Ngô Đình Thục

Ngô Đình Thục was born on 6 October 1897, in Huế, French Indochina, to an affluent Roman Catholic family as the second of the six surviving 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 and mandarin of the French-controlled Emperor Bảo Đại's administration. At the end of World War Two, both Khôi and Thục's younger brother Diệm were arrested for having collaborated with the Japanese.[2] Diệm was released, but Khôi was subsequently shot by the Việt Minh as part of the August Revolution of 1945 (and not buried alive as is sometimes stated).[3] All of Thục's brothers, including Diệm, Nhu and Cẩn, were politically active. Cardinal François Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (1928–2002) was Thục's nephew.

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 was selected to study theology in Rome, and is often said to have earned three doctorates from the Pontifical Gregorian University in philosophy, theology, and Canon law; this is not substantiated by the university's archives however.[4] He briefly lectured at the Sorbonne and gained teaching qualifications before returning to Vietnam in 1927.[4] 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.

On 8 January 1938, Pope Pius XI created the Apostolic Vicariate of Vĩnh Long in Vietnam, and personally chose Thục (now aged 41) to be it its first Vicar Apostolic. On 4 May of the same year, with his family in attendance, Thục was consecrated a bishop by Archbishop Antonin Drapier, Apostolic Delegate to Indochina,[5] and co-consecrators Bishop Isidore-Marie-Joseph Dumortier, M.E.P., Vicar Apostolic of Saigon, and Bishop Dominique Maria Hồ Ngọc Cẩn, Vicar Apostolic of Bùi Chu.[1] He was the third Vietnamese priest raised to the rank of bishop.

His coat of arms portrayed three dragons, a tie to the Nguyễn dynasty,[5] and he took as his episcopal motto "Miles Christi" ("Soldier of Christ").[6]

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.[7]

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 and Thục also forged links with Cardinal Francis Spellman, the most politically influential cleric of his time, and Spellman became one of Diệm's most powerful advocates. Diệm then managed an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome with his brother's help, and then settled in the US as a guest of the Maryknoll Fathers.[8] Spellman helped Diệm to garner support among right-wing and Catholic circles. Thục was widely seen as more genial, loquacious, and diplomatic than his brother, and it was acknowledged that Thục would be highly influential in the future regime.[9] 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 foreign financial aid.[10]

In October 1955, Diệm deposed Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by Nhu and declared himself President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam, which then concentrated power in the Ngô family, who were dedicated Roman Catholics in a Buddhist majority country.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] 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.[18] Thục, the most powerful religious leader in the country, was allowed to solicit "voluntary contributions to the Church" from Saigon businessmen, which was likened to "tax notices".[19] Thục also used his position to acquire farms, businesses, urban real estate, rental property and rubber plantations for the Catholic Church. He also used Army of the Republic of Vietnam personnel to work on his timber and construction projects.[20]

On 24 November 1960, Thục was appointed Archbishop of Huế[1] by John XXIII.

In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, 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.[21] 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 perceived 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,[22][23] and protests for equality broke out across the country. Major Dang Sy, the commanding officer in the incident, later revealed that Archbishop Thục had personally given him the order to open fire.[24] 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.[25]

Diệm was overthrown and assassinated together with Nhu on 2 November 1963. Ngô Đình Cẩn was sentenced to death and executed in 1964. Of the six brothers, only Thục and Luyện survived the political upheavals in Vietnam. Luyện, the youngest, was serving as ambassador in London, and Thục had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. Because of the coup, Thục remained in Rome during the Council years (1962–65). He was among the bishops who were against the statements of the Council.[26]

After the closing of the Second Vatican Council, none of the relevant governments – American, Vietnamese or the Vatican – consented to Thục returning to Vietnam.[27] Paul VI therefore had him resign as Archbishop of Huế. At his resignation, Paul VI did not appoint him to govern any diocese, vicariate, or any other jurisdiction, but simply appointed him titular Archbishop of Bulla Regia, and Thục began his life in exile.

According to Thục, the Americans forced the South Vietnamese government to refuse him permission to return,[28] and that Paul VI used this inability to return to force him to resign and appoint Bishop Philippe Nguyễn Kim Điền, one of Paul VI's favorites, as his replacement.[29]

He began his exile in Rome.[30] There, he was able to find food and lodging in a reception center, but he had to pay a fee for this. In order to obtain the funds to do this, he offered his services to a curé in the parish. The priest accepted his offer. Nevertheless, they soon fell out with each other, and Thục left.[6]

Thục was then received and given a room in the guest house of Dom Nivardo Buttarazzi, the Abbot of the Casamari Abbey in Veroli, Frosinone, Lazio, Italy, whom Thục had previously known. He stayed there for about one and a half years, confessing the faithful of the parish which was dependent on the Abbey and the monks who came to him. One day, the religious decided to organize an exhibition of nudes in the library of the monastery. Thục showed his disapproval, so the religious asked him to leave the place, and so he left.[6]

