The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
21 September 2003
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Heaven
scent floral feast
Welcome
strangers’ call
Bishops:
Fight racism
Bishop
Mayne dies at 75
Senate
‘yes’ to gay bid
Benedictine
nuns gather in Sydney
Tears
of joy at Marriage Sunday Mass
Donor
club
His
Holiness, the poet
Concert
to mark Pope’s jubilee
It’s
‘weakness of faith’
Still
a need for Catholic voice: Dr Pell
Editorial:
Spectre of fear
Letters:
Christian values
Conversation:
Amanda McKenna, Catholic singer and songwriter - ‘God’s messenger’ on a journey
of faith
Opintion:
‘Good mother of all ...’
Voice
of Youth: ‘Most wonderful day’
Insights:
Biblical ancestors?
Religious:
Spirit-ualities are everywhere
North
American, Irish, Australian sisters in historic Loreto reunion
Education:
Decade a day at school
Social
Work degree course at Strathfield
Balmain
kids hit right note
Catechism:
Daytime course
New
bishops ‘help God’s light shine in darkness’
Capacity
to forgive ...
‘Heroic
witness’ to the Gospel of hope
‘Kids
worth dying for’
Inspirations:
‘Schoolies’ faith patrol
‘Heroic witness’ to the Gospel of hope
Archbishop Francis P Carroll
By Archbishop Frances P Carroll
In recent years, Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, has become one of the best known and admired Catholic leaders of our time.
This thorough and detailed biography, completed just a few months before his death, will be warmly welcomed especially by the many who have been inspired by his heroic life and powerful spirituality.
The author, Andre Nguyen Van Chau, admits he was reluctant to accede to the cardinal’s request to write his life story because he felt he could not adequately convey his spirituality.
He need not have feared, as the cardinal’s spirituality shines through the clear presentation of his person and life experiences.
From one perspective the book tells a tragic story. Cardinal Thuan loved his family but saw many of them, including his uncle, President Ngo Dinh Diem, assassinated.
The cardinal was a true patriot who loved his homeland of Vietnam passionately, but saw it suffer violence and oppression, torn apart by internal conflict and subjected to the tyranny of communism.
His Catholic faith was dearer to him than life but he experienced the bloodthirsty persecution and oppressive controls inflicted on the Church.
He longed only to serve God and his people but suffered the injustice of arrest and harsh imprisonment for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement.
But, as we read the book, we experience not a tragedy but, as the title indicates, the miracle of an overwhelming story of hope.
Against the background of the complex story of Vietnam, the author describes the early life of Francis.
He grew up in a loving and faith-filled family. Clearly his parents, especially his extraordinary mother, who is still alive, played a major part in his formation.
The public and political environment of the family would be held against him later on. At an early age, he entered the seminary.
His intellectual capacity, remarkable memory and gift for languages, together with his thirst for holiness, soon pointed to his being a future leader in the Church. His own ambition was to be a simple parish priest like the humble St John Vianney.
In the detailed account of the cardinal’s family and seminary life, we see many of the influences that formed the young priest.
After ordination, his pastoral experience was rich and varied.
His being sent to Rome for further studies opened up new vistas and further confirmed his destiny for leadership.
His appointment as Bishop of Nha Trang came as no surprise.
From the beginning he knew he must prepare his people for hard times but typically took as his Episcopal motto Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope). His efforts were remarkably successful.
Following his appointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon, his arrest became even more inevitable.
The author does not over-dramatise the sufferings and hardship of the cardinal’s arrest and imprisonment that took him to the brink of insanity and the depths of abandonment.
Again, even this story of suffering reflects more of the miracle of hope than the defeat of despair. His letters to his people from prison bore the title The Road of Hope.
The harsh experience of imprisonment, matured his spirituality and total dependence on God. He emerged as a man of remarkable serenity and peacefulness to speak of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Ultimately, on the feast of Mary, to whom he was so devoted, came freedom. There followed his reunion with his parents and family in Australia and his appointment to the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace in Rome.
Pope John Paul II invited him to preach the Lenten Retreat to him and the Curia in the Jubilee Year 2000. Then on February 21, 2001, he created him a cardinal.
For the next few years, despite serious ill health, his outstanding service of the Church at international level continued.
He died on September 16, 2002, at 74. The legacy of his talks and writings lives on.
This book will further extend the spiritual message of this much loved messenger of Christian forgiveness and love and heroic witness to the Gospel of Hope.
Archbishop Carroll is Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn