"Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo"
The Autobiography of Mgr. Pierre Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc,
Archbishop of Hué
Translated from French to German by Elisabeth Meurer
Translated from German to English by Mr. Statz
"Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo".
With this praise of the Prophet, I begin the story of my soul.
May these memories stimulate other souls to resort to His infinite
mercy to convert and be sanctified.
My insignificant spiritual life resembles a fabric
whose threads are the rays of mercy which permeate the material.
The mercy of God has descended from all of eternity to cast a glance at
this atom that is my soul. God decided to come to this
nothingness to surround me with his mercy, ceaselessly embracing me
more closely and tightly, even when this miserable nothing attempts to
escape the so gentle bonds of my soul's Bridegroom.
Other souls may rightfully turn to God's love in
order to love and worship Him: virgin souls, contemplative souls, souls
according to the models of the cherubs and the seraphs smelling of
sanctity, souls like the ones of the two Theresas from the Carmelite
order, and souls such as John of the Cross, Aloysius of Gonzaga, and
Padre Pio. They have that right. However, the things concerning my
sinful soul: It only has tears to offer the Lord, like Magdalene,
and wants only to sing the praises of God’s mercy in this and the next
world.
Dear God, the very merciful, you have given me a
lifespan and health, that do not lie within my family, so that I have
time to repent. I have lived more than 80 years without being seriously
ill, equipped with an intelligence that made me a rival in the primary
seminary, through Roman-Catholic institutions, and at the Sorbonne in
secular and religious knowledge as well as the worldly—given to me by
God’s mercy and which helped me with my conversion.
I am Vietnamese. This origin explains my character.
It is like being French explains the holiness of the holy little
Theresa of Lisieux – and that of Castilian characterizes the great
Teresa of Avila. Where does the Vietnamese race come from? If one can
believe the millennium of Chinese annals, who have always been our
rivals, the Viet occupied the region that the great Yellow River flows
through and is now called Peking (Beijing). The Chinese pushed
into this very fertile country where the Vietnamese earned their
comfortable living. The infinitely less numerous Viet started an
unequal fatal battle and lost against these opponents, whose numbers
rapidly increased. However the Viet would offer incessant
resistance—whence they would be pushed to the south—their last capitol
city in present Chinese territory was Canton.
When Canton was occupied by the “heavenly ones”, the
Viet found an area favourable for defence, “a secret path”,
which, as a result, was named the Gates of Annam (because they blocked
the path of the Chinese). The Chinese later were able to breach
the gates and occupy the Red River Delta upon which Hanoi was built—and
that for almost a thousand years. The Viet never lost courage and
finally succeeded in expelling the Chinese, thanks to the heroism of
the two sisters Trung-truc and Trung-nhi. The story is these two
sisters lost their lives in a valiant battle, but the example of these
two Vietnamese Sisters encouraged the Viet to complete their work of
driving the Chinese out of Vietnam definitively. Meanwhile, the
Vietnamese tried politically and diplomatically to accept a type of
vassal state under the Chinese rulers by presenting at various times
gifts characteristic of our country, e.g., elephant tusks.
But we must also acknowledge that the 1000 years of Chinese occupation
has been beneficial to Vietnam. These advantages were the following:
the division of state territory in provinces, prefectures,
villages—just as the middle kingdom was—with specific difference
pertaining to the village. Since a Viet village is a small
republic, it deals with the state as if they were two separate
states. If the state imposed a contribution to war on the village
both financially and personally, the village leaders split up the
contribution of every villager monetarily and specify which young
people should be recruited for the royal army. There was a
proverb which expressed the relationship between the state and the
village: The king’s decrees bow to the customs of the
village. The mayor (Ly-trûô) was not the village head, but the
village council representative to the higher authorities.
The strokes of the cane struck him if the authorities were dissatisfied
with the village. The members of village council were, firstly, village
inhabitants who had a mandarin title (former mandarins), then the
intelligentsia (those who had completed the third year examinations for
the bachelor's degree, the Licencié, and a doctorate), and lastly the
most wealthy influential citizens. This council, in which intelligence,
not wealth was pre-eminent, distributed the rice-paddies in equal
shares to the citizens. This distribution was carried out every
three years from lots with same size but of varying fertility.
The citizens owned only the fields that they had cleared themselves
while the municipal fields had been cleared by an entrepreneur during
the village’s establishment. After the acquisition of "No man’s
land" he recruited volunteers in order to work with them and set up a
new village.
This is a social fact that illustrates the Viet spirit of independence
toward higher authorities, whereby the prior maintains friendly
relationships with the latter at the same time - as between two
states. It is evident that all this was swept away by the modern,
egalitarian levelling. Was that better or worse? At least
the old system was quite equal to the modern one, because we have two
kinds of ownership: communal and private. We had
redistribution every three years without the intrusion of a
totalitarian state.
The citizen’s independence found a territory in which he could breathe,
without however, completely declining the advantages of a centralized
state. This thirst for independence lies in the Vietnamese blood
and explains this millennial battle against the Chinese, and then
against the French, while simultaneously profiting from the advantages
of Chinese institutions and the French culture. Our family was
always for the British dominion system between Viet Nam and
France. We could not realize this dream that would have made
France into a leading state, such as England for Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand and had enabled the USA, Soviet Russia and Great Britain to
be treated as equals.
