Heroic virtues of Venerable Van Thuan celebrated in
Rome
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| Venerable Cardinal Francoise-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan |
The recognition of the heroic virtues of
Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan of Vietnam was
celebrated with a solemn Mass in the Church of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome
on Friday, the eve of the 15th death anniversary of the saintly prelate.
The Mass by Card. Peter Turkson the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting
Integral Human Development, celebrated the decree which Pope
Francis signed on May 4, 2017, recognizing the heroic virtues of the cardinal.
With the recognition of heroic virtues a candidate to
sainthood is conferred the title ‘Venerable Servant of God’, or simply Venerable.
This is a step just before Beatification and final Canonization or sainthood.
Card. Van Thuan was president of the Vatican’s former
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from June 24, 1998 until his
death. The council along with three other pontifical councils, viz. the
Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the Pastoral Assistance to
Health Care Workers and Cor Unum were combined by Pope Francis on August 17,
2016, into the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. The new
dicastery came in effect on January 1, 2017.
During the Mass on Friday, the eve of Card. Van Thuan’s 15th
death anniversary, the entire decree of heroic virtues of Card. Van Thuan was
read in Vietnamese and Italian.
Biography
Born on April 17, 1928, Van Thuan was ordained a priest in
1953 and consecrated bishop of Nha Trang in 1967. On 24 April 1975, six
days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese army, Pope Paul VI appointed
Van Thuan as Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon. Targeted for his
faith and being the nephew of South Vietnam's first president, Ngo Dinh Diem,
he was subsequently arrested by the communist government and held in a
"reeducation camp" or prison for 13 years, nine of which were
in solitary confinement.
Undying hope
Rather than breaking him, his imprisonment brought the best
out of him making him a beacon of Christian faith, hope and love. 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,
were later compiled into the book, “The Road of Hope.” 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 electric metal wire from which he crafted
a pectoral cross and the chain which he wore till the end.
Exile and Vatican
After his release on November 21, 1988, Thuan was prevented
from reaching his see of Ho Chi Minh City. Allowed to visit Rome in 1991,
he was barred from returning. He served for a while at the International
Catholic Commission for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland, and on 24 November
1994, St. Pope John Paul II appointed him the president of the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace. He was made a cardinal in 2001. Card. Van
Thuan passed away at the age of 74 in Rome on September 16, 2002.
The process of his beatification and canonization at the
diocesan level was initiated on October 22, 2010, and concluded on July 5,
2013.
Heroic virtues
The decree that Pope Francis promulgated in May, compares
the life of Van Thuan to a “grain of wheat that falls to the ground
and dies”, not only to bear fruit but also “to save your own life”, that is to
continue to live. It cited Pope Benedict in his encyclical, “Spe Salvi”,
where he held up the late cardinal as a “witness of hope, to that hope
which does not wane even in the nights of solitude.”
“This witness of faith, hope and charity of the Servant of
God, given generously day after day with humility and discretion, is a constant
invitation to collective holiness, which finds its greatest expression in
fidelity to God and in his reciprocal help to travel the way of holiness,” the
decree read.
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