The cause of beatification of the venerable Francisco Javier Nguyen Van Thuan is receiving a renewed attention from the Vatican, 50 years after the first prison of the cardinal by the communist government of Vietnam, according to the sister of Purpigura.
Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, younger sister of Van Thuan and Last Sister Viva, told CNA – Ewtn News agency – that the dicascery for the causes of the saints encourages Catholics to rekindle their efforts by the cause with the launch of A new website Dedicated to Cardinal Vietnamese, whose meditations on hope and forgiveness have inspired Catholics for decades.
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The next stage of the canonization process “depends on the faithful … praying to God for the intercession of the cardinal to obtain an approved miracle,” Nguyen said during a visit to Rome this week.
An official of the Dicastery for the causes of the saints confirmed to CNA that the department is working on the cause of Cardinal Van Thuan and reiterated the importance of a verified miracle so that the process advances.
Van Thuan – venerable clarified, prior step to beatification, in 2017 – was imprisoned by the communist government of Vietnam for 13 years, nine of which was in isolation. His spiritual messages, obtained clandestinely during his imprisonment, were collected and published in the book The Road of Hope: A Gospel from Prison (The path of hope: an gospel from prison).
After his release, Van Thuan was forced to leave his native country and spent his last years in Rome, where he served in the Pontifical Council for Justice and the Peace of the Vatican. In 2001, Pope John Paul II created him Cardinal.
Shortly after, Cardinal Van Thuan was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. Four months before his death, on September 16, 2002, he made a last trip to Australia to visit his family on the occasion of his mother’s centenary.
Testimony of hope in God
Nguyen, the youngest of Van Thuan’s nine brothers, wrote about his brother’s testimony in the book Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan: Man of Joy and Hope (Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan: Man of joy and hope), co -written with Fr. Stefaan Lecleir and published by Ignatius Press in April.
After writing the book, Nguyen expressed his satisfaction for contributing to the glory of God sharing his brother’s life: “Especially in these recent times in our society, when there are so much anger and so much indifference to forgiveness … I decided to write with Father Lecleir about the fact that the message (of Van Thuan) is really forgiving and having hope in God through his love.”
Nguyen attended a mass in his brother’s tomb in the Basilica of Santa Maria Della Scala in Rome on September 16, anniversary of the cardinal’s death. The Eucharist also commemorated the 50 years of its arrest and the composition of the spiritual messages that became “the path of hope”, immortalized in a newly discovered photo of Cardinal Vietnamese of 1975.
The photo, which shows Van Thuan writing on a table in 1975, was taken by a man who served in the house where the bishop was under house arrest. A Nguyen friend found her hanging on the kitchen wall of a family in Vietnam.
The sister, who was a baby when Van Thuan was ordained a priest, said that for her it was “more than a brother; it was like a mini dad.”
He shared some memories of his older brother, including the influence that his clandestine letters had in his life and his path of faith.
“For a long time, I never wanted to write (about Van Thuan) because it goes back to darker times,” said Nguyen. He described the Cardinal as a very attentive son and brother who always found time to visit his family or write during his long imprisonment and subsequent exile.
After the Vietnam War and South Vietnam’s invasion by the Norvietnamese army, Van Thuan’s parents and most of their brothers fled to Australia, Canada and the United States.
In a postcard that sent his parents in Australia in 1982, Van Thuan informed them of the recent death of two relatives in Vietnam. He added: “Joy of good health. I pray for you and my mother every day. This year, our town, Phú Cam, celebrates 300 years of having become a Catholic town. Let’s pray a lot for each other.”
As a young man, Van Thuan helped take care of his little sister, Elisabeth. As an adult, he took care of his guinea pigs and birds. Nguyen recalled the affectionate guide that his priest brother gave him during his school years.
Are you happy?
Cardinal’s sister said that growing during the Vietnam War caused her to distrust the goodness of God, and in her youth “he moved away from the Church because he said: ‘God is love, but look at all this atrocity and death in the family, and the whole country is really made pieces'”.
But her brother, more than two decades older than her, was fundamental in her return to the Catholic faith, he explained, starting when she ended her mastery in philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1974.
His master’s thesis was about existentialist philosophers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. At the request of the sister, Van Thuan read the thesis to give her opinion. As he was visiting Australia for a meeting with bishops, they had the opportunity to meet to talk about the text.
“He told me: ‘So you already found the way for life? Are you happy?'” Nguyen recalled. “And I broke to cry, because I said: ‘No, I’m not,’ I said: ‘I’m still looking for, but what am I going to do now? I ended the thesis, I can’t go back.’ He said: ‘No, teachers accept freedom of thought. You can go and tell them:’ I thought I really believed in this, but now that I wrote it, I did all the research, I am not happy. ‘”
“He never condemned me or judged me,” he said.
The following year, the Vatican named Van Thuan – who was already a bishop of Nha Trang for eight years -, Archbishop coadjutor of what was then known as Saigon. Shortly after, Saigon fell to the Norvietnamese army and, in August, Van Thuan was arrested by the communist government.
In 1979, he was transferred from a field of reeducation to house arrest, at which time he began writing messages on the back of the leaves of a calendar. He wrote a page per day and handed them hidden through a local child, according to Nguyen to CNA.
Nguyen was captivated by the force of faith he found in his brother’s letters. He “wrote a meditation on the logic of the cross, and that moved me a lot,” he said.
He hit him that he seems to have met Jesus so deeply. “I need to discover how that is, to be able to meet God like him,” he thought. “That is the one that changed my diapers, the one that took me to the sweet store.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus
Hannah Brockhaus is correspondent in Rome by Catholic News Agency. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from the State University Truman in Missouri.