The Viet is therefore a supporter of personal independence, guaranteed
by a dependence on other states. Above all; the Viet is a
patriot, whether communist or anti-communist. Ho-chi-Minh and
Ngô-dinh-Diém were Viêt through and through. From a Christian
perspective, we are obedient to the Roman Church, especially the class
of the simple faithful; but in the intellectual class, though we admit
unanimity in the area of the dogmas of faith, we accept diversity in
areas that do not affect the dogma.
In a certain fashion this explains my aversion to the intrusive
undertakings of the Vatican to impose liturgical elements as canon law.
In a word, aversion to the removal of every special feature that exists
in each culture. Culture, by the way, is the work of the dear Lord, Who
found favour in uniformity but also diversity. Even God is one
and threefold. Every human being has his own face. Variety
is the decoration of the universe. Why should one prescribe only
one way to celebrate Holy Mass, which is solely made up of the
consecration? And prescribe it under punishment of suspension and
even excommunication? Is that not an abuse of power? In fact,
would a Paul of Tarsus have been excommunicated by Peter, since he had
consecrated bishops without reporting this to Peter? The Vatican
devises rules in order to suppress every liturgical or canonical
particular feature of the local churches. It wants uniformity
everywhere without considering that the liturgical peculiarities of the
Oriental churches go back to the time of the apostles, without
considering that every nation has its characteristics that are just as
noteworthy as those of Rome. Here are some examples: For
the Roman, one stands up as a sign of respect; in Vietnam, one
kneels. The Roman extends his arms when praying; the Vietnamese
folds his hands in order to pray. The Europeans shake hands as a
sign of friendship or as a greeting; the Asians, Chinese and
Vietnamese, fold their hands and incline their heads. The more respect
accorded to the one who is greeted, the deeper the bow.
Holy Mass consists primarily of the transubstantiation of the species
(of bread and wine). If worst comes to worst or in an absolute
emergency, the other parts (of the Mass) can be left out. This is
the case with captured priests, who celebrate Mass in the darkness of a
cell, in order to administer communion to themselves and their fellow
prisoners. Jesus consecrated for Passover at the Last Supper according
to the Jewish custom. Today, the priest consecrates while
standing and bowing, in order to communicate. The Japanese eat
while sitting on their heels; the Hindus sit on the floor while eating,
the meal spread out on banana leaves; the Chinese and Viet eat with
chopsticks. One might be logically surprised that Paul VI condemns
those who celebrate in another fashion, according to the liturgy of St.
Pius V, for example. With this logic he could have condemned the
first Mass celebrated by Jesus.
After Vatican II, however, diversity for trivial matters and uniformity
only for essential things is officially done away with. Japanese
and Indian hierarchies are strengthened in the adaptation of Mass to
their national characteristics. The "Halali" is only for Holy
Pius V.’s Mass!
I have spoken extensively about this particular case - not only because
of the injustice of the condemnation, but particularly because of the
unsuitability of the measure, especially because one does not dare
apply the same prohibition upon the Oriental liturgies, or the Milan
liturgies of St. Ambrose, or Dominican, Mozarabic and Lyon
liturgy. Perhaps I was instinctively driven to this respectful
observation by the Viet addiction to independence? Let's close
this case and study the environment that was crucial for my future.
The family is the first sphere in this environment, a Viet family by
race, but a Catholic in a Vietnamese way, which consists of settling
problems without waiting for help from others. This is how the
Vietnamese church survived when the persecution of the kings robbed her
of the foreign priests. Some that had fled into the forests were
supported the by Christians who, at the time, thought they were
privileged if they could go to the sacraments two or three times in
their lives.
The small Vietnamese Christian communities (parishes) were scattered
around Viet-territory from the gate of Annam to "Pointe den
Camaní". Here, their organization was planned for survival.
The older Christians, who knew the dogmas of faith better than the
others, were named catechists by the missionaries, and chosen to form
the upper tier of the parish. The leader controlled the actions
that were necessary for the survival and progress of the groups
responsible in the Christian community. One was entrusted with
the religious instruction of the children and prepared them for
communion (if it could take place). Another dealt with visiting
the ill and their preparation for death. Still another would
prepared the songs, prayers, reading of the epistles and gospel and
lead the faithful in Mass prayers without priests, as we do at
spiritual Communion.
How should one find the necessary money for worship? to build the small
straw chapel? for the trips and the reception of the missionary? To
nourish the priest candidates, who were chosen by the Christian
community council? The seminary, in the beginning, consisted of a
junk in which the only professor lived in. The missionary taught
some Latin at night, sufficient enough to speak the words of
transubstantiation and the formulas for the Sacraments while during the
day the seminarians became fishermen in order to feed the congregation.
When this training was completed they were sent abroad, either to Siam
or to Ponlo-Pinang, the general seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions,
so that they could be consecrated there. This is how the native
secular priests were equipped with their sponsor being the Viet who
were driven by their independent instinct, by their craving to manage,
- far da se -, without waiting for generous foreign help.
Such was the lay organization of the Vietnamese parish that had been
robbed of a priest. Rome called it "Catholic action" and boasted to
have created it during Pius IX’s and Pius XII’s pontificates. The
apostleship among the heathens was known, practiced and was not
only embraced by priests, deacons and Bishops, but also by laity, men
and women, for 300 years before its resurgence through the two
Pius-Popes. The same applies for the founding of a native clergy.
