***
The Bâo-dai Affair
The Emperor Bâo-dai became increasingly unpopular. I
do not know why Mgr. Drapier remembered, summoned or asked me to handle
this matter with the lecher Bâo-dai. Saint Thomas Aquinas, the
fame of the Dominican order, taught that the monarchy is the ideal form
of worldly government and as a Dominican (Drapier) thought that it was
his duty to help Bâo-dai. He could not do it publicly since he
was a religious and not a political representative.
Therefore he had thought of me because of my influence in the
Vietnamese environment (political), particularly with the Catholics.
I answered him openly: "Monsignor, my task as a
citizen is to pay taxes and to obey the empire's laws. If the monarchy
is better than every other form of the government, it must be
established which type of the monarchy is meant: The absolute
monarchy? The constitutional monarchy? A monarchy sponsored by a
foreign country? What type of monarchy did St. Thomas Aquinas speak
about? As a Bishop, I cannot get involved with any politics no matter
what my preferences are. According to the Apostles' example we
are obliged by the popes not to get involved in politics."
Mgr. Drapier was dissatisfied with me again this
time but could find no means to counter my arguments. I turned into "a
strange fellow" for him. Mgr. Drapier clearly showed this when asked by
the Bishops Mgr. Lê-hûn-Tu and Pham-ngoc-Chi if they should recruit
troops to fight against the Communists. He answered: "Do whatever
you want, but never listen to Mgr. Ngô-dinh-Thuc"!
Mgr. Lê-hûn-Tu reported this to me. With Mgr.
Pham-ngoc-Chi, the Bishop of Bui-dun's help he recruited troops from
among his Phât-diên parish children. They were severely beaten
and had to flee to South Vietnam. The activities of Mgr. Drapier, the
apostolic delegate displeased the Vatican, which ordered him directly
to Rome. Due to this Mgr. Drapier was seized by great
dissatisfaction and returned directly to France without stopping in
Rome to give account of his diplomatic and religious activities. He was
accompanied by his two adopted children, the orphans from the Middle
East. They stood at his bed when he died. As to Bâo-dai: He
still lives in France at the expense of one of his numerous concubines.
***
As I had made provisions for the spiritual and
material needs of my Apostolic Vicariate, I believed that I could begin
to rest a bit. Then the Holy Congregation for the Propagation of
the faith informed me and the other South Vietnamese Bishops that the
Summus Pontifex wanted to establish a Catholic university in
Vietnam. French would be one of the official languages, in
addition to Vietnamese, in order to train the Cambodians and Laotians
who had formerly been a French protectorate.
All of the South Vietnamese Bishops gathered in
Saigon in response to the Holy See’s call. (The ones in the North could
not participate because of the Communist regime).The meeting consisted
of a Vietnamese majority and three French Bishops: the Bishop of
Quinhin, of Konhin and a Dominican Bishop who had fled from the north.
Everyone was perplexed: Establish a university? First: With
what can one build the university? Should we ask the faithful for
donations? The majority of the Christians from the South live in
modest circumstances. Those Christians who fled from the North (almost
a million) had only their Crucifix, a picture of the Virgin Mary and a
bundle of clothes with them. The Government under Ngo-dinh-Diem
assisted as much as possible to prevent them from starving to death and
provided a monthly assisted to get them back on their feet. Would it be
right to ask these starving poor millions to build a university?
Assuming we did find money to build a university,
where do we find the instructors? The normal human response to the Holy
See had to be: "Non possumus." At best we could get a few thousand
American dollars—a drop of water to water the desert and make it bloom!
Since I was the dean, everyone turned to me. To me! The Bishop of a
Vicariate (diocese) that had just been created and started to function
normally. Build a university? I knew what a university was, whether in
Rome or in Paris. It meant that we demand a miracle from the dear Lord.
It would be a true creation as it is stated in Latin: "Ex nihilo sui et
subiecti." This means: To produce a new life from the nothingness. But
the Holy See wants this. The Holy Father, God's representative wants
this. The Vietnamese are people who believe in God's power and
have always been His obedient children. The poor dean said at the
meeting: "The Holy See wants the university, therefore God wants
it. Who will have it built, organize it and see that it lives and
thrives? No one answered my question. Therefore I had to answer:
"My dear colleagues, I will jump into the cold water. Ask the dear Lord
that I do not drown. Pray for me. I need a first class miracle!"
