Ngô Đình Thục

In this Vietnamese name, the family name is Ngô, but is often simplified to Ngo in English-language text. According to Vietnamese custom, this person should properly be referred to by the given name Thục.
His Excellency
Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục
Archbishop of Huế
Native name Phêrô Máctinô Ngô Đình Thục
See Archdiocese of Huế
Installed 24 November 1960
Term ended 17 February 1968
Predecessor Jean-Baptiste Urrutia, Vicar Apostolic of Huế
Successor Philippe Nguyên-Kim-Diên
Other posts
Orders
Ordination 20 December 1925
Consecration 4 May 1938
by Antonin-Fernand Drapier
Personal details
Born (1897-10-06)October 6, 1897
Huế, French Indochina
Died December 13, 1984(1984-12-13) (aged 87)
Carthage, Missouri
Buried Springfield, Missouri
Denomination Roman Catholic
Parents Ngô Đình Khả
Education Philosophy, Theology, Canon law
Alma mater Pontifical Gregorian University
Motto Miles Christi (Soldier of Christ)
Signature
Coat of arms

Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (Vietnamese pronunciation: [ŋo ɗîɲ tʰùkp]) (6 October 1897 – 13 December 1984) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam and a member of the Ngô family who ruled South Vietnam in the years leading up to the Vietnam War. He was the founder of Dalat University.

While Thục was in Rome attending the second session of the Second Vatican Council, the 1963 South Vietnamese coup overthrew and assassinated his younger brother Ngo Dinh Diem, who was president of South Vietnam. Thục was unable to return to Vietnam and lived the rest of his life exiled in Italy, France, and the United States. During his exile, he was involved with Traditionalist Catholic movements and consecrated a number of bishops without the Vatican's approval for the Palmarian and Sedevacantist movements. As a result, he was excommunicated by and reconciled with Holy See a number of times.

Family

Ngô Đình Thục was born in Huế to an affluent Roman Catholic family as the second of six sons born to Ngô Đình Khả, a mandarin of the Nguyễn dynasty who served Emperor Thành Thái during the French occupation of Vietnam.

Thục's elder brother, Khôi, served as a governor. Khôi was reportedly buried alive by the Việt Minh right after the August Revolution in August 1945 for having been a mandarin of the French-controlled Emperor Bảo Đại's administration. Three other brothers, Diệm, Nhu and Cẩn, were all politically active. Diệm had been Interior Minister under Bảo Đại in the 1930s for a brief period, and sought power in the late 1940s and 1950s under a Catholic anti-communist platform as various groups tried to establish their rule over Vietnam. Diệm led a coup, overthrowing the emperor and becoming president of South Vietnam in 1955. Diệm, Nhu and Cẩn were all later assassinated during the 1963 South Vietnamese coup.

Cardinal François Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (1928–2002) was Thục's nephew.

Career in Vietnam

At age twelve, Thục entered the minor seminary in An Ninh. He spent eight years there before going on to study philosophy at the major seminary in Huế. Following his ordination as a priest on 20 December 1925, he taught at the Sorbonne. He was selected to study theology in Rome, Italy, and returned to Vietnam in 1927 after having been awarded three doctorates from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in philosophy, theology, and Canon law. He then became a professor at the College of Vietnamese Brothers in Huế, a professor at the major seminary in Huế, and Dean of the College of Providence. In 1938, he was chosen by Rome to direct the Apostolic Vicariate at Vĩnh Long. He was consecrated a bishop on 4 May 1938, being the third Vietnamese priest raised to the rank of bishop.

In 1950 Diệm and Thục applied for permission to travel to Rome for the Holy Year celebrations at the Vatican but went instead to Japan to lobby Prince Cường Để to enlist support to seize power. They met Wesley Fishel, an American academic consultant for the U.S. government. Fishel was a proponent of the anti-colonial, anti-communist third force doctrine in Asia and was impressed by Diệm. He helped the brothers organise contacts and meetings in the United States to enlist support.[1]

With the outbreak of the Korean War and 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 also made links with Cardinal Francis Spellman, the most politically influential cleric of his time. Spellman had studied with Thục in Rome in the 1930s and became one of Diệm's most powerful advocates. Diệm managed an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome with his brother's help.[2] Spellman helped Diệm to garner support among right-wing and Catholic circles. As French power in Vietnam declined, Diệm’s support in America, which Thục helped to nurture, made his stock rise. Bảo Đại made Diệm the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam because he thought Diệm's connections would secure funding.[3]

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, dedicated Roman Catholics in a Buddhist majority country.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] 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.[11]

Buddhist unrest and downfall of Diệm

In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, where Thục was archbishop, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying the Buddhist flag during Vesak celebrations commemorating the birth of Gautama Buddha, when the government cited a regulation prohibiting the display of non-government flags at Thục's request.[12] A few days earlier, Catholics were encouraged to fly Vatican flags to celebrate Thục's 25th anniversary as bishop. Government funds were used to pay for Thục's anniversary celebrations, and the residents of Huế—a Buddhist stronghold—were also forced to contribute. These double standards led to a Buddhist protest against the government, which was ended when nine civilians were shot dead or run over when the military attacked. Despite footage showing otherwise, the Ngôs blamed the Việt Cộng for the deaths,[13][14] and protests for equality broke out across the country. Thục called for his brothers to forcefully suppress the protesters. Later, the Ngôs' forces attacked and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country in an attempt to crush the burgeoning movement. It is estimated that up to 400 people were killed or disappeared.[15]

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 was serving as ambassador in London, and Thục had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. After the Council (1962–65), for political reasons and, later on, to evade punishment by the post-Diệm government, Archbishop Thục was not allowed to return to his duties at home and thus began his life in exile, initially in Rome.

Exile

Thục moved to Toulon, France, where he was assigned a confessional in the cathedral until about 1981. He at least once concelebrated the Mass of Paul VI (the new rite of Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969) in the vernacular. One author claims Thục served at the Mass of Paul VI as an acolyte several times.[16]

Convinced of a crisis devastating the Roman Catholic Church and coming under the increasing influence of sedevacantist activists, Thục consecrated several bishops without a mandate from the Holy See.[17] In December 1975 he went to Palmar de Troya, where he ordained Clemente Domínguez y Gómez—who claimed to have witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary—and others, and the following month he consecrated Dominguez and four followers as bishops.[18] In May 1981 Thục consecrated a French priest, Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, as bishop.[18] Des Lauriers was a Dominican, an expert on the dogma of the Assumption and advisor to Pope Pius XII,[19] and former professor at the Pontifical Lateran University. In October 1981, he consecrated two Mexican priests and former seminary professors, Moisés Carmona (of Acapulco) and Adolfo Zamora (of Mexico City).[20] Both of these priests were convinced that the Papal See of Rome was vacant and the successors of Pope Pius XII were heretical usurpers of papal office and power. In February 1982, in Munich's Sankt Michael church, Thục issued a declaration that the Holy See in Rome was vacant, intimating that he desired a restoration of the hierarchy to end the vacancy. However, his newly consecrated bishops became a fragmented group. Many limited themselves essentially to sacramental ministry and only consecrated a few other bishops.[21]

Thục consecrating Fr. Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers to the episcopate, May 1981

Thục may have performed other consecrations besides the five bishops at Palmar de Troya and the three sedevacantists in 1981. He is said to have consecrated two priests, Luigi Boni and Jean Gerard Roux, in Loano in Italy on 18 April 1982, but a Dr. Heller, of Una Voce in Munich, has said that Thục was with him in Munich on that date.[22] The bishops consecrated by Thục proceeded to consecrate other bishops for various Catholic splinter groups, many of them sedevacantists. Thục departed for the United States at the invitation of Bishop Louis Vezelis, a Franciscan former missionary priest who had agreed to receive Episcopal Consecration by the Thục line Bishop George J. Musey, assisted by co-consecrators, Bishops Carmona, Zamora and Martínez, in order to provide bishops for an "imperfect council" which was to take place later in Mexico in order to elect a legitimate Pope from among themselves.

Thục died at the monastery of the Vietnamese American religious Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix on 13 December 1984, at Carthage, Missouri, aged 87.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "University Project Cloaked C.I.A. Role In Saigon, 1955–59", New York Times, 14 April 1966
  2. ↑ "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."
  3. ↑ Jacobs, pp. 25–34
  4. ↑ The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam, HistoryNet
  5. ↑ Gettleman, pp. 275–76, 366
  6. ↑ Moyar, pp. 215–16
  7. ↑ "South Viet Nam: The Religious Crisis". Time. 14 June 1963. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  8. ↑ Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.
  9. ↑ Maclear, p. 63.
  10. ↑ SNIE 53-2-63, "The Situation in South Vietnam", 10 July 1963
  11. ↑ Tucker, p. 291
  12. ↑ Topmiller, p. 2
  13. ↑ Karnow, p. 295
  14. ↑ Moyar, pp. 212–13
  15. ↑ Gettleman, pp. 64–83
  16. ↑ Rev. Fr. Noël Barbara, Fortes in fide, Nr 12.
  17. ↑ "Archbishop Thục: a brief defense"
  18. 1 2 Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism, JHU Press, 1999,p. 99.
  19. ↑ M.L. Guérard des Lauriers, Dimensions de la Foi, Paris: Cerf, 1952
  20. ↑ Griff Ruby, The Resurrection of the Roman Catholic Church: A Guide to the Traditional Catholic Movement, iUniverse, 2002, pp. 138–9.
  21. ↑ "Misericordias Domini in æternum cantabo": Autobiography by Mgr. Ngô Đình Thục, written ca. 1978–1980. Einsicht – röm.-kath. Zeitschrift: Munich
  22. ↑ Schmitt, Oskar (2006). Ein würdiger Verwalter im Weinberg unseres Herrn Jesus Christus: Bischof Pierre Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc (in German). Books on Demand. pp. 134–5. ISBN 9783833453854. Retrieved 6 July 2014.

Further reading

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