He then went to the local bishop, who had made his sympathies known to Thục on several occasions. Thục begged the bishop to give him a small church that had no priest where he could serve, provided that it had a sacristy where he could place a bed and stay. The bishop agreed, and appointed him to the village of Arpino which consisted of a dozen families.[6]

A Swiss priest Thục formerly knew in Écône, Switzerland,[31] Father Maurice Revaz, former Chancellor of the Swiss Diocese of Sion and professor of canon law in Ecône at the International Seminary of Saint Pius X[32] of the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), came to Thục and invited him to go to Spain, saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary wanted him to render her a service.[31] On the recommendation of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Lefebvre knew Thục quite well and considered him to be a bishop with good doctrinal views;[6] Thuc, like Lefebvre, was against the statements of the Second Vatican Council[26]), on 1 January 1976, in El Palmar de Troya, Spain, Thục ordained Clemente Domínguez y Gómez — who claimed to have repeatedly witnessed apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary — and others as priests, and on 11 January 1976, consecrated Dominguez and four others as bishops.[33][34] Thục stated that he had gone to Palmar de Troya on the spur of the moment, though contemporary sources show him to have been a regular visitor since 1968.[35] For these consecrations, he was declared excommunicated by the Vatican. He repented (and was absolved in 1976), especially after Domínguez, after the death of Paul VI, declared himself "Pope Gregory XVII" and head of the Palmarian Catholic Church.

Thục moved to Toulon, France, where he was assigned a confessional in the cathedral until about 1981. According to one sedevacantist journal, he served at the Mass of Paul VI (the new rite of Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969) as an acolyte several times.[36] On 16 April 1981, Holy Thursday, he concelebrated the Mass of Paul VI with Bishop Gilles Barthe of Fréjus-Toulon. He later repented from having done this, saying, "I hope that God has not judged me so cruelly, for I erred in good faith."[37]

On 7 May 1981, Thục consecrated the French sedevacantist and sedeprivationist priest Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as a bishop.[33] Des Lauriers was a Dominican theologian, an expert on the dogma of the Assumption, and an advisor to Pope Pius XII.[38] He was the formulator of the Thesis of Cassiciacum, which states that Paul VI and his successors were only materially but not formally popes. Before his consecration was decided on, des Lauriers explained this thesis to Thục, who assured him that he too believes the Holy See to be vacant from the time of Paul VI.[6] On 17 October, Thục consecrated the two Mexican sedevacantist priests and former seminary professors Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora as bishops.[39] Carmona and Zamora had been sedevacantist leaders and propagators in Mexico for many years,[40] and were among the priests who formed the Unión Católica Trento (Tridentine Catholic Union).[26]

On 25 February 1982, in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany, Thục issued a handwritten declaration in Latin, wherein he condemned the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo Mass) as invalid; condemned the Mass of Paul VI and the new rites of ordination of priests, consecration of bishops, confirmation, and extreme unction as unpleasing to God; expressed his desire to open a seminary for candidates "for that priesthood which is pleasing to God"; stated that the new priests (he placed the word "priests" within quotation marks, like he did with "Mass" [of Paul VI], to imply that they are invalid) now hold to modernism, false ecumenism, adoration [i.e. cult] of man, and religious liberty, and are unwilling to condemn heresy and expel heretics; and lastly, declared that:

. . . in so far as I am a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, I judge that the Chair of the Roman Catholic Church is vacant; and it behooves me, as bishop, to do all that is needed so that the Roman Catholic Church will endure in its mission for the salvation of souls.[41][42][43]

Afterwards, Thục listed pre-Vatican II documents from numerous popes, from the Council of Trent, from canon law, and from the Roman Pontifical to support his declaration.

On 21 March, Laetare Sunday, he publicly proclaimed this declaration during a Pontifical High Mass in Sankt Michael Church in Munich.[42]

In response to his episcopal consecrations for the sedevacantists in Toulon in 1981 and to his declaration of sedevacantism, the Vatican again declared him ipso facto excommunicated.[43]

His newly consecrated bishops did not form a united structure and organization, but became a fragmented group, many limiting themselves essentially to sacramental ministry and only consecrated a few other bishops[44] for various sedevacantist priests or groups.

Thục may have performed other consecrations besides those for 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, as bishops in Loano, Italy, on 18 April 1982, but Doctor Eberhard Heller of Una Voce in Munich (who witnessed and assisted in Thục's 1981 consecrations for the sedevacantists) has said that Thục was with him in Munich on that date.[45]

In 1983, Thục departed for the United States at the invitation of Bishop Louis Vezelis, an American Franciscan former missionary priest who later became a sedevacantist bishop. Vezelis was consecrated a bishop by the American sedevacantist Bishop George J. Musey (consecrated in 1982 by Carmona) and by co-consecrators Carmona and Zamora (the two Mexican sedevacantist bishops Thