Ngô Đình Thục
Ngô Đình Thục | |
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Catholic canon law | |
Alma mater | Pontifical Gregorian University |
Motto | Miles Christi (Soldier of Christ) |
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Coat of arms |
Ordination history of Ngô Đình Thục | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Styles of Ngô Đình Thục | ||
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Reference style | ||
Spoken style | Your Excellency | |
Religious style | Your Excellency |
Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (Vietnamese pronunciation:
While Thục was in Rome attending the second session of the
Biography
Early life and family
Ngô Đình Thục was born on 6 October 1897, in
Thục's elder brother,
Priesthood and early episcopacy
At age twelve, Thục entered the
On 8 January 1938, Pope Pius XI created the Apostolic Vicariate of Vĩnh Long in Vietnam, and personally chose Thục (then aged 41) to be it its first Vicar Apostolic. On 4 May of the same year, with his family in attendance, Thục was consecrated a bishop by Archbishop Antonin Drapier, Apostolic Delegate to Indochina, and co-consecrators Bishop Isidore-Marie-Joseph Dumortier, M.E.P., Vicar Apostolic of Saigon, and Bishop Dominique Maria Hồ Ngọc Cẩn, Vicar Apostolic of Bùi Chu.[1]
In 1950 Diệm and Thục applied for permission to travel to Rome for the Holy Year celebrations at the Vatican but went instead to
With the outbreak of the Korean War and the onset of McCarthyism in the early 1950s, Vietnamese anti-communists were a sought-after commodity in the United States. Diệm and Thục were given a reception at the State Department with the Acting Secretary of State James Webb, where Thục did much of the talking. Diệm and Thục also forged links with Cardinal Francis Spellman, the most politically influential cleric of his time, and Spellman became one of Diệm's most powerful advocates. Diệm then managed an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome with his brother's help, and then settled in the US as a guest of the Maryknoll Fathers.[6] Spellman helped Diệm to garner support among right-wing and Catholic circles. Thục was widely seen as more genial, loquacious, and diplomatic than his brother, and it was acknowledged that Thục would be highly influential in the future regime.[7] As French power in Vietnam declined, Diệm's support in America, which Thục helped to nurture, made his stock rise. Emperor Bảo Đại made Diệm the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam because he thought Diệm's connections would secure foreign financial aid.[8]
Diệm's rule
In October 1955, Diệm deposed Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by Nhu and declared himself President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam, which then concentrated power in the Ngô family, who were dedicated Roman Catholics in a Buddhist majority country.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Power was enforced through secret police and the imprisonment and torture of political and religious opponents. The Ngôs' policies and conduct inflamed religious tensions. The government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.[16] Thục, the most powerful religious leader in the country, was allowed to solicit "voluntary contributions to the Church" from Saigon businessmen, which was likened to "tax notices".[17] Thục also used his position to acquire farms, businesses, urban real estate, rental property and rubber plantations for the Catholic Church. He also used Army of the Republic of Vietnam personnel to work on his timber and construction projects.[18]
On 24 November 1960, Thục was appointed Archbishop of Huế by Pope John XXIII.[1]
Buddhist unrest and downfall of Diệm
In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying the
Diệm was overthrown and assassinated together with Nhu on 2 November 1963. Ngô Đình Cẩn was sentenced to death and executed in 1964. Of the six brothers, only Thục and Luyện survived the political upheavals in Vietnam. Luyện, the youngest, was serving as ambassador in London, and Thục had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. Because of the coup, Thục remained in Rome during the Council years (1962–65). He was among the bishops who were against the statements of the council.[26]
Beginning of exile
After the closing of the Second Vatican Council, none of the relevant governments – American, Vietnamese or the Vatican – consented to Thục returning to Vietnam.[27]
According to Thục, the Americans forced the South Vietnamese government to refuse him permission to return,[28] and that Paul VI used this inability to return to force him to resign and appoint Bishop Philippe Nguyễn Kim Điền, one of Paul VI's favorites, as his replacement.[29]
He began his exile in Rome.[30]
Consecrations of bishops and declaration of sedevacantism
A
After Domínguez proclaimed himself Pope with the name of "Gregory XVII", Thục distanced himself from the Palmarian sect, apologized for his actions and reconciled with the Catholic Church.[1]
On 7 May 1981, Thục consecrated the sedeprivationist priest Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as a bishop.[32] Des Lauriers was a Dominican theologian, an expert on the dogma of the Assumption, and an advisor to Pope Pius XII.[35] On 17 October, Thục consecrated the two Mexican sedevacantist priests and former seminary professors Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora as bishops.[citation needed] Carmona and Zamora were among the priests who formed the Unión Católica Trento (Tridentine Catholic Union).[26]
On 21 March, Laetare Sunday, he publicly proclaimed this declaration during a Pontifical High Mass in Sankt Michael Church in Munich.[36]
In response to his episcopal consecrations for the sedevacantists in Toulon in 1981 and to his declaration of sedevacantism, the
His newly consecrated bishops did not form a united structure and organization, but became a fragmented group, many limiting themselves essentially to sacramental ministry and only consecrated a few other bishops[38] for various sedevacantist priests or groups.
