Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục
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Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (chữ nôm: 吴廷俶) (approximately pronounced "Ngoh Din Took" ) (October 6, 1897–December 13, 1984), Roman Catholic Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam, was born in Huế, on October 6, 1897, of affluent Catholic parents. His younger brother, Ngô Đình Diệm, was president of South Vietnam. Cardinal François Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (1928 - 2002) was Thuc's nephew. Thuc was the principal consecrator of Bishops Antoine Nguyên Van Thien (born 1906) and Michel Nguyên Khác Ngu (born 1909), who are currently the oldest still living Roman Catholic bishops in Vietnam.[1]
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Early Ecclesiastical Career
His episcopal motto was: "Miles Christi", soldier of Christ.
Thuc entered the minor seminary in An Ninh at the age of 12. He spent eight years there before going on to study philosophy at the major seminary in Huế. After his ordination to the priesthood on December 20, 1925, he taught at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. He was then selected to study theology in Rome and returned to Vietnam in 1927 after being awarded three doctorates from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in philosophy, theology, and Canon law.
He then became a professor at the College of Vietnamese Brothers in Huế, a professor at the major seminary in Huế, and Dean of the College of Providence.
In 1938, at the age of 41, Father Thuc was chosen by Rome to direct the Apostolic Vicariate at Vinhlong. He was consecrated bishop on May 4, 1938, being the third Vietnamese priest raised to the rank of bishop. In 1957 Bishop Thuc founded the Dalat University. On November 24, 1960, Pope John XXIII named Bishop Thuc Archbishop of Huế.
Thuc's brother, Ngô Đình Khoi, was buried alive because of his refusal to become a minister in the first communist government. Thuc's three other brothers, Ngô Đình Diệm, president of South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Nhu and Ngô Đình Can, his close collaborators, were all assassinated. President Diệm was assassinated on November 1, 1963. Of all his siblings, only Thuc and Luyen escaped assassination. Luyen was serving as ambassador in London and Thuc had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. After the Council (1962-1965), for political reasons and, later on, to evade execution by the communist government of Vietnam, Archbishop Thuc was not allowed to return to his duties at home and thus began his life in exile, initially in Rome, later on in Toulon, France.
Palmar de Troya
Palmar de Troya, Spain, a town just outside of Seville, was the site of supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the late 1960s and the 1970s. The Virgin was said to have appeared to little girls and to one adult, male visionary. The visionary and founder of the Palmar movement, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez staged ecstasies and supposedly received the stigmata.[citation needed] Archbishop Thuc traveled to Spain due to the intervention of Roman Catholic Canon of Grand-Saint-Bernard Rev. Maurice Revaz, who until he had become convinced by the Palmar de Troya apparitions, had taught Canon Law at the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) seminary of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Ecône, Switzerland. Revaz left the SSPX for the Palmar de Troya group. Archbishop Lefebvre himself did not believe in the apparitions of Palmar de Troya and often warned his faithful of the many recent apparitions being reported; even more after Professor Rev. Revaz had left Lefebvre's traditionalist Roman Catholic seminary for "this fraudulent group in Palmar".[citation needed]
Archbishop Thuc initially believed the apparitions were genuine. He also decided that several men in the Palmar de Troya-based Carmelite Order of the Holy Face were worthy of receiving Holy Orders. On January 1, 1976 Archbishop Thuc consecrated Dominguez Gomez and four others to the episcopate, after having earlier ordained two of them to the priesthood on December 31, 1975. Three of the men consecrated by Thuc had already been Roman Catholic priests for a long time: among them two diocesan priests and a Benedictine father. Since the consecrations were not done with the Pope's approval, Pope Paul VI excommunicated Archbishop Thuc.
Archbishop Thuc quickly severed his ties with Palmar de Troya - not directly because of Paul VI's objections, but rather because he came to conclude that the Palmarian movement was deviant and illegitimate, and that the apparitions were in fact fraudulent. He asked for the excommunication to be lifted and to receive absolution of all ecclesial penalties, to which Pope Paul VI immediately agreed.