We went our separate ways: My colleagues, glad that
they did not have to make any sacrifices, not even a small one; the
poor dean, who stayed behind all alone and circumspect. First, organize
the finances! Upon praying, asking to be prayed for and asking for
advice, someone came up with the following idea: "Monsignor, if
you succeeded in getting permission to exploit the forest that is about
thirty kilometres away from Saigon you could easily find buyers,
thousands of Chinese for example. The trees are a hundred years old and
the Chinese live in Cholon, only a short distance away from
Saigon. They would happily take all the wood that you would have
cut and get it on the world market in Hong Kong. Because the whole
world needs wood."
But then problems arose! First: to get the usage
rights from the government, of course, with the permission and
supervision of the forest superintendent's office. Secondly: to build a
road about thirty kilometres long, from the forest to Saigon. Thirdly:
to find a good foreman whose job it is to find lumberjacks. The
lumberjacks must be brave enough to confront the wild animals and
especially the Communists, who are worse than the wild animals. I
learned this phrase in Anninh's seminary: "Tentare, quid nocet?
It does not hurt to try. So I got started to request permission from my
brother's government to cut the trees.
My brother told me: "Ask my ministers. I cannot give
you what you ask for even though I am for the foundation of a new
university because we only have one, the one in Saigon, which has just
started up. (Formerly, there was only one university in
French-Indochina, located in Hanoi, and two high schools, one in Hanoi
and one in Saigon, with one junior college „From Providence" in Hue,
with me as dean).
I presented my inquiry to the government. The
vice-president obliged his colleagues to grant me permission to log in
light of the usefulness of a second university in South Vietnam. Of
course I had to pay the government for this permission and had to
submit to inspections by the foresters.
Providence sent a very clever man for the project's
management. He was a former student who had studied law in France and
worked as a court recorder. The man introduced himself to me and
assured me that he wished to contribute to the opening of a Catholic
university since he was Catholic. He demanded no compensation
because he had a personal fortune. This man is still alive; he
since fled to France. I do not want to name his name since he served me
very well. He knew how to find lumberjacks, negotiate with the forest
superintendent's office and deal with the wild animals and perhaps the
Communist guerrillas. The forest was more than one thousand
hectares large and just teemed with them. He also certainly knew how to
serve himself. After fleeing to France, he finally cheated me out
of 3 million francs under the pretext of starting a good business: to
purchase human hair in the Far East and to sell it to an American
company, because the European and American women needed wigs.... he
showed me letters from possible buyers, French and Americans. I
submitted them to French experts: All thought that the project was
interesting and that one could enter it without having to worry.
However it was a sneaky prank. This man took 3 million francs at the
time and disappeared into Babylon, into Paris. I later found out that
he used this money to open a Vietnamese restaurant. I wish him good
luck. His help had made it possible for me to build the
university and to secure him an annual pension by purchasing Saigon’s
best buildings. The French, who had fled South Vietnam, had sold
them at a loss because they thought that they would fall into Communist
hands (foreigners' opinion). I intended to give this person the Portail
library, the best library in Saigon, as reimbursement for his years of
service to the university. We are even. The 3 million that he had
stolen from were less than the value of the former Portail library. I
promptly removed his name from my will.
I soon tackled the next problem: Constructing
an adequate road from the forest to Saigon. This was easy to solve:
Christians from the south that were rather wealthy lent me some money
to buy a bulldozer. After several months I had a good road, about 30
kilometres long, which belonged to me at exactly the right time to send
the first load of beautiful wood for sale from my forest.
From time to time the forest administrator, a big
hunter before the Lord, sent me his trophies from hunting in
Vinhlong. His name is Pham-quang-Lôc and he sent me large pieces
of wild boar and elk antlers... we had difficulties with the game
wardens who were accustomed to having their expert opinions paid for,
but that was all included in the bills! These wardens were secretly
advised by the minister of agriculture and forestry, a heathen who
hated Catholics. He did not dare to openly display his
anti-Catholicism because of his fear of being fired by the president,
my brother. As far as I was concerned I had to behave like a
monkey that kept his ears and eyes closed. Why should I defend
myself against a few pin pricks? The main thing is that the Lord's work
is continued!