These two buttresses of evangelization, invented by the Viet, are an
example of the intelligence of this people (the Viet), which the Holy
See has treated like an insignificant component of the Church and went
so far as to concede them an official hierarchy and a cardinal only
after they had received these awards from other countries. With
regard to faith, the number of the clerics and the native martyrs,
Catholic Vietnam far surpassed theirs. I, however, was somewhat
astonished when the “good Pope” John XXIII asked me, while I, the dean,
introduced ten Vietnamese Ordinaries to him: "Where is
Vietnam?" And John XXIII was the pastor of the church that had
declared 2000 years ago: "I know my sheep, and my sheep know me."
Therefore, one cannot be surprised about Paul's VI animosity toward our
family and particularly toward me, which went so far as to impose my
resignation as Archbishop of Hue before the required retirement age for
Bishops. He then appointed one of his minions, who was more inclined
toward the politics of "opening for the East". Shortly thereafter
this bishop was treated by his old Communist friends as a persona non
grata, because he dared to raise his voice against the barriers set up
by the Communists against going to Sunday Mass. The Communists did this
by imposing public menial tasks on the Catholics during Mass
time. And, to let him feel the split even more, the Communists
did not allow him to take part in the 1977 Synod with the other
Vietnamese Archbishops.
Another Vietnamese Archbishop who was condemned by the communists was
my nephew, the Archbishop F. X. Nguyên-vân-Thuân, co-adjutor of
Saigon. He spends a convict's life in a corner of the southern
forest because he helped refugees settle in the south which the Holy
See had entrusted him. Catholics aid protests against Brazil’s
government, but they are silent in my nephew’s case!
Reared from my birth in this Vietnamese atmosphere of militant
Catholicism, I assumed the priesthood as my battle station in this
world without hesitation, regardless of the work, regardless of death.
Therefore I do not have any right to "complain" that I am an Archbishop
today, an ex-excommunicated one at that, who can celebrate Holy Mass
everyday, but “illogically" does not have permission to hear the
confessions of the Vietnamese refugees who are unable to confess in
French.
This is the racial and religious environment—and family atmosphere—with
which providence has encompassed me. I am a Ngô. Ngô is one of
the family names in Vietnam. I believe that I am not mistaken,
when I claim that the number of Viêt family names does not exceed one
hundred. The name with the most descendants is Nguyên, with the
most prolific branch being the royal family. The one with the
least family members is mine. According to legend, the Ngô
descendants were the first native royal family in an independent
Vietnam. Perhaps this explains our patriotism and devotion to our
country a little. Beyond the legend of our royal descent, no other Ngô
was evident in Vietnam's history until the brilliant, yet tragic,
appearance of our family.
No Vietnamese will ever forget the name Ngô-dinh-Khâ. It is my
father’s name. He died a thousand deaths. Why? Because he had not voted
for the deposition of the Emperor Thanh-Thai with the other court
dignitaries who had been illegally imposed upon us by France's
representative in Annam (central Vietnam). The name of our eldest
brother was Ngô-dinh-Khôi who was buried alive with his only son
because he had refused to become a minister in the Communist Premier
government will not be forgotten. He regarded it as
irreconcilable to be Catholic and a Communist official. Rather
die than to soil oneself. After all, everyone knows and respects
the Vietnamese name Ngô-dinh-Diêm, father of the Republic of
Vietnam, and those of Ngô-dinh-Nhu and Ngô-dinh-Cân, presidential
employees, all three were killed by the CIA. Two Ngô’s escaped this
organized slaughtering by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, a Freemason.
The first is my brother Ngô-dinh-Luyên, who was at the time ambassador
in London and was not in Vietnam at the time. He graduated from the
Ecole Centrale des Ingénieurs (Paris). The other is myself. I was
called to Rome to participate in Vatican Council II. Luyên has 13
children and Nhu had 4 children. I hope that despite their
distance away from home, since they live in Europe, they will not
forget the family tradition: to dedicate oneself completely to
the service of God and homeland.
Here a little insertion: What does this word
“dinh” mean, squeezed in between Ngô and the first name, such as Diêm
and Thuc? This word indicates the branch of the family, since
Ngô-dûc exists, without the "insertion”, as with King Ngô Guyên.
My father Ngô-dinh-Khâ, whose childhood and personal background was
illustrated in “Doce me” (the abbreviated biography), deserves to
remain in memory, as the first one who worked to introduce the French
language into central Vietnam. He did it out of patriotism. At
the time the French practically ruled Annam. According to the
agreements between France as victors and the defeated emperor of
Vietnam, however, Annam should have "enjoyed" the status of a
protectorate and not just a colony. That was not the lot for wealthy
Cochinchina, whose inhabitants became "subjects" and not French
"citizens." Annam, then, was actually ruled by a French Governor,
and who as a minister of the king forced French upon his domestics.
They spoke a French “gibberish" that they had learned in their master's
kitchen service. Therefore my father devised a plan to first teach the
educated Vietnamese “correct French”, and then the young Vietnamese of
royal origin. For that reason he established the Collège National in
Vietnam: Quöo-hoo. A somewhat mad adventure. At his
request, the "noble" fathers gave him only their concubine’s children
and he had to "pay" these students! But later many of these would
become government officials! So, the sons of the concubines from the
lowest class of the royal offspring became doctors of medicine,
lawyers, high officials, dentists, the intellects of “French
culture”. My brothers, the eldest Ngô-dinh-Khôi, and the future
first president of the Republic of South Vietnam were patronized and
ascended the ranks of the mandarinates with ease, thanks to these men
instructed by my father. My father was chosen to be young King
Thânh-Thâi´s, teacher and later became a royal minister. These
honours were the cause of dreadful trials for my father when the
Governor General in central Vietnam, Mr. Levêque decided to dethrone
Thân-Thâi under the pretext of insanity. This was an infringement of
the authorization contained in the French-Vietnamese treaty. This
occurred because this young king, intelligent and active, would not be
content with only the prerogative of naming brilliant forces for the
villages' protection, and had the idea to "militarize" his numerous
concubines by teaching them to march and manoeuvre with wooden
guns. All this transpired in the Forbidden City and was therefore
not visible to the average people.
