north of Hue and was run by the Paris Foreign Missionary Society. He entered An Ninh in August 1940 and studied there for seven years, going home to Hue for the holidays. He loved his time there and worked very hard, benefiting from all the subjects and reading deeply. The surroundings were extremely beautiful and Thuan, who loved nature, drank in the scenery. The food provided was not so good, and many years later he remarked that living on the food in An Ninh had been an excellent preparation for surviving on prison fare, which was often atrocious.

Thuan was highly intelligent and gifted with a remarkable memory. At An Ninh Minor Seminary he exercised and developed his intellectual capacity in training for his later life. His brilliance did not usually strike people straight away because he never made a parade of it. His phenomenal memory was evident later,

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 11

11

during his various imprisonments, when he drew extensively on his recollections of spiritual books, said Mass from memory, recited and taught others hymns in Latin, and so on.

La Vang Shrine In the Autumn of 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, Thuan and some of his schoolmates went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of La Vang. This was where Our Lady had appeared to some Catholics who had fled into the jungle during a particularly fierce period of persecution in the 1790s. She promised them her protection and saved them from despair, giving them the courage to rebuild their lives and keep their faith.

Afterwards a church was built on the site and became a centre for Vietnamese Catholics’ devotion to Mary. Thuan and his friends prayed to her for continuing protection for their country, menaced by Japanese expansionism, and torn between support for the forces opposing Nazism, and a longing for independence which produced growing resentment of the French colonisers.

At the end of the Second World War Thuan was finishing his fourth year at the Minor Seminary. Like most of the world he was horrified by the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs. He learned to pray for all, making no distinction in his heart between sufferers, even if they were his family’s or his country’s

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 12

12

enemies. It was the beginning of a long interior battle to deepen in forgiveness and overcome resentment.

Ordained priest In 1947, aged 19, he entered the Phu Xuan Major Seminary to begin his studies for the priesthood in earnest, embarking on a two-year course in philosophy followed by four years of theology. He was ordained to the priesthood on 11th June 1953, by Bishop JeanBaptiste Urrutia of Hue, and celebrated his first Mass the following day in the presence of his family, in the cathedral at Phu Cam. On becoming a priest, Thuan consciously committed himself to a life of love, prayer and service, in obedience to his Bishop. He was looking forward passionately to beginning his pastoral work as a priest among the Catholics of his country, and especially the very poorest.

At the same time he was completely open to discovering and following God’s will, wherever it might lead. Like all Catholics in Vietnam at that time, he knew that the stormy time they had already gone through was certainly not the end of their problems.

He was first sent to Tam Toa parish in Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh, about one hundred miles to the north of Hue. He was assistant to the parish priest there, Father Tam, who started training him in the various areas of parish pastoral work. However, Father Thuan soon developed

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 13

13

serious symptoms and was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis. Less than three months after arriving in Tam Toa, he was rushed back to Hue for treatment.

Serious illness cured Father Thuan’s condition turned out to be so serious that the doctors at the hospital in Hue sent him to Saigon in December of the same year, 1953, where better treatment would be available. However, the doctors at the first hospital he was taken into refused to operate. It was clear that he would need to have part if not all of one lung removed, and there was a very high risk that he would not survive such an operation. In April 1954 he was moved to the Grall French military hospital, also in Saigon. He was to have the operation on 5th May. That morning the surgeon asked for one final X-ray to be taken before he started the operation. To the doctors’ utter amazement, all traces of tuberculosis had disappeared, and both his lungs were sound and healthy. Father Thuan, who had been preparing to die, said simply, “It’s a miracle,” and thanked God and his Blessed Mother, while asking for light to see what they wanted him to do with his unexpectedly restored health.

Parish priest About a month later, instead of returning to his original parish, he was asked to assist the parish priest of St

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 14

14

Francis in Hue. It was a large parish, and most of the parishioners were French. However, after the disastrous defeat of French forces by the Viet Minh at the beginning of May 1954, it was clear to everyone that the time of the French settlers was coming to an end. They would soon be leaving Vietnam, and nobody knew what sort of vacuum their going would create, or how it would be filled. Father Thuan worked hard to help with this time of transition and build up the parish for the Vietnamese parishioners. Some months later he was made chaplain of the Pellerin Institute, his own junior school, as well as of Saigon’s Central Hospital and its prisons. It was his first encounter with prison life, which he was later to experience for thirteen long years as a prisoner himself.

Communist threat In October 1955, after a referendum, the position of Emperor was abolished and Vietnam became a republic.

The partition of Vietnam into north and south was formalised, with Ho Chi Minh remaining leader of the Communist north, and Father Thuan’s maternal uncle Ngo Dinh Diem being appointed President of the south.

By the end of April 1956 the last French troops left Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees flooded southwards from the north side of the divide. They were mainly Catholics desperate to escape Communist rule, which they had every reason to fear

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 15

15

would involve harsh persecution of the Christian faith.

From their family memories and traditions, they knew only too well the extremes to which anti-Christian persecution could be carried.

Studies in Rome Father Thuan’s Bishop was keenly aware of the need for well-instructed Vietnamese clergy who could guide the Church in Vietnam after all the foreign missionaries had left or been sent out of the country. Seeing in Father Thuan a gifted and dedicated priest with a flair for languages, he decided to send him to Rome to study for a doctorate in Canon Law at the Urbaniana University.

Father Thuan arrived in Rome in the late summer of 1956. While studying and doing research for his doctorate, he lived at the Collegio San Pietro, and made very good use of his time in Rome and Europe. He revelled in the rich architecture, which he was all the more keenly aware of since his father’s family were architects and builders, and his father had made a point of educating him in an appreciation of building construction and design. Father Thuan also soon realised the vast resources of books that were available to him during his all-too-brief stay in Rome, and made the most of them in the time he had.

Above all, he appreciated the opportunity to meet and learn from all sorts of different people in the Church, and

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 16

16

see for himself what the universality of the Catholic Church meant. With his uncle, Bishop Thuc of Hue, he attended an audience with Pope Pius XII, for whom he felt enormous admiration and reverence. He also met Bishop Juan Hervas, one of the founders of the Cursillos de Cristiandad movement, in Rome, and learned a lot from him.

Trials and sufferings During his time in Rome he made many friends and took advantage of being in Europe to visit other countries besides Italy. In the summer of 1957 he travelled to Ireland and then France, making a pilgrimage to Lourdes. There he prayed about Our Lady’s message to St Bernadette, “I do not promise you joy and consolation on this earth, but rather trials and suffering.” In God’s presence, Thuan freely took this message as addressed to him personally, and accepted in advance the trials and sufferings that his life would bring, for love of God. Leaving Lourdes, he went straight to the shrine of Our Lady at Fatima in Portugal to renew his self-dedication to Our Lady.

Father Thuan’s Canon Law doctoral thesis was on the organisation of military chaplains around the world. He was awarded his doctorate in the summer of 1959. He had intended to spend one last summer visiting different places in Europe, but then came the news that his aunt, Hoang, was terminally ill with cancer. As his family

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 17

17

meant so much to him he changed his plans and travelled back to Vietnam as fast as he could, but, delayed by visa problems, he was unable to get home before she died.

Back to An Ninh Seminary His first job on his return was as teacher at An Ninh Minor Seminary. Because the original site of An Ninh was on the wrong side of the demarcation line which now separated North and South, the Minor Seminary had moved to Phu Xuan (previously his own major seminary).

The seminarians from Phu Xuan had moved to Saigon.

Late in the following year he was appointed Rector of the Phu Xuan Seminary. At this point he undertook construction of a new Minor Seminary so that the major seminarians could move back to Phu Xuan. With his ingrained love of building design, as well as his practical experience of living and studying in a seminary on both sides of the student-teacher divide, he was able to contribute a great deal to the work of designing the new Minor Seminary, which was called Hoan Thien. It took two years to complete, and opened in autumn 1962.

Pope Pius XII had died in 1958 while Thuan was still in Rome, and his successor, Pope John XXIII, convoked the Second Vatican Council, which began on 11th October 1962. Pope John died the following year, but Pope Paul VI, who succeeded him, decided to continue the Council. In Vietnam, Thuan mourned the

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 18

18

death of Pope John, whom he had loved and venerated, and did all he could to keep abreast of the news and developments in Rome.

In May 1963 Vietnam was convulsed by what became known as the “Buddhist Affair”. The vast majority of Vietnamese were Buddhists, but many of them felt they were discriminated against by the President (Thuan’s maternal uncle), who was a Catholic. Stirred up by a leading Buddhist monk, some Buddhists demonstrated outside the radio station in Hue. The demonstration was interrupted by an explosion which killed eight people.

The cause of the explosion remained unclear, but it was immediately blamed on the Government and ultimately on President Ngo Dinh Diem himself. Trouble continued, and on 1st November some of the army generals, with the support of American elements, staged a coup. Diem and his brother Nhu were assassinated the following day.

Ngo Dinh Diem This is not the place to discuss the figure of Ngo Dinh Diem, Thuan’s mother’s brother; still less to follow in detail the complicated political and military story of twentieth-century Vietnam. Ngo Dinh Diem had been briefly prime minister and afterwards president of South Vietnam. Cardinal Thuan was very close to all his family, particularly his maternal uncles, and had spent a long time listening to them and discussing things with them in his

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 19

19

formative years. He learned much from their insights, but when Diem became President of South Vietnam in 1955, while Thuan was still a young priest, Thuan saw the danger of accepting the help and support which his uncle would very willingly have given him, and resolved to avoid it at all costs. It could have led to a sort of nepotism – precisely what Diem was accused of by his detractors.

Thuan always said frankly that the picture of Diem presented by the Vietnamese and world media after the Communist takeover of Vietnam was completely divorced from the reality of the man he had known. He considered that Diem was a sincerely good, wise and contemplative man, whose dedication to his country and deep faith led him to take on the impossible task of trying to keep Vietnam both independent and free.

More conflict in Vietnam After his uncles’ deaths, Father Thuan struggled hard to be able to forgive their murderers, praying not to give way to bitterness and the temptation to despair. Vietnam’s situation was clearly desperate, as the Communists in the North were being backed first by China and then by Russia, and the regime in the South was being supplied with weapons and military by America, who virtually controlled government and army alike. Conflict soon broke out in the South between the Buddhist activists and the army generals who had staged the coup and were now

b. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan_Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan 30/10/2012 11:09 Page 20

20

in government. Father Thuan knew that a Communist takeover was ultimately almost inevitable, which would spell the end of religious freedom.

Added to all this was Father Thuan’s concern for his mother, who had been so deeply affected by the deaths of her brothers – including a third, Can, who was imprisoned after the coup and tried and executed in May 1964 – that she eventually suffered a complete collapse. She was taken into hospital in Saigon, where she slowly regained her health. Throughout her illness she continued to be a source of moral strength to Father Thuan, and helped him enormously with her example of deep faith and spirituality.