François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (pronounced [ŋʷjə̌ˀn van tʰwə̂ˀn] ( listen); 17 April 1928 – 16 September 2002) was a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. He was the nephew of South Vietnam’s first President, Ngô Đình Diệm, and of Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục.
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He was born in the Imperial capital of Huế, Vietnam. In 1941, Nguyễn Văn Thuận joined An Ninh Minor Seminary and was ordained a priest on June 11, 1953 by Mgr Jean-Baptiste Urrutia. After six years of further studies in Rome, he was appointed in 1959-1967 as a faculty member and rector of the Seminary of Nha Trang.
| Styles of François Nguyễn Văn Thuận |
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|---|---|
| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Vadesi (titular) |
He was appointed Bishop of Nha Trang on 13 April 1967 and received episcopal consecration on 4 June 1967 at Huế at the hands of Angelo Palmas, Apostolic Delegate to Viêt Nam (and later, Nuncio to Colombia and to Canada), assisted by Bishops Philippe Nguyen Kim Dien, Apostolic Administrator, sede plena, of Huế, and Jean-Baptiste Urrutia, titular archbishop of Carpato.
On 24 April 1975, he was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon. On 30 April, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, and Nguyễn Văn Thuận, targeted for his faith as well as his family connection to Ngô Đình Diệm, was detained by the communist government of Vietnam in a reeducation camp for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement.
While in prison, he smuggled out messages to his people on scraps of paper. These brief reflections, copied by hand and circulated within the Vietnamese community, have been printed in the book, The Road of Hope. Through a network of influential Overseas Vietnamese, including dignitaries, like his former classmate Monsignor Tran Van Hoai, The Road of Hope was distributed worldwide. Another book, Prayers of Hope, contains his prayers written in prison. The bishop fashioned a tiny Bible out of scraps of paper. Sympathetic guards smuggled in a piece of wood and some wire from which he crafted a small crucifix.
On 21 November 1988, Nguyễn Văn Thuận was released by the communist government but kept under house arrest in the archbishop’s house in Hanoi, impeded from returning to his see, Ho Chi Minh City. He was allowed to go on a visit to Rome in 1991 but not allowed to return. In the following year, he was given a post at the International Catholic Commission for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland. On 24 November 1994, he was appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and at the same time resigned from his post of Coadjutor Archbishop of Hanoi. As President of the Pontifical Council, he handled issues such as Third World debt.
In 1995, he was appointed Postulator of the Cause of Beatification of Brother Nguyễn Tan Văn, known as Marcel Van.[1]
On 21 February 2001, Nguyễn Văn Thuận was created a Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria della Scala. Within a week, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry eased restrictions and the Cardinal could enter his native country with only routine immigration procedures and was afforded all the privileges normally given to overseas citizens.
Nguyễn Văn Thuận died of cancer in a clinic in Rome on 16 September 2002, at the age of 74.
Prior to his death, Nguyễn Văn Thuận had appeared on lists of possible successors to Pope John Paul II.
On 16 September 2007, the fifth anniversary of the cardinal’s death, the Roman Catholic Church began the beatification process for Nguyễn Văn Thuận.[2] Pope Benedict XVI expressed "profound joy" at news of the official opening of the beatification cause.[3] Roman Catholics in Vietnam also positively received the news on beatification process opening for the cardinal. In the words of a catechist from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City, “Nguyen Van Thuan is an example of holiness for Vietnamese Catholics and for the entire world.”[4]
In his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi, Benedict referred to Thuận’s Prayers of Hope, saying,
"During thirteen years in jail, in a situation of seemingly utter hopelessness, the fact that he could listen and speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over the world a witness to hope—to that great hope which does not wane even in the nights of solitude."
Dr. Waldery Hilgeman is Postulator of the Cause for canonization of Servant of God Cardinal Văn Thuận.