Nguyen Van Thuan

François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận was born on 17 April 1928 in Phu Cam, Hue, then in Annam in French Indochina. He belonged to a prominent Vietnamese Catholic family: his mother, Elizabeth Ngô Đình Thị Hiệp, was a sister of Ngô Đình Diệm, later president of the Republic of Vietnam, and of Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục, Archbishop of Hue. Raised in that milieu of faith and public life, he entered the minor seminary of An Ninh and later the major seminary of Phú Xuân. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Hue on 11 June 1953 by Archbishop Thục. After early pastoral work he studied in Rome and received a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Urbaniana University in 1959.

Returning to Vietnam, he taught in the seminary, served as rector, and held diocesan offices. Pope Paul VI appointed him Bishop of Nha Trang in 1967; he was consecrated on 24 June that year. In Nha Trang he emphasized priestly formation, catechesis, and social development. On 24 April 1975, days before the fall of Saigon, Paul VI named him Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon with right of succession. The new communist authorities rejected the appointment because of his family ties to the former South Vietnamese government, and he was never allowed to take possession of the see. Arrested on 15 August 1975, he spent thirteen years in prison without trial, including nine years in solitary confinement, first in the south and later in prisons in North Vietnam.

In detention he celebrated the Eucharist in secret with minute quantities of wine and hosts that had been smuggled to him, using the palm of his hand as a chalice. He wrote short spiritual exhortations on scraps of paper that circulated among Catholics and were later published as The Road of Hope and related collections. He later said he had resolved to treat his guards as brothers and to make his cell a place of prayer. Released in 1988, he remained under house arrest in Hanoi until 1991, when he was permitted to go to Rome but forbidden to return to Vietnam, beginning a permanent exile.

Pope John Paul II called him to the Roman Curia. He became vice-president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 1994 and its president in 1998, speaking internationally on hope, religious freedom, and Catholic social teaching, often from his prison experience. He was created cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria della Scala on 21 February 2001. Already ill with cancer, he died in Rome on 16 September 2002. He was first buried at Campo Verano; his remains were later transferred to Santa Maria della Scala. A beatification cause opened in 2007, and on 4 May 2017 Pope Francis declared him Venerable by recognizing his heroic virtues. He has not been beatified or canonized, and no universal feast day or official patronages have been assigned to him.