Nguyen Van Thuan, Viet cardinal, icon
VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, whose
agonizing
account of imprisonment by the communists in Vietnam made him an
inspirational figure for many Catholics in his homeland, died yesterday
of
cancer. He was 74.
Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan had gone into exile in Rome after being
expelled
from Vietnam more than a decade ago. Although he was made a cardinal
only
last year, Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan had already appeared on lists of
possible successors to Pope John Paul II, particularly by those
believing
the next pontiff could come from a poor, non-European country. Vietnam
has
the largest Roman Catholic community in Asia after the Philippines.
Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan was ordained a priest in Vietnam in 1953. He
was
appointed deputy archbishop of Saigon days before the South Vietnamese
capital fell to the communist North in 1975.
Targeted for his faith as well as his family connections - his uncle was
Ngo
Dinh Diem, the assassinated South Vietnamese president - Cardinal Nguyen
Van
Thuan spent 13 years in a communist ''re-education'' camp - nine of them
in
solitary confinement.
During that time, he fashioned a tiny Bible out of scraps of paper.
Sympathetic guards smuggled in a piece of wood and some wire from which
he
crafted a small crucifix.
''His record of what he did in solitary confinement is incredible,''
said
Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who met Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan
shortly
after his release from prison in 1989.
''He communicated with people outside, wrote messages of hope, prayers -
those were smuggled out and duplicated in a primitive way, person to
person.
There was no fax, no typewriter,'' Law said.
In his book ''The Way of Hope - Thoughts of Light from a Prison Cell,''
Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan wrote: ''In our country there is a saying: `A
day
in prison is worth a thousand autumns of freedom.' I myself experienced
this. While in prison, everyone waits for freedom, every day, every
minute.
We must live each day, each minute of our life as though it is the
last.''
''He was a very powerful example on how to endure suffering,'' Law said.
''He had a philosophy of life - take each moment, and live each moment
in
the love of Christ.''
In 1991, Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan was forced into exile. At the
Vatican,
Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan ran the Pontifical Council of Justice and
Peace,
handling issues such as Third World debt.
The Associated Press - September 17, 2002
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