In 1982, Thuc declared:
in so far as I am a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, I judge that the Chair of the Roman Catholic Church is vacant; and it behooves me, as bishop, to do all that is needed so that the Roman Catholic Church will endure in its mission for the salvation of souls.[36][37]
In 1983, Thục departed for the
Reconciliation and death
Thục began to be increasingly sought-out by the expatriate and refugee Vietnamese community, including old friends and contacts from Huế and Saigon.[40] They facilitated his extraction from sedevacantism and Thục returned to the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church definitively in 1984.[1][41]
Thuc died reconciled with the Church on 13 December 1984, at the age of 87. He was buried in the Resurrection Cemetery in Springfield, Missouri and later reburied in Park Cemetery in Carthage, Missouri along with other priests and members of the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer.[42][43]
See also
- Roman Catholicism in Vietnam
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Ðình Thục [Catholic-Hierarchy]". www.catholic-hierarchy.org.
- ^ Jarvis, pp. 39-40
- ^ Jarvis, p. 40
- ^ a b Jarvis, p. 27
- New York Times, 14 April 1966
- ^ "The Beleaguered Man", Time, 4 April 1955; accessed 27 March 2008. "For the best part of two years (1951–53) he made his home at the Maryknoll Junior Seminary in Lakewood, N.J.. often going down to Washington to buttonhole State Department men and Congressmen and urge them not to support French colonialism."
- ^ Jarvis, pp. 41-42
- ^ Jacobs, pp. 25–34
- ^ The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam Archived 2008-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, HistoryNet
- ^ Gettleman, pp. 275–76, 366
- ^ Moyar, pp. 215–16
- ^ "South Viet Nam: The Religious Crisis". Time. 14 June 1963. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.
- ^ Maclear, p. 63.
- ^ SNIE 53-2-63, "The Situation in South Vietnam" Archived 2017-11-09 at the Wayback Machine, 10 July 1963
- ^ Tucker, p. 291
- ^ Jacobs, p. 89.
- ^ Olson, p. 98.
- ^ Topmiller, p. 2
- ^ Jones, p. 143.
- ^ Karnow, p. 295
- ^ Moyar, pp. 212–13
- ^ Hammer, pp. 114–16.
- ^ Jones, p. 300.
- ^ Jones, p. 305.
- ^ a b Gary L. Ward, Bertil Persson, and Alain Bain, eds., Independent Bishops: An International Directory [Detroit, MI: Apogee Books, 1990].
- ^ Jarvis, pp. 72-73
- ^ Most Rev. Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục. Autobiography (Part 4). "[T]he Americans forced the South Vietnamese into refusing my return visa."
- ^ Most Rev. Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục. Autobiography (Part 4). "[B]ut he [Paul VI] used the situation that I could not return to my diocese in Hué, to force me into abdication and appoint his favourite, Mgr. Dién, in my place."
- ^ Jarvis, p. 73
- ^ a b Most Rev. Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục. Autobiography (Part 4). "Then a priest came to me, one I had met before in Ecône, Switzerland. He told me outright: 'Excellency, the Holy Virgin sends me in order for me to send you to central Spain immediately to render her a service. My car is ready for you at the parsonage's door and we will depart immediately depart in order to be there for Christmas.'"
- ^ a b Cuneo, Michael W. The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism, JHU Press, 1999,p. 99.
- ^ Rev. Terence R. Fulham I.H.M., Corona Spinarum - A Biography and defense of Archbishop Pierre-Martin Ngo-Dinh-Thuc.
- ^ Jarvis, p. 83
- ^ M.L. Guérard des Lauriers, Dimensions de la Foi, Paris: Cerf, 1952.
- ^ a b Einsicht, Sondernummer (April 1998). Retrieved 8 October 2021.
- ^ a b Vatican. "Notification". In L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 18 April 1983, Page 12.
- ^ "Misericordias Domini in æternum cantabo": Autobiography by Mgr. Ngô Đình Thục, written ca. 1978–1980. Einsicht – röm.-kath. Zeitschrift: Munich
- ^ Franciscan Fathers. "Bishop Ngo Dinh-Thuc" (photographs of Thục with Vezelis and seminarians).
- ^ Jarvis, p. 120-121
- ^ Jarvis, p. 121-123
- ^ Donovan, Ned (2018-08-30). "Archbishop of chaos". Catholic Herald.
- ^ THÂN HỮU ĐỒNG CÔNG. "HT80.1 Thăm anh em đã về Nhà Cha tại Đất Mẹ CRM, Carthage, MO 9/2021". YouTube. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
Sources
- Gettleman, Marvin E. (1966). Vietnam: History, Documents, and Opinions on a Major World Crisis. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.
- ISBN 0-525-24210-4.
- ISBN 978-1-949643-02-2.
- Jacobs, Seth (2004). America's miracle man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, religion, race, and U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia, 1950–1957. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3440-2.
- Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4447-8.
- Jones, Howard (2003). Death of a Generation: how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War. New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505286-2.
- ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
- ISBN 0-423-00580-4.
- ISBN 0-521-86911-0.
- ISBN 0-312-08431-5.
- Topmiller, Robert J. (2006). The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2260-0.
- Tucker, Spencer C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social and Military History. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-040-9.
Further reading
- Borthwick, Mark (1998). Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3471-3.
- Buttinger, Joseph (1967). Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. Praeger Publishers.
- Fall, Bernard B. (1963). The Two Viet-Nams. Praeger Publishers.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-6007-9.
- ISBN 0-684-81202-9.
- ISBN 9782841930210.
- ISBN 978-0-679-72414-8.
- Warner, Denis (1964). The Last Confucian: Vietnam, South-East Asia, and the West. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
- In Memoriam: Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục at the Wayback Machine (archived March 5, 2008) by Bishop Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, O.P.
- Declaration of sedevacantism of Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục
- PDF Document of Einsicht, 1982; includes photographic documentation on many of Archbishop Thục's consecrations