The Lord really got the ball rolling now. The
forest provided enough money to build an American style university and
to purchase the large buildings in Saigon. I mentioned these
earlier, the ones that the French offered to sell because they thought
that Hô-chi-Minh's Communist hordes would march from north to south and
simply sweep my brother's republic away. Therefore, “Escape if
you can!” These buildings with huge ground floors were primarily
rented to Chinese salesmen at astronomically high square meter
prices. The other floors were converted into luxury apartments
that were rented in U.S. dollars to American officers who commanded the
US military forces in Indochina. The rent was enough for the university
building maintenance and for the salaries of the professors and
employees.
The University of Dalat might have been the only
"self-sufficient" one in the world and that gave Catholics, who were
too poor to cover their food and school costs, scholarships. Instead of
having to support the university as in other cases, the Catholic
students had free room and board.
Where should the university be built? South Vietnam
has a tropical climate which is difficult for physical and especially
mental work during the 6 months of the hot season. There are
practically only 2 seasons: the rainy season and the hot
season. The rainy season is from October to March; the dry season
is from April to September. The dry season in Cochin-china is
tempered by short intensive thunderstorms in the afternoon. The
buildings would have to be air-conditioned in order to comfortably
study. All the Americans in South Vietnam did this, but the
Vietnamese did not have enough money.
Fortunately there is a plateau in South Vietnam that
is about a 1000 meters high. Dr Yersin, a Frenchman, had
discovered it. It was less than 100 kilometres away from Saigon
and could be reached in less than an hour by airplane or in half a day
by truck over a mountain road.. The name of the plateau is Dalat.
Pines grow there and the climate is an eternal spring, where flowers
and vegetables from temperate climates grow. Waterfalls provide
cascades of clear fresh water and a small lake has drinking water and
fish.
Studying there would be a pleasure and one could
easily pursue athletic activities. This is why your humble servant
selected this location for the future university. Property prices were
not high at that time, therefore I hastened to purchase considerable
grounds with an eye for future expansion. Formerly there were
constructed on the site massive buildings that had served as a school
for the children of the French. According to the treaty,
these buildings had been handed over to my brother, the president's
government. With regard to the acquisition of these buildings, my
brother suggested that I turn to the French ambassador in
Vietnam. As I sounded him out, he expressed the wish that these
buildings should be given to an institution that teaches the French
language in memory of France. France's wish was in accordance with that
of the Holy See. He had asked us to start a university where French
would be the common language for the residents of Vietnam, Cambodia and
Laos.
Therefore I received these beautiful buildings as a
gift and also some small villas nearby, where the teachers of the
children from these troops had lived. After a few repairs these
buildings became the university's cradle. I purchased about 10
hectares of the estates around this main area for the university,
without mentioning the hundreds of hectares added for future expansion.
With a lot of land and the money from the timber
management, it was clear that I would emulate the American university
concept: separate buildings with a one floor limit for every
subject, a spacious dormitory where the university students could live
on campus and a beautiful chapel with belfry and a cross on its
top. It would be constructed on a rise so that it would be
visible from everywhere on Dalat and a property near the chapel for the
university seminary and its professors, the Jesuit priests. The
seminary clerics should teach up to the licentiate degree in
theology. A house for the skilful sisters from the various
orders, a female dormitory and kilometres of streets through the
campus. Even a soccer field and open space for handball, etc.! The rest
of the grounds should be covered with an evergreen lawn and majestic
shade trees here and there. Peace everywhere!
Who would take over the task of building this small
city? I had the luck to find a constructor. He was a Belgian
priest of German origin with an engineering degree from the University
of Brussels where his atheist father had taught. My future
co-worker had not known the dear Lord until he was 20 years old. At
this age God gave him and his sister the mercy of conversion. A costly
conversion, because his father, indignant at his only son's conversion
to Catholicism, threw his things out of the window and chased him
permanently away from home. The boy became a missionary in the
order that the famous P. Lebbe had established. Pére Lebbe, as general
Vicar of Peking, advocated transferring the Bishop’s office to Chinese
native clergy. He was thrown out of his order, at which time he
established a small Chinese order named the Small Brothers with a
mission that had for the purpose to place themselves into the service
of native Bishops. My future co-worker was consecrated as a priest and
sent to Phat-Diêm in the service of Mgr. Lé-hun-Tuí, (the future
commanding general of the Catholic army in the war against the
Communist). The priest and engineer installed electricity there in the
small city of Phat-Diêm and taught the seminarians mathematics. After
his defeated Bishop escaped from the communists, this Belgian father
asked me for hospitality. I nominated him as professor to the small
seminary where he succeeded in teaching his students the theorems of
geometry and algebra, despite his ignorance of the Vietnamese language.