Governor Leveque had the court mandarins called together illegally and
ordered them to unanimously vote for the sovereign's deposition. With
exception of my father, these mandarins obeyed slavishly.
Sentenced to the stripping of all his mandarin titles, my father was
put into prison and the king banished to Madagascar. In light of
this abuse of power and the cowardice of the court, the Vietnamese
people announced that Ngô-dinh-Khâ was the only one who opposed the
deposition of the king. My father's banishment was rescinded only at
Emperor Duy-tân’s majority. He was one of Thân-Thâi’s sons and he
restored my father's titles and his old-age pension.
Here I believe I must report how the Governor from France chose the new
king. He let Thân-Thâi’s numerous male offspring get into a line,
ordered them run, and promised the winner a reward. The one, who
finished last, was selected by the Governor to be king because he
thought that he was the least intelligent. Here however, he was
greatly mistaken, because this boy was the future Duy-tân, a confirmed
enemy of France, who almost drove the French out with help of the
"volunteers" who were destined to fight in France. Though,
thanks to my brother Ngô-dinh-Khôi, this plot failed.
My father, released from the prison after a long
illness, had to think about finding the daily rice for his large
family: six boys and two girls. He was a mandarin of strict
honesty, and the illness devoured his meagre savings. He
therefore decided to cultivate some slopes that he owned in the village
of Ancûn, which is not far from Hué. I can still see my father,
accompanied by one of his sons or daughters, walking the six kilometres
to his rice paddies in a pair of self-made clogs. There he would
supervise the transplanting of the rice and irrigate with help of a
pedal-driven machine, and then the reaping. If he was tired, our
father stopped in the shadow of a bamboo thicket along the way and told
us interesting stories taken from the Bible or a treasured books, while
smoking a self rolled cigarette passed out by the Brothers of the
Christian Schools. Thanks to the gift of being a natural
storyteller, my father earned something to smoke since while he was a
seminarian in Anninh. Back then his comrades would ask him to
tell a story or to make one up. For doing this he would request
some cigarettes as payment and would then delight the listeners with
stories originating from his imagination.
We may have lived poorly, but decently. I do not know how my
father succeeded in providing us a one-story house surrounded by a
large garden. A one-story house was a rarity in Vietnam at this
time. My father, who suffered from acute rheumatism caused by the
moist climate of Hue, had a deck that was not too high built on to the
ground floor. He let us sleep on a mat spread out on the floor of the
deck to protect us from the moisture. So, all of the young family
grew up healthy.
The weekday schedule was always the same. We got up at six
o'clock in the morning to the sound of our Phûcam parish church
bell. The boys and girls stormed into the kitchen to wash
themselves and to put on the clothes reaching to their knees (our
ceremonial garb), and followed father to Holy Mass. The children all
kneeled beside him. Our father participated with closed eyes and
folded hands. The hands, though, were always ready to shake the boys if
they appeared distracted. Father went to the Lord’s Table daily,
accompanied by his children who had received First Communion. He
was practically never absent from the daily Mass. Not even a storm
would stop him. He also awakened a deep devotion in us for this renewal
of the sacrifice on the cross by often telling us a story, which seems
to me to be one of the golden legends and which I repeat here: A
man had two pages, one of whom was his favourite. The other had
made a mistake and the man decided that he was worthy of death.
He, however, decided to let him die in a secret manner. With this
intent he had a man come, one devoted to his interests, who owned a
lime oven and ordered him to throw into the oven the page who brought
him a message on the next morning. On the next day he called the doomed
page and gave him an envelope with the order to hand it over to the
lime baker. The page hurried to do his errand; but halfway there,
he heard ringing in the chapel for Mass. Because he remembered
his parent’s recommendation never to miss a Mass, he entered the chapel
and participated devoutly in the Holy Sacrifice. Meanwhile the
man, who absolutely wanted to know whether the murderer had completed
his job, sent his favourite page to inquire about it. As the torturer
saw the messenger coming, he grabbed the page and threw him into the
oven.
After Mass we went home for breakfast—prepared by our mother—for a bowl
of rice seasoned with salt. Afterwards we went to school with a
pack on our backs. Lunch was richer, but also simple: rice
instead of bread, a normal soup with fish (meat was reserved for
Sundays and holidays), vegetables, and from time to time a fruit as
dessert—a fruit from the garden: Pineapples, plums, and
carambolas. Dinner consisted of a single course, but if there
often was a lack of quality and number of courses, there never was a
lack of quantity. My mother, an outstanding cook, accomplished
true miracles to nourish us and to vary the menu. My father was
strict on this point: Everything that came on the table was
eaten. My brother Diêm, who could not stand fish, was forced to
eat it like the others, though shaken by nausea. To his
great regret, this fish allergy—particularly to salted fish—, was the
reason why he gave up the novitiate with the Brothers of the Christian
Schools, because the brother superior of the novitiate explained that
he did not have a spiritual calling since he could not submit himself
to the common food. After supper at 8 o'clock in the evening, we,
both girls and boys, said the evening prayers on our knees. Then we
fell asleep on our floor, sung into sleep by the Lord's Prayer and Ave
Maria from our father and mother!