Dominguez Gomez and his followers however proceeded to say Mass, ordain their own priests and consecrate bishops for their initially vagant religious Congregation of supposed Carmelites, however in the end (towards the end of 1977) effectively setting up a parallel church in opposition to the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church by usurping ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Upon the death of Pope Paul VI in mid 1978, Dominguez Gomez claimed to have been mystically crowned pope in a jail, only hours after the death news reached him, founding the Palmarian Catholic Church.
Sedevacantism
Archbishop Thuc then moved to Toulon in southern France, where he had been assigned a confessional in the cathedral and at least once concelebrated the vernacular Mass of Paul VI (the New rite of Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969), until about 1981. One author says, that Thuc also served at the Masses in the new rite as an acolyte several times.[2] Thuc lived in a poorly maintained apartment in relative poverty. Being convinced of a severe crisis devastating the Roman Catholic Church and being under increasing influence of sedevacantist activists, Archbishop Thuc proceeded to consecrate several bishops without apostolic mandate of the Holy See because he was convinced he was morally obliged to secure apostolic succession in the Latin Church, considering the reformed rites for Holy Orders of Paul VI to be of doubtful validity. Thuc consecrated a Dominican priest, the famous theologian on the dogma of the Assumption (advisor to Pope Pius XII),[3] and former professor at the Pontifical Lateran University, Guérard des Lauriers. On October 17, 1981, he consecrated two Mexican priests and former seminary professors, Moises Carmona of Acapulco and Adolfo Zamora. Both of these priests were by then convinced, that the Papal See of Rome was (extraordinarily) vacant and the successors of Pope Pius XII were all heretical usurpators of papal office and power (see Sedevacantism). In February 1982, in Munich (Sankt Michael church), Archbishop Thuc issued his declaration declaring the Holy See of Peter in Rome vacant. In his declaration he intimated he desired a restoration of the hierarchy to end the vacancy, but his newly consecrated bishops instead became a fragmented group. Nevertheless a good portion of them however did limit themselves to essential sacramental ministry and did not consecrate (many) other bishops.
Left to right: Bishop Alfredo Zamora, Archbishop Thuc, Bishop Moises Carmona-Rivera
On September 25, 1982 Thuc conditionally consecrated the formerly Old Catholic bishop, Christian Datessen. It is also alleged that during this period, Archbishop Thuc consecrated various individuals of dubious character and of independent Catholic and Old Catholic tendency, allegations which were however never substantiated by proof. Many of the dubious persons claimed to have built up and "collected" many lines of apostolic succession, from several churches and sects, both Catholic, Jacobite and Eastern Orthodox. The claims by these supposedly consecrated individuals were refuted by many sources close to Archbishop Thuc, going as far as to say those questionable persons claiming to have been consecrated by Thuc, especially a certain "bishop Roux", made up stories and falsely claimed being consecrated by Archbishop Thuc.[4] Yet other persons close to Thuc say, that on the dates of the supposed consecrations, which were only claimed after Thuc had died in 1984, Thuc had been with them in a different foreign country and not where the alleged consecration by Thuc supposedly had taken place on the same day.
In total, apart from the bishops consecrated by Thuc with papal mandates in Vietnam, Thuc consecrated five bishops at Palmar de Troya, three sedevacantists in 1981, and provided an episcopal ordination sub conditione to three clerics, who presented themselves to Thuc as formerly Old Catholic clerics intended on joining the Roman Catholic Church in its traditionalist faction. This makes a total of eleven. These eleven bishops consecrated by Thuc rapidly proceeded to consecrate other bishops for all kinds of Roman Catholic splinter groups, a large portion of them Sedevacantists.
Shortly after the Datessen consecration, Archbishop Thuc departed for the United States at the invitation of Bishop Louis Vezelis O.F.M., a Franciscan former missionary priest who had agreed to receive episcopal consecration by a Thuc line bishop. Thuc took up residence in Vezelis' New York State friary.
End of life
It is alleged (by the Vezelis group in particular) that Archbishop Thuc was "abducted" by a group of Vietnamese priests while in New York and was taken to a Vietnamese monastery, recognized by the Roman Catholic diocese, in Missouri and hidden away from the contact of his (sedevacantist) friends. There he was subsequently held incommunicado. A range of wild conspiracy theories exist as to Thuc's "disappearing" from the publicly sedevacantist movement. It is however equally possible for Thuc to have joined his Vietnamese confrères after coming to the conclusion that his engagement in sedevacantism was not licit after all, or just for nostalgic reasons. It is a fact though, that Thuc posed in clerical garment with more conservative Vietnamese "Novus Ordo" clerics (priests and one bishop) during this period (1982 - 1984).[5] His Vietnamese Catholic countrymen in exile continued, despite the illicit episcopal consecrations and despite his (formerly) open sedevacantism, to view Thuc with the greatest respect and to honour him as a brave prelate. This veneration might be linked also to the assassination of his brother-president in 1963. An ethnically Vietnamese website exists honouring Thuc, but mentions no word about the illicit episcopal consecrations.[6]
It is possible he returned to union with Pope John Paul II and abjured his former position of Sedevacantism although there is no confirmation one way or the other. Under these uncertain circumstances Archbishop Thuc died at the monastery of the Vietnamese American religious Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix on December 13, 1984, at Carthage, Missouri, United States.
Controversy
Validity controversy
Some opponents of Thuc and even some sedevacantists claim that the Thuc-line episcopal consecrations might have been invalid because they allege Archbishop Thuc was no longer in mental capacity. This opposition however was sufficiently refuted by several authors.[7] Pio Cardinal Laghi, Vatican diplomat and papal nuncio to the United States, said the episcopal consecrations and subsequent ordinations and consecrations are "illicit, but valid". The Holy See itself recognized and regularized Thuc-line priest and bishop Alfred Seiwert-Fleige, who was reconciled by John Paul II. Seiwert-Fleige was allowed to function publicly as a priest, though was ordered to lay down his episcopal dignity. His Holy Orders were recognized as entirely valid. Seiwert-Fleige publicly concelebrated at a papal Mass of John Paul II at St. Peter's Square (Vatican City) in 2001. Ngo Dinh Thuc was also in mental capacity during his consecrations, as the excommunication decrees issued against Ngo Dinh Thuc and consecrated clergymen attest to this, because these do not question the sacramental validity of the Holy Orders conferred. Furthermore, Thuc was able to write an official note in Latin confirming that he consecrated Carmona and Zamora. By information of other sources it is also alleged, that the Vatican curial dicasteries have kept registries of all the Thuc-line bishops as valid episcopi vagantes. This is a logical procedure of the Vatican, as Roman Catholic doctrine requires only a valid bishop, a valid Catholic rite (Thuc used the old form of the Latin Roman Pontifical for episcopal consecrations), and imposition of hands. If these three conditions are fulfilled, a sacrament is to be considered as valid, unless the celebrant himself openly and publicly claimed of having an intention contrary to what the Church intends the rite to mean and confer.
Other possible consecrations
In addition to the consecrations above, Archbishop Thuc conditionally re-consecrated the following bishops who formerly belonged to the Old Catholic Church; Jean Laborie on February 8, 1977, and Christian Datessen on September 25, 1982. Laborie and Datessen founded their own missions. Reportedly, Archbishop Thuc conditionally re-consecrated Michel Fernandez and Jean-Marie Roger Kozik, both formerly of the Palmarian Carmelites of the Holy Face (they left when the Palmar leader declared himself "pope"), on October 19, 1978 and who returned to more or less traditionalist Roman Catholicism as episcopi vagantes. Kozik and Fernandez had been ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood by Thuc at Palmar in 1975.
It has been reported, but remains unconfirmed that Archbishop Thuc also consecrated Labat d'Arnoux on July 10, 1976, Claude Nanta de Torrini on March 19, 1977. Probably these consecrations did not take place.
This makes a total of eleven bishops consecrated by Thuc without the pontifical mandate, which is normally required for a lawfulness even though not for validity. These bishops are: five Palmarian bishops (1976), Laborie (1977), Datessen (1982), Kozik, Fernandez (1978), Guérard des Lauriers (1981) and Zamora and Carmona-Rivera (1981).