Father Willig (his name) converted as an adult and
had a late calling. He also had a very difficult character; it was
difficult to deal with him, but he liked the president, my brother
Diêm, and me. He always remained loyal to us in bad times and in his
own misfortune, which was the result of his very stubborn character. He
constructed the various buildings and the university chapel and had the
small villas around the university repaired. He did it cost
effectively. Therefore he was somewhat frustrated when he found
out that he had not been nominated as dean of the university. I could
not do this as it would be against the spirit of the Holy See and
against the spirit of his order which had been founded by the holy Pére
Lebbe. The order had been established to support the native clergy and
not to dominate it.
After the completion of the buildings he said
goodbye to me and took employment with the Americans who had arrived in
Vietnam. His projects included the installation of electricity,
well drillings and other projects that were useful to our country.. My
brother, the president, awarded him an important citation and paid for
a round trip to Belgium so that he could visit his sister and recover.
After my brother's assassination he went back to Europe and is
currently a priest in a small worker centre in France.
He still feels homesickness for Vietnam but the
steps that he took with the Bishops that knew him, such as Mgr.
Tham-ngoc-Chi, who represented Mgr. Lé-hûn-Tû, were unsuccessful. I
could do nothing more for him since Americans who ruled the south
forced the obstruction of my return to my homeland. I was regarded as a
pacifist and opponent of the civil war between the north and the south.
Later, after all that happened, I had the joy of meeting him in
Belgium. There he introduced me to his sister, the wife of an important
industrialist. I spent a few days in the industrialist's summer
residence, which was restful for me. If I speak about the Congregation
for the support of native clergy established by P. Lebbe, I think that
I must also mention P. Raymond de Jagher. He was also a Belgian priest,
but his character was completely different than P. Willig's. My
brother, the President, appreciated him greatly. He had been in
the service of the Chinese Bishops during which he had been thrown into
the prison by the Mao-Tse-Tung's Communists and had written a wonderful
book about his imprisonment. Freed, he then placed himself into the
service of Cardinal Yupin on Formosa. In the meanwhile he came to
Saigon, where he opened a school for Chinese with my brother's help. P.
de Jagher speaks and writes Chinese as if were his native tongue; he
speaks American English and now spends his time with holding lectures
for the benefit of Chinese Catholics who left their country, and also
for the benefit of Vietnamese who had fled to America and other places.
He is a missionary loyal to the ideals of P. Lebbe.
***
Now I had to organize the instruction at the
university. First we wanted start with a liberal arts faculty, then a
science faculty, and with the subjects that did not require many
machines such as: philosophy, history, Vietnamese, French, English, and
mathematics along with the theological and philosophical faculties
managed by the Jesuit Priests.
The professors were recruited from among the
European missionaries, the University of Saigon or people from orders
who were in Cochin-china. Most of the people who taught at our
university were not Catholic. By airplane they could reach Dalat in
less than 45 minutes. After their lectures they rested in cool
spring climate and the agreeable air of Dalat. They took their meals
with the Father from the university and returned to Saigon after a
relaxing weekend. My forest allowed me to pay them a good salary.
Since I could not constantly be in Dalat, I assumed
the title of a university chancellor and a council of several Bishops
stood by my side including the Bishop of Dalat, Mgr. Hien. Mgr. Hien
was a former student of mine in Hué’s major seminary. There was also
Mgr. Piquet of the foreign missions from Paris and Bishop of Nhahang
assisting me. I nominated Father Thien, whom I had sent to France
to acquire his academic titles, as dean of the university.
The Lord's mercy allowed me to realize this project
which was regarded as utopian when the Holy See had presented it to us.
More than 15 years have passed since this foundation. I am in
exile in Europe. Fifteen years of existence have been celebrated with
wonderful parties, which united the Bishops from Central and South
Vietnam with the government's representatives from Saigon (which had
not yet fallen into Communist hands), and the Holy See sent a message
of congratulation and several speeches were held. Only the name of the
university's founder was forgotten because his name does not please
today's Vatican. Ends well, all’s well. I founded the university in
order to obey the Vatican of that time. God helped me. His is the
honour and glory for all eternity. Amen.
***
After Mgr. Drapier's departure, we received an
Irish apostolic delegate named Mgr. Dosley. He was the former head of
the Irish missionaries from St. Kolumban (and later was head of the
Australian houses). He was chosen but had to learn French in order to
be able to communicate with our missionaries, our priests and our
authorities. Mgr. Dosley is a pious man and is still alive, but was
unfamiliar with the former Vietnam previously during the French
rule. He did not understand the threat that Ho-chi-Minh's
Communists posed.
He and I had our differences. He called me a trouble maker when I
proposed that we take precautions to minimalize the damage in case that
the Communists should gain the upper hand. For example: to
translate all of the philosophy and theology books that our seminary
used into Vietnamese. To find hiding places for Mass wine because the
wine that grows in Vietnam is unsuitable for Mass; to keep the
names of new priests secret; for each Bishop to obtain
authority from the Holy See to name one or two successors in the
event that contact to the Vatican be broken off, etc. To be able
to do this without having to seek permission from the Holy See again,
etc. Mgr. Dosley trusted the French army’s optimistic talk and accused
me of pessimism. He was surprised by the Communist wave in Hanoi
and became their prisoner for months along with his secretary, a fellow
countryman and a missionary priest of St. Kolumban. He was freed when
he was physically and mentally exhausted and taken aboard an airplane
by stretcher in order to return to Europe. After a long period of
convalescence in Rome he met with me, an exile in Rome and humbly said:
"Monsignor, you were completely right."
I was neither prophet nor fortune teller, but
prevention does not hurt because it is unpardonable to be caught due to
carelessness. Now the Holy See must allow Vietnam's Bishops to have one
or two designatees (Bishops) during their lifetimes, one of which is a
coadjutor.
After Mgr. Dosley, we had other apostolic delegates,
like Mgr. Brini, imposed upon us. Today Mgr. Brini is the
secretary of the Holy Congregation for the Orient. Mgr. Caprio replaced
Mgr. Benelli when he became Cardinal of Florence.
Mgr. Brini was an Apostolic Delegate when the Holy
See created the Vietnamese hierarchy. Formerly the Bishops were
only apostolic vicars. Mgr. Brini was therefore charged with placing
into office the Apostolic Vicars as Archbishops of the Archdioceses of
Saigon, Hué and Hanoi, or Bishops in the remaining dioceses. Mgr.
Brini went to Hué to appoint me as Archbishop. Since he was too
exhausted by our climate, he then put me in charge of appointing the
Bishops, who were under the influence of the archdiocese Hué.
Therefore, I had to travel to Quinhn, Kontum and other places in order
to appoint the title bearers. Mgr. Caprio was more of a diplomat
than Mgr. Brini, who had not visited the academy of the church nobles,
where the Holy See's future diplomats are trained. Paul VI had
been trained there. Mgr. Brini, having been called late, became a
priest after he had acquired his Doctorate in civil law. He then
entered the Russicum, the seminary for the Catholic Russians. He
learned this language there and it for him as a springboard to become
secretary of the Holy Congregation for the Orient and future Cardinal,
if God allows him to live.
***
Since I was an apostolic delegate, I have been in
contact with a great number of the Holy See's representatives for more
than 40 years. Several of these representatives were from among the
missionaries and others were career diplomats who had learned their
trade at the church Pontifical Academy that had once been the
Pontifical Academy of the Nobles in the Service of the Church and had
been established in 1701. As such, I believe that I am able to make
this comment: What role do these representatives of the Holy See
play? They should inform Rome about the religious conditions in
the delegation's jurisdiction. Career missionaries appear to be
more experienced than young diplomats who have only been in contact
with already organized dioceses in Europe.
