Servant of God Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (1928-2002) spent 12 years in prison under the Communists, nine in solitary confinement.
A nephew of South Vietnam’s first president, Ngô Đình Diệm, Văn Thuận was born in Hue, entered the seminary in 1941 as an adolescent, and was ordained a priest in 1953.
He was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Saigon on April 24, 1975. Six days later, the city fell to the Communists. Because of his ties to the government, and his Catholicism, he was arrested and sent to a “re-education camp.”
In his prison cell, he made a tiny Bible out of paper scraps, fashioned a crucifix from bits of wood and wire smuggled in by sympathetic guards, and on the backs of old calendars, he wrote messages of hope and strength that a young boy whose help he had solicited copied out and distributed to outside members of the faithful.
He took a personal, loving interest in the prison guards, considering them part of his extended family. He taught them English, Latin, French, and catechetics.
The “10 Rules of Life” he devised include: “I will have only one wisdom: the science of the cross,” “I will speak one language and wear one uniform: charity,” and “I will have one very special love: the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
Sister Maria Thuận Nguyen of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia writes of Văn Thuận’s time in prison: “He turned the concentration camp into a cathedral and the palm of his hand into an altar. He turned his shirt pocket into a tabernacle and turned the darkness of the sleeping quarters into a dwelling place for Light Himself.”
Văn Thuận himself said of his 13 years of incarceration that it was God’s turn to speak and for him to listen, and that he was happy in his stifling, dark, dank cell.
“I have Eucharistic adoration in silence every night at 9:00,” he later wrote, “softly singing the Tantum Ergo and the Salve Regina, and concluding with this short prayer: ‘Lord, now I am content to suffer everything from your hands: all the sadness, the suffering, the anguish, even my death. Amen.’ ”
He was released on the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady in 1988, exiled until 1991, and made an official of the Roma Curia soon after by Pope St. John Paul II. He held the post of president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1998 to 2002, and was appointed to the College of Cardinals in 2001.
His simplicity and humility were legendary. Kishore Jayabalan, an official at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the time, recalled their first meeting: “[Cardinal Thuận] came in to see me unannounced and without any fanfare; I didn’t even recognize him and thought it was some old priest who happened to work there coming to say hello. It was only when I saw his pectoral cross that I realized who he was.”
Văn Thuận’s book, “The Road of Hope: A Gospel from Prison” (Wellspring, $17.95), was born in 1975 while the cardinal was under house arrest and the government was preparing its “evidence” against him.
The thousand or so short entries on such subjects as perseverance, the interior life, renewal, and charity were meant to be notes of encouragement to his flock, who he knew were also facing persecution. The pages were smuggled out of his prison, assembled in secret, and widely disseminated throughout Vietnam, to both Christians and non-Christians.
A sampling:
On humility: “If you really knew yourself, you would find it amusing that some people praise you and logical that others hold you in contempt. In fact, you could be surprised that they do not treat you even more harshly.”
On sacrifice: “If you do not practice external sacrifice, the chances are that you do not practice interior sacrifice either. Mortification of the senses is most important. Remember, David fell because he did not keep his eyes from wandering.”
On wisdom: “The world is not changed by action, but by ideas which direct action.”
On charity: “Loving others does not mean that you have to lavish signs of affection on them or spoil them in any way. In fact, loving them may occasionally mean that you must cause them some discomfort for the sake of truth or for their own good.”
On Mother Mary: “Mary lived completely for Jesus. Her only vocation was to share in his work of redemption. All the honor she receives derives from him. Were it not for the fact that she gave the world its Savior and then lived her entire life for him, her being would be meaningless and insignificant. Likewise, your own life will be meaningless and insignificant if you are separated from Jesus.”
At the completion of the diocesan phase of his cause for beatification, held in July 2013, Pope Francis told the Vietnamese delegation, “So many people have written to tell of graces [received] and signs attributed to the intercession of the Servant of God Cardinal Văn Thuận. We thank the Lord for this venerable brother, son of the East, who ended his earthly journey in the service of the Successor of St. Peter.”