Roux controversy
Finally, there is the case of the episcopus vagans Jean Gerard Roux. Roux alleges that he was consecrated by Archbishop Thuc on April 18, 1982. However, it is reported that he was consecrated earlier and later by other vagant bishops. There remains a cloud of doubt concerning the circumstances of Roux's ordination and consecration. As a vagus who is known for having been engaged in other ways of fraudulently asserting titles and honours, Roux should be considered as not consecrated, especially given the reports under oath, that Thuc was not with Roux on the date given by Roux as his supposed consecration. Archbishop Thuc was with the Heller family in Munich on the given date (April 18) and therefore could not have consecrated a man on the very same day in Nice.[8] For more information see Jean Gerard Roux.
Fraudulent claims
Besides the Roux controversy, because of Thuc having ordained several bishops without apostolic mandate of the Pope, and because of him being a well-known, doubtlessly valid, Roman Catholic bishop, some vagant bishops and others posing as Independent Catholic clergy, claim succession from him as well as from other Roman Catholic bishops, without in reality having been ordained in their apostolic succession.[citation needed]
References
- ^ Van Thien - Roman Catholic Hierarchy; Khac Ngu - Roman Catholic Hierarchy
- ^ Rev. Fr. Noël Barbara, Fortes in fide, Nr 12.
- ^ M.L. Guérard des Lauriers, Dimensions de la Foi, Paris: Cerf, 1952.
- ^ Anthony Chadwick on Jean-Gérard Roux: 'A pathological Liar'
- ^ Photo of Thuc with Vietnamese clerics I; Photo of Thuc with Vietnamese clerics II
- ^ Website in Vietnamese on Archbishop Ngô dinh Thuc
- ^ On the validity of the Ngô Dinh Thuc consecrations. By Rev. Anthony Cekada.
- ^ Einsicht - Röm.-Kath. Zeitschrift, Dr. E. Heller, December 1993, page 95. "Da sich der Erzbischof, den ich am 29. Januar 1982 in Nizza mit dem Flugzeug abgeholt hatte, zu diesem Zeitpunkt in München befand- er flog erst am 1. Mai 1982 wieder von München nach Nizza (Abflug: 15 Uhr 35, Ankunft: 17 Uhr 05), wo er von Herrn Norrant mit dem Auto abgeholt wurde -, kann eine Weihe zu diesem Zeitpunkt nicht erfolgt sein."
"An episcopal consecration on April 18, 1982 cannot have taken place in Loano, as the Archbishop Thuc, whom I had taken with me from Nice on January 29, 1982, by plane, at that date was with me and my family in Munich - he would fly back to Nice only on May 1, 1982 (Departure 3.35 pm), where he was picked up by Mr Norrant by car. Testimony of Dr. Eberhard Heller, Munich, Germany.
External links
- Roman Catholic Hierarchy: Archbishop Ngô dinh Thuc.
- "Misericordias Domini in æternum cantabo": Autobiography by Mgr. Ngô Dinh Thuc, written ca. 1978-1980. Published in: Einsicht - röm.-kath. Zeitschrift
- In Memoriam Monseigneur Peter Martin Ngo-Dinh-Thuc by Most Rev. M.L. Guerard des Lauriers, O.P.
- Sedevacantist Declaration of Archbishop Thuc
- PDF Document of Einsicht, 1982 - Includes Photographic Documentation of most of Archbishop Thuc's consecrations
- A critical evaluation of the validity of the episcopal consecrations conferred by Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, according to Roman Catholic standards.
- "Archbishop Thuc: a brief defense by sedevacantist bishop Daniel Dolan.
| Episcopal Lineage | |
| Consecrated by: | Antonin Drapier |
| Date of consecration: | May 4, 1938 |
| Consecrator of | |
|---|---|
| Bishop | Date of consecration |
| Philippe Nguyên-Kim-Diên | January 22, 1961 |
| Michel Nguyên Khác Ngu | January 22, 1961 |
| Antoine Nguyên Van Thien | January 22, 1961 |
| Clemente Dominguez | January 11, 1976 |
| Manuel Corral | January 11, 1976 |
| Camilo Estevez | January 11, 1976 |
| Michael Donnelly | January 11, 1976 |
| Francis Sandler O.S.B. | January 11, 1976 |
| Michel Louis Guerard des Lauriers O.P. | May 7, 1981 |
| Moises Carmona | October 17, 1981 |
| Adolfo Zamora | October 17, 1981 |
