Venerable Nguyen Van Thuan

Phanxicô Xaviê Nguyễn Văn Thuận, also known as Francis-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận , was a Vietnamese cardinal in the Catholic Church. He was a nephew of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm, and of Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục. Thuận, targeted for his faith as well as his family connections to Ngô Đình Diệm, was detained by the communist government of Vietnam in a re-education camp for 13 years, nine in solitary confinement. Pope Francis named him as Venerable on 4 May 2017, a significant step on the road towards canonization. Thuận was born in Huế in 1928, the son of Nguyễn Văn Ấm and Elizabeth Ngô Đình Thị Hiệp, daughter of Ngô Đình Khả. He joined the seminary at An Ninh as a teenager, and was ordained a priest on 11 June 1953, by Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Urrutia. After three years of further studies in Rome, he was appointed in 1959–1967 as a faculty member and rector of the Seminary of Hoan Thiện, Huế. He was appointed Bishop of Nha Trang on 13 April 1967 and received episcopal consecration on 4 June 1967 at Huế from Angelo Palmas, Apostolic Delegate to Viêt Nam (and later Nuncio to Colombia and to Canada), assisted by Archbishops Philippe Nguyễn Kim Điền, titular archbishop of Parium and Apostolic Administrator of Huế, and Jean-Baptiste Urrutia, titular archbishop of Carpato. On 24 April 1975, he was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Sài Gòn. Six days later, Sài Gòn fell to the North Vietnamese Army. Thuận, targeted for his faith as well as his family connections to Ngô Đình Diệm, was detained by the communist government of Vietnam in a re-education camp for 13 years, nine in solitary confinement. In prison, he smuggled out messages to his people on scraps of paper. The brief reflections, copied by hand and circulated within the Vietnamese community, have been printed in the book, The Road of Hope.