Cardinal Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was never tried or convicted for any crimes, yet he spent 13 years of his life in a detention camp, nine of them in isolation.

Cardinal Van Thuan was imprisoned  by the communist regime of Vietnam in 1975 after being appointed auxiliary Archbishop of the former South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, today Ho Chi Minh City.

Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
He was Vietnamese, he belonged to a very important family in Vietnam, he was the nephew of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first President of South Vietnam.

He was released in 1988 and sent into exile in three years later. John Paul II, one of his closest friends, received him in Rome and appointed him president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Now this dicastery and the Diocese of Rome are asking for information, whether favorable or not, for the cause of his beatification.

Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace 
We’ve received testimony from the Roman Curia, but especially from Vietnam, Australia, the United States and France.

Monsignor Giampaolo Crepaldi says that the cardinal's experience in prison had a decisive influence on his spiritual outlook. 

Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace 
In prison  he had the temptation to despair and at that moment he said: "I have the Lord, and since I have the Lord, I have everything because God is everything.” The cardinal embodied that lesson because everything that happened to him,  even in this dicastery, from the most important things to the most trivial things, he offered everything to God.

Monsignor Crepaldi, who was also one of his closest friends, recalls the cardinal’s good humor. 

Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
What impressed the most was his ability to imitate, with great subtlety and irony, everything and everyone. He imitated, always with great sensitivity, the Pope and the lead cardinals of the Roman Curia. His humor was a great lesson because he took the things of the Church to its true dimension.

Cardinal Van Thuan was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace until his death on in 2002. The cause for his beatification may be launched this year. Then they’ll have to wait for the study of a miracle, because as monsignor Crepaldi says, without a miracle there’s no beatification.

DG