If our father was integrity itself, like a steel bar, then our mother
was gentleness and softness itself, but also without the least
concession to the evil. She was personified charity and Christian
modesty itself. She did not tend to idle talk, as one says, but
rather her virtues were the most convincing illustration of
Christianity's kindliness. Our family had numerous domestics, all
of them converted and remained good Christians.
My mother belonged to a lower middle class family that came from
Quang-ngâi, on the other side of Tourane in the south. Coming
from a large family, two boys and three daughters, she had the role of
the mistress of the house while our dear grandmother was still
alive. This role was transferred to her particularly because of
her gentleness and intelligence. Her siblings were very attached
to her. Father Allys, our Phû-cam parish priest, knew her, and as
my father, widower from a previous marriage, asked this Father to
suggest a wife, the priest suggested our mother. Her skilfulness
made her into a worthy wife of a court minister, and mother of the
first president of the republic of South Vietnam. The Christian virtues
of our parents were the only inheritance left us, yet an infinitely
more valuable inheritance than titles and money, since it brought us
into the possession of heaven—"haeredes et cohaeredes Christi."
In her last years, our mother was afflicted by an illness that left her
mental powers, but took the mobility away from her lower limbs.
She was forced to vegetate on a bed for about ten years, but it gave
her enough time to prepare for death. At this time I had become
Hué’s Bishop, therefore my mother’s Bishop. I had the privilege
of administering Holy Communion to her at about 7 o'clock every
morning. She died in the house of my sister, the mother of the
Archbishop Coadjutor of Saigon. My mother did not hear anything
about my brothers' murders. She went to heaven one morning after
she had received Holy Communion as usual, caused by a brain
haemorrhage, at more than 96 years of age. A great number of
guests, whom she had valued in life, came to her burial.
Together with my siblings, we lived in this atmosphere of "Nazareth",
which means the "faith" in a "golden" mediocrity. The eldest was
Ngô-dinh-Khôi, who later became governor of the very important province
Quang-nam on the border to Danang, named Tourane by the French.
It is a province of revolutionaries and renowned educated people.
Phamvân Dông, the prime minister of the Socialistic-Communist republic
of the north, comes from Quang-nam, like the famous national poet.
My sister Ngô-thi-Giao and two boys, Trae and then Quynh, who died
early, were between my eldest brother and me: This explains the
little contact between the two of us. Especially as an adolescent
I was seldom together with my oldest brother. While I was a seminarian
and later a student in Rome, my eldest brother was climbing the ladder
of the various mandarinate steps, from the ninth up to the top, as
provincial Governor. His race of honours took place outside of
Hué, since tradition prohibited a Mandarin to be administrator of his
province of birth.
After my return to Vietnam and my ordination, the two of us were
together more frequently. I began to think highly of my eldest
brother who became our second father, according to Vietnamese custom,
and took care of our mother, his sisters and little brothers.
Outwardly, he was a very handsome tall man. My oldest brother was
respected and regarded as a prince. He was married to a daughter
of the duke of Phuôc-môn. The duke was chairman of the ministerial
council for many years and the most prominent politician during the
last Emperor of Annam’s reign. My brother ascended the steps of
the Mandarinates by his own merit and was favoured by the Mandarins,
former students of my father, without owing anything to his
father-in-law, Ngyên-hûn-Bû. The duke of Phuôc-môn was a former student
of my father, and whom my father assisted early in his career; but he
was very careful not to give aid my brother because the duke was only
occupied with himself. Therefore he passed away lonely, with only
my assistance, being his godchild. I escorted him to the grave,
I, who had never received even a Sapek from my godfather (Note:
Sapek is a coin of little value in Indochina).
My oldest brother’s Mandarin career ended through a misfortune.
The Governor General, Mr. Pasquier at the time—if I am not mistaken—was
annoyed that the governor of Quang-nam did not appear at the railway
station near the town square to demonstrate his respect to him (because
my brother was not informed about the governor's train passing
through). He retired with dignity, without recrimination, to our
village Phûcam, two steps away from our family's home. He ended his
career as a "Christian", "buried alive with his only son", since he had
refused, to cooperate with the atheistic communists who had offered him
a place in the Council of Ministers.
My eldest sister, Ngô-thi-Giao, married Trûong-dinh-Tung. She was a
woman of a very lively character, who loved a joke and innocent
teasing. This outer appearance hid a deep charity.
Therefore, God made her the mother of four religious Sisters, three
nuns of the order St. Paul's Daughter’s of Charity, and a missionary of
the order the Love of the Cross. These four sisters were true
nuns, treasured by the mission's Bishops, whom they had as co-workers.
My nieces were energetic and heroic women, who withstood exhaustion and
death to obey their Bishops. Mgr. Seitz, Bishop of Kontum, could
provide witness for the praise that I just gave. Two of my nieces
supported him effectively during Kontum’s Red occupation. The
youngest of my nieces, who joined the order, died with the reputation
of holiness in France. She rests with her religious sisters in the
crypt belonging to them in Nice’s main cemetery.
