The life of the servant of God, Cardinal François Xavier Nguyen van Thuân, is an eloquent sign of hope tested with immense suffering, unimaginable injustice yet fortified in the heroic living of the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. The brave Cardinal had to endure incredible hardships such as hunger, cold as well as the hatred of one imprisoned. Van Thuân was an innocent victim of the Vietnamese totalitarian regime which unscrupulously kept him imprisoned without accusing him of anything, simply because he was deemed “dangerous”. He was coadjutor archbishop of Saigon when the city surrendered to communist control in 1975. Shortly after this incident, he was thrown into a re-education camp for some 13 years.
Notwithstanding the terrible persecution he suffered, the Vietnamese prelate had great faith in God. He strongly believed that God had designed a plan to deliver him from that brutal life. The holy archbishop harboured hope against all hope and, fully imbued with the Gospel spirit, he loved his persecutors to the end. His Christlike love deeply impressed some of his persecutors to the point that it brought them to their knees asking for God’s forgiveness in utter repentance. In fact, when asked what mainly caught his attention concerning Cardinal Van Thuân, Dr Waldery Hilgeman, postulator in Rome for the cause of beatification of the Vietnamese archbishop, declared: “Something that touches me in his spirituality is the constancy of his love of neighbour. Throughout his imprisonment he did not cease to love those who were his persecutors, from the highest officials of the regime, to the guard of lowest rank.”
Cardinal Van Thuân was perceived by his enemies as being a dangerous man for an empty system which failed miserably. His postulator, Dr Hilgeman, stated that “there never was a real accusation, as there was no trial and even less so a sentence. Hence, to be able to tell you of what he was accused, is a great question for us as well. There are many aspects in the social context of that time that point to this bishop as dangerous for an empty system, based on nothing, as is that of Communism. However, there was no formal accusation.”
During his confinement, he cared for his faithful by writing secret messages to them, several of which have been collected and published.
The postulator unravelled these secret messages, which revealed that the Servant of God was well aware from the start “that God was asking him to give Him all, to leave everything and to live for God”. Dr Hilgeman explained that “because the cardinal understood − especially in the first period of his imprisonment − something very strong, which is this: the work of God is God. And already as archbishop coadjutor he lived for the work of God. And he perceived that with his imprisonment God was asking him to leave his work and to live only for Him.”
Concerning the anecdotes of the cardinal’s detainment, Dr Hilgeman called to mind the conversion of many of his prison guards. The postulator said that “with his total love for these people, he demonstrated what the love of Christ is; without being able to preach, without being able to speak directly of Christ with these people, with his example of the incarnate Christ he was able to convert them, which is a unique aspect”. What was Van Thuân’s secret for his evangelising success? His humble and attentive listening to Jesus!
In effect, while being kept in Phú Khánh prison in solitary confinement, the Vietnamese archbishop recorded the following message on 7 October 1976: “I am happy here, in this cell, where white mushrooms are growing on my sleeping mat, because You are here with me, because You want me to live here with You. I have spoken much in my lifetime: now I speak no more. It’s Your turn to speak to me, Jesus; I am listening to You”.
Is this not the principal quality of any effective evangeliser today, as was the case with Cardinal Van Thuân, an outstanding witness to hope?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
SAN GWANN