Less than 10 years ago the predominant nationality
of the delegates that emerged was Italian: Mostly Italians from the
south, where poverty is the clergy's normal situation. There is
only one way to escape this poverty: the diplomatic career, where
promotion to prelate and Archbishop is very quick. One has the
privilege to see the world, since all diplomats change their assignment
every 10 years. They retire as cardinals and often become prefects of
the Holy Congregations and sometimes become the highest shepherd.
Diplomacy, therefore, opens the way up for everything. But did Jesus
train his apostles like this? I do not know what I should answer. My
little personal experience tells me that one could do better for the
welfare of the church.
I have now arrived at a turning point of my church
life. After 22 years as a Bishop I was transferred to the archdiocese
Hué as an Archbishop. Despite the conversion of Vietnam's hierarchy,
that previously consisted of apostolic Vicariates, into dioceses and
archdioceses, she is still dependent upon the Holy Congregation "de
Propagatione Fide", which is currently also named the Holy
Congregation for “ The evangelization of the people (nations)."
Why to Hué, my city of birth? The church
usually avoids nominating a Bishop for the management of a diocese
where his family comes from. The reason is obvious. In Vietnam, the
former emperors also avoided naming native provincial governors since
they could be suspected of favouring their family. My mother,
sisters and brothers still lived in Hué. My former teacher, Cardinal
Agagianian, Prefect of the Holy Congregation for the Propagation of the
Faith, revealed the reason for this exception. He told me, "you should
have been Archbishop of Saigon, my son, but your brother, president
Diêm governs in Saigon. If you had become the Archbishop of Saigon,
political and the religious power would be in the hands of the members
of one and the same family. Therefore you were nominated for Hué
because Hanoi is in Communist hands." It appears to be my fate to
pick up the ruins, more than that, either to make a diocese from the
pieces—like the one in Vinhlong, or to create a university as the
one in Dalat. Very hard work particularly if you must start with
nothing; but it has an advantage: You can do as you please. On the
other hand reconstruction of ruins includes the diligence to save
whatever could be still used. Now a new minor seminary had to be built
in the old diocese of Hué. Since the old Anninh seminary was in
the Communist zone, I had to enlarge the major seminary of Phu-xuín so
that it could accept more than 100 major seminarians from dioceses
dependent upon the archdiocese. These expansions included the chapel,
the classrooms and the dormitory that belonged to Hué. It is a
venerable, almost 100 year old building that once housed a maximum of
about 30 clerics. Fortunately there was enough land.
The diocese of Hué, known for the good reputation of
its scholars and devout clergy, was the poorest in Vietnam. The reason?
The persecution, that had lasted more than 200 years, ravaged all the
properties of the dioceses and parishes in Vietnam. After the
French conquest produced religious peace, the Vietnamese government had
to grant the Catholic missions compensation for the destruction of
churches and other Catholic facilities. The missions used this
money either to purchase rice paddies or for the construction of
churches. At this time Hué had a Bishop from Cochin-china, Mgr. Caspar,
an Alsatian from the Paris foreign mission. Now the mission in
Cochin-china lives from the rice paddies. This prelate therefore wanted
to apply the same politics as in Saigon and acquired rice paddies with
the compensation destined for the diocese of Hué. The rice paddy
situation in Hué was quite different than that of Cochin-china, where
there are good and inexpensive rice paddies. In Hué, as a
contrast, there are few rice paddies and especially very few good ones.
The representatives employed by the Bishop for the
purchase of the rice paddies were not all honest. The result was
tragic: Hectares of sand were acquired at horrendous prices or good
rice paddies were purchased, although their owners had not sold
them. Therefore there were dreadful disputes when the diocese
sent people to work the fields! The disaster was irreparable.
I was confronted with an impossible situation.
Luckily, my brother, President Diêm, helped me generously and
discreetly. Thanks to his alms (donations)—whose amount only God
knows—I could build a modern minor seminary, two steps away from the
Bishop's palace and enlarge my major seminary and repair the cathedral
which had fallen into debris. I was also able to modernize the Bishop's
palace so that priests could be received there, besides building a
house for retired priests.
One problem that occupied my thoughts: How was the
Hué diocese to be freed of its poverty? How could each parish be
equipped with enough means to care of their normal requirements, as I
had done in Vinhlong? My brother Diém's government enacted an
agrarian law at just this time. A loan determined for the
reforestation of uncultivated estates that belonged to communities or
villages.
There are dirt cheap sandy estates for sale in the
Thûa-Thiâs (Hué) and Quangtri provinces that make up my
Archdiocese. Therefore I petitioned the state for a loan of
several million Piasters for the reforestation of these estates.
After ten years we would pay the state loan back with interest. I
gathered my priests and explained the project to them. If a parish
wanted a loan to develop nearby uncultivated estates, the priest, with
the consent of the parish, would send in a petition. The petition
contained the surface area of these estates, the required loan amount
and the type of trees to be planted. After examination by the
diocesan council and careful consideration the loan would be given into
the priest’s hands and he would commence with
reforestation. He would report to the Bishops’ council
every year during the spiritual exercises about his work. The
inspection of the areas and the results would be performed by the
relevant district Deans.
The majority of the priests submitted petitions
according to this plan. These sandy estates could only support a
single tree type, a type of conifer that the French called "Filiao". It
produces passable lumber but it is very good heating wood. It grows
very rapidly and has branches with many needles that are suitable for
rice and food cooking. The more the branches are cut off, the
faster the other branches grow! After selling this firewood the parish
would have normally repaid the loan with interest in ten years.
Mind you: The loan was not compulsory. The priest
could ask for it or not. In this case a new priest could develop
a piece of land neglected by his predecessor and could submit a
petition to the Bishops' council for a reforestation loan. To be
certain, however I gave the deanship collective responsibility for the
planting, loan repayment and usage of the plantations.
Since there was a large sum remaining from state
granted loan, I purchased a swampy and therefore not expensive piece of
property across from my Bishop's palace. There I had a large building
constructed. The rooms were to be rented to public servants
working in Hué. I also bought a large coconut palm and "Filiao"
plantation in Longcô for the needs of the diocesan seat.
Thanks be to God, this project seemed very
promising. Everyone got to the work and in the couple of years that
passed in Hué, most parishes were able to save the money from the sale
of the Filao-branches that were cut annually. The building
opposite the Bishop's palace was fully rented and provided the diocese
with constant income with the interest earnings.
Unfortunately it is Hué's lot to remain poor since
the Vietcong (Communists) crept in throughout my diocese that was about
50 kilometres away from the Communist border. The Communist
Guerrillas invaded our two provinces and forbade our priests to repay
the loans to the government in Saigon. An unimaginable accusation
from Archbishop Dién resulted from this situation. He had been named
successor at the seat in Hué by the Holy See when I was banished to
Europe. At the time he accused me of pocketing the millions that
Saigon had lent for reforestation.
The Holy Congregation for Propagation of the Faith
wrote me a letter that reported this infamous accusation the moment I
returned to Rome, after I had buried my niece. She was my brother
Nhu’s eldest daughter; she was run over near Paris by two trucks driven
by Americans.
I answered the Holy Congregation immediately that
they should let my accuser be known: first, that Bishop Diên, who lives
in the bishop’s palace constructed with my own money, ask the Father
Procurator of the mission residing in the Bishop palace to hand over
the documents relevant to the loans granted to the parishes for the
reforestation; second, that Bishop Diên should inspect the large
coconut and filao plantation near Langeô; third, Didn’t Bishop Diên
collect the rent from the building I constructed myself, which is
across from the house that he lives in?; finally, I reserve the right
to quote him in the court of Rota because of slander.
Furthermore, since the mail between Europe and South
Vietnam still existed, I wrote to my priests in Hué and accused them of
not having informed the assistant Bishop about the reforestation
project. However, these priests responded that they had told Mgr.
Diên the truth about the government loan during the annual spiritual
exercises: that Bishop Thuc had never seen the money stored in
the Commissary. Mgr. Serve therefore had accused me of theft,
although he knew it was slander.
Terrified by my threat of taking this story to the
Roman court, Mgr Diên then asked me for forgiveness. There we have the
sincerity of this excellent friend of Paul VI, the Pope, who had forced
me to resign before the legal deadline so that Mgr. Diên would be named
the Archbishop of Hué and could exercise his practice of extending a
hand to the Communists in order to undermine the Saigon
government. Mgr. Diên also used the millions, whose owner I was,
without asking me for permission!
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