Ngô-thi-Giao died of tuberculosis, which she caught while caring for my
brother-in-law and who also suffered from this illness. Certainly it is
due to her that her husband died a good Christian. God alone
knows her list of kindness that she carefully hid. This list of
charities was expensive for her since she was a widow and not wealthy
with many mouths to feed. My brother Diêm was unique as a
Christian and as an autodidact. Since I was not his confessor, I
could not make any judgment based on the sacramental confession, but
from outward appearances I have never noticed anything in his behaviour
contrary to God's law. Surely he had his small weaknesses and
small faults; he had to really pull himself together in order to
control his rage. He fulfilled his state obligations according to the
most severe monk’s pattern, even with the negligent behaviour of his
subordinate officials in front of him. His outstanding virtue was
chastity with never an inappropriate word or an inappropriate glance;
neither did his eyes fall on a doubtful novel. He was satisfied
with good books. His leisure time was dedicated to learning. As an
autodidact he had had regular instruction only for some years with the
Brothers of the Christian Schools. This was crowned by a supplementary
diploma, which he achieved with "maxima cum laude" and the
congratulations of the jury at the early age of 16 and while shivering
with a fever during the examination.
He could write the Chinese letters and could correspond with the
Chinese and Japanese in Chinese. Maybe he over-emphasized when he
wished to be understood, though he knew all the fine points of the
French language. Emphasized enthusiasm! Emphasization due
to perfection! His large cot was surrounded by a palisade of all
types of books, but that were always respectable. While still a small
schoolboy, he had a candle at his bedside. He got up early in the
morning, lit his candle and began to learn his lessons. And at night he
would light to do his homework. He was always the best, the best
in each subject. At the end of each school year, a man was needed
to bring his harvest of laurels and large prize books home.
I have never seen where he wasted his time. When he became a
Great Mandarin and with better pay, his pastimes became photography and
hunting. Yet, these harmless diversions never hampered his work hours
for the state.
As seminarian, I came back home for the two summer months and was
together with the family, with dad, mom, my brothers and small sisters.
My eldest brother was a Minor Mandarin outside of Hué; my eldest sister
did not eat with us, but rather in the kitchen where she prepared the
meals for us.
During these vacations, my brother Diêm, not yet a Mandarin, amused
himself by forcing my two small sisters and my two small brothers to
play "war". First, he drew moustaches above their lips with a
piece of charred cork, and the rifles were made from the stalk of large
banana leaves. That was funny! But for Diêm it was quite
serious, and he led this army that consisted of two small boy soldiers
and two small girl soldiers, and they trudged on the ground with their
bare feet: one-two, one-two! Mercy to the distracted soldier: A
sabre blow on the rear end called him/her to attention again.
Diêm soon employed his siblings with laying out a small garden.
All the children knelt together in the evening, after dinner, on a low
deck and hummed our evening prayers. Diêm strolled around the
deck and mercy to him or her, if he or she was not praying or if their
head wobbled, overcome by sleep. When the prayers were finished
the boys laid down on the deck, the girls went to the middle building
with their older sister to sleep. Our residence consisted of
three main buildings. The middle building, a Vietnamese style house,
was where the women slept. The right wing was a building with
several stories, our father lived downstairs, and Diêm and I,
upstairs. The left wing included the rice storage area and the
kitchen where the domestics slept. The pigsty was farther away
and the haystacks were connected to it. We had a very large
garden. Arequier-palms, fig trees, carambolas, and plum trees grew in
it. Thanks to this very large garden, we did not play on the
street or elsewhere. We left only for the daily Mass, to go to school,
and the girls, to go to the market.
What I just told about my brother Diêm could lead
the reader to believe, that my brother was always serious. Wrong
by far! Diêm was the one of us, who had the finest sense of the
eccentricities of others. He was also very skillful in imitating
the walk and voice of people, which made one laugh. Our very
gracious mother could not prevent herself from laughing, or rather
smiling, when Diêm ran around with a stick in his hand, very stooped,
and mimicked his godfather, doctor Thuyên, and imitated his
speech. He looked very amusing on that occasion. In that,
he was a genuine Vietnamese, who is the born satirist like the French,
but a harmless satirist, skilful to observe and imitate the
eccentricities of the others.
The child that came after Diêm was my little sister
Hiêp. She was the gentlest of the family, the most devout and also the
most patient. She was as beautiful as a Madonna. Everyone
liked her. She was the one who helped our mother by taking care
of the ones born last, Cân and Luyên. She carried them, gave them
the bottle, and rocked them in the cradle, woven from willows in which
all small Ngô-dinhs had lain. This cradle hung on a long rope
from the centre building’s wooden ceiling. From the cradle the
child could see a large picture of the eternal Father that was nailed
on the partition, which separated our mother's little room, in which
all small Ngôs had been born. That is where the cupboard with all
types of jams that mother had produced was, as well as the blackberry
wine and fruits that the people from our village of birth in Quâng-Binh
offered us every year. Quâng-Binh is a province north of Hué that
is bisected by this city.
I must work something in here to explain a Vietnamese tradition generis sui.
My siblings, as I, were all born in Hué, which is
the mystic capital of Annam and the main city in the small province
Thûa-Thiên, but we are all citizens of the village Dai-phong where our
ancestors from the north, from Thanh-hûa and Tonkin, had lived.
Their graves are in Dai-phong. The tablets of the great strength
for the protection of the village, the protector that the emperor gave
to every village, are in the big community centre which is also the
temple. These protectors, similar to the saints, the protectors
of the cities in the country of the Christianity, are selected from
among Vietnamese heroes, generals, the well educated or Great
Mandarins. The village council met in the community centre. This
Dai-phong building was well known because of its huge and very high
columns.
Once, before central Vietnam was very populated,
pioneers, under a home village leader’s supervision, spread out into
other communities where there was room and fertile soil. Once they
arrived at the place that offered these advantages, the land was
divided up according to the number of pioneers. The leader got a
larger share to compensate him for his expenses and his
initiative. Each pioneer divided his lot among his sons until
these lots no longer sufficed in order to nourish its owners.
Then, as bees do, a swarm left the hive and another village was founded
somewhere else. All this explains the relationship between the
villagers and the people that originally came from the village and
lived elsewhere. Exactly like our father, who left Dai-phong to
settle in Hué, but still kept his rice plot in Dai-phong.
He sacrificed the earnings from it to support the
Catholic village school and for the upkeep of our ancestor's
graves. Our village is in the area, named "the two
sub-prefectures", - in Vietnamese: Hai huyên -, famous for the
fertility of its rice paddies. The province Quang-Binh was famous
for having produced outstanding citizens for the nation, ones who knew
the depth of its rivers and the height of its mountains.
After having finished this digression into the
originality of the Vietnamese community system, I now return to the
members of my family. After my sister, gentle Hiêp, came my sister
Hoâng, her opposite. Opposite with regard to character, but they
loved each other dearly. Small, but well proportioned, a lively
intelligence and very practical, she is the only one of us who
accumulated a nice fortune. Her husband was a boy who belonged to
a noted family in our parish, the same family that Hiêp´s husband came
from. His name was Lê. He was a businessman like his
father. He was energetic and earned money, but died relatively
young from tuberculosis, leaving my sister Hoâng with a small
daughter. The daughter later married Mr. Trân-trung-Dung, a law
licentiate and one of my brother Diêm’s ministers.
My sister, Hoâng, became successful “businesswoman”
to everyone’s astonishment. She died young, but not before witnessing
the marriage of her daughter and seeing the birth of the first child, a
granddaughter. I was with her during her final hours. She was
courageous until the end.
My brother, Cân, is the only one of my brothers who
does not have good luck. This is due to his very delicate health,
which he has had since childhood. He represented the rural
element among us brothers since we were almost all intellectuals and
Mandarins. The Vietnamese farmer was smart, practical, and
established like the French farmer. Cân could speak their
language and make himself understood. Cân was the one who
organized the powerful political party that supported the politics of
my brothers Diêm and Nhu. He knew how to acquire the considerable
financial means that is necessary for every political organization: the
cinnamon trade. Cân succeeded in becoming the secret (de facto)
governor of Central-Vietnam, even though he had no political mandate
nor did he speak fluent French. He was never outside of the country. He
rarely got to Saigon. He is not familiar with Tonkin, but he
possessed ships and handled millions of Piasters. He was a power to be
reckoned with. The official governors from Central-Vietnam
consulted with him about the administration of the country.
His end was tragic yet heroic, as a worthy
descendant of the Ngô. After the assassination of my brothers Diêm and
Nhu by assassins paid for by the Americans, Cân vanished. He was
discovered through the cunning of the American Consul in Hué—a Catholic
by the way. Since he knew that Cân was good friends with Hué’s
Canadian Redemptorist Fathers since Cân had donated millions for the
construction of their beautiful church in Hué. The Consul contacted the
order’s Father Superior and told him: “I do not why Mr. Cân is
hiding. We do not have anything against him. If you know
his hiding place, tell him, that an American aircraft will be at his
disposal to take him to his brother, the Archbishop, in Rome.”
The Father Superior consulted his clergymen and
contacted Cân. Cân agreed and requested a document in three
languages from the Consul: in French, English and Vietnamese,
which assured the Redemptorist Fathers and my brother that the American
government would take him to Rome to meet me. But on the agreed
day an American airplane landed at the Phû-Bâi airport near Hué, took
my brother aboard, and flew in the direction of Saigon. It landed
at the Tân-son-Nhûit airport in Saigon to hand my brother over to the
rebel generals, my brother’s murderers. That is dirty American
politics, the true face of the CIA - per fas et nefas.
My brother was hidden, guarded day and night in a
cell. He was sentenced to die by firing squad. All that
could happen by admission of God’s providence. Cân was, with
regard to religion, the least Catholic of us. He fulfilled his Easter
duties, and fell asleep only after having first said his rosary. He
went to Mass every Sunday and holy day, and was charitable, but was not
zealous and restricted himself to Easter Communion. God tolerated
the ambush that the Americans had set up against him and allowed his
unfair trial so that he could die as a Christian. He received Holy
Communion every day for more than a month in his cell, through the
assistance of a Vietnamese Redemptorist Father, a godchild of my
brother Diêm. He died bravely, the rosary in one hand and with
the other pointing to his heart for the execution squad, when he
shouted: “Aim here! Long live Vietnam!” If he lived as a somewhat
less than zealous Christian, he died as a true Catholic and Vietnamese
without fear.
Thanks to the dedication of my brothers Khôi and
Diêm our youngest brother Luyên was the one who received a careful and
complete education. After the elementary school instruction from
the brothers in Hué, he was sent to France at the age of 12. He
entered sixth grade in the Oratorian Fathers’ College of Juilly.
Luyên was very intelligent, always the best in his class. He
skipped from the sixth grade into the fourth and then into the
second. He received his high school diploma and succeeded in
entering the Ecole Centrale des Ingénieurs in Paris and left it as an
engineer. He returned to Vietnam and became the director of land
registry (cadastral director), first in Vietnam, then in Cambodia,
which was a French protectorate at the time.
When my brother Diêm was appointed governor of South
Vietnam, Luyên led the South Vietnamese delegation to Geneva,
Switzerland to discuss the fate of Vietnam. South Vietnam, which
was isolated, could not avoid the separation from North Vietnam. North
Vietnam included the central provinces other than Tonkin as far as to
the river Cua-Tung.
Under the Luyên’s leadership, South Vietnam refused
to sign the Geneva Conventions, but could do no more than resign itself
to this defeat. Diêm directed all of his energy in preparations for
revenge by a strong army, an exemplary administration, and the
unification of South Vietnam. He accomplished this by eliminating
all private armies when called upon by Bao-dai, the emperor, who had
been restored to the throne by France. Saigon, the new capital
and its immediate surroundings were the fiefdom of the bandit Bay
Viên. The Tây-minh province was the Caodaists’ fief, and the
Soetrang province was the Hoa-haôs’.
My brother Diêm confirmed Luyên in his role as
ambassador, a role entrusted to him by Bao-dai. He resided in London
and represented his country in Austria, Tunisia, Belgium and
Holland. The connections between Bao-dai and Luyên had begun when
both were in France. At that time my brother was a pupil of the College
in Juilly and Bao-dai lived in Paris with Monsieur Charles, former
supreme governor of Annam during the Khâi-dinh reign. Monsieur
Charles had been entrusted with the Prince’s education by his parents.
I was then at the Institute Catholique in Paris in order to acquire a
licentiate for teaching, and took Luyên to the hereditary Prince on
Sundays so that he could spend the day off with him. At this time the
Prince’s name was Vinh-Thay, later his name as sovereign was
Bao-dai. The two boys played with marbles and other games. These
connections made it possible for Luyên to be recommend by my brother to
Bao-dai for the task, and to oppose South Vietnam’s assimilation by the
Communist north, governed by Ho-chi-Minh.
Due to his diplomatic role in Europe, Luyên escaped
the fate of my three brothers who remained in Vietnam and were murdered
by the rebel Generals who were paid by the
American CIA; while I was held back as a member of Vatican Council II
in Rome and my life saved. I did my utmost though, through the
government in the south and with Paul VI, to return to Hué to live or
die with my flock. As the Archbishop I was their shepherd.
Today, Luyên is the head of a family with twelve
children. The 13th, a daughter, died in a car accident in 1976. The
oldest are married or earn their livings elsewhere. Luyên, aged and in
frail health, is still faithful to our holy religion and participates
in Communion every Sunday. He has a good memory and I try to
convince him to write his political memoirs because he knows this topic
perfectly, while I dealt exclusively with my tasks as a Bishop.
After these few pages that are dedicated to my
parents and siblings I will return to the memories of my pitiful life.
A life richly filled with the dear Lord’s merciful attention. I
briefly detailed my studies in Rome and Paris and the beginnings of my
duties as a priest in Hué, first as professor with the Vietnamese
Brothers, (one of the congregations founded by my spiritual father,
Mgr. Joseph Allys, the Apostolic Vicar of Hué), under Father Superior
Hô-ngoc-Cân. He later became the first Bishop of Bnû-Chu in Tonkin.
After being a professor at the major seminary in Hué and official
director of the College secondaire de la Providence of Hué, I was named
Apostolic Curate (Vicar) in Vinhlong. This Vicariate was made up of the
provinces Vinhlong, Bentri and a small section of Sadec. This is
an area separated from the Saigon Apostolic Vicariate, one formerly
called the Vicariate of West-Cochin-china, whereas the Apostolic
Vicariate Quin-hon was called the Eastern Apostolic Vicariate and Huè,
the Northern Apostolic Vicariate.
When I took over my Vicariate in 1938, it had about
60 priests and less than 100,000 Catholics out of a population of more
than 1,000,000 residents. It is a country of beautiful gardens,
and above all, good rice paddies. Our priests from Cochin-china
are affable and of simple character. They are not ceremonial and
complicated like those from Tonkin, because the Cochinchinese were a
race of settlers that were sent in to colonize South Vietnam, which had
been snatched away from the Cambodians and the Cham, whereas the
Central Vietnamese (to whom I belong) are an earnest and hard working
people, because the central portion is not as fertile as the south:
poor country, a courageous and contemplative race. Vietnam’s
government and revolutionaries, such as Ho-chi-Minh come from central
part of the country.
This also proved to be true with regard to the
church. Three of the four first Vietnamese Bishops were from Central
Vietnam: Mgr. Dominique Hô-ngo-Cân, Mgr. Le-hûû-Tû and I. Only one,
Mgr. Nguyên-ba-Tong , the first, was from the south. Cochin-china was a
very wealthy country, a French colony administrative at the time when I
was promoted to Bishop of Vinhlong. The Cochin-Chinese were
"French subjects" and many of them acquired the French citizenship, of
which they were proud. Their fellow countrymen from Central
Vietnam, only "French protectees" were viewed as second class citizens.
They were mockingly referred to as "bân", i.e.: people of the
junks, an allusion to the junk rowers from North and Central Vietnam,
who came to trade in the south.
However, the Holy See cast a glance at a “bân”, the
son of a junk driver, (although I was the son of an emperor’s minister
and had a Doctorate from Rome’s universities). The French from
Cochin-china were also surprised by this choice and a French newspaper
from Cochin-china predicted a very sad future for the new
diocese. They thought that because this diocese was entrusted to
a son of new converts, it was in danger of losing the faith inherited
from the French … I was not aware of this mentality of the people from
the south and found myself alone as the only one of my type, without a
friend, and without acquaintances again. Perhaps this ignorance
saved me because I simply behaved like a brother among other
brothers. Since I did not know any priests especially well, I
treated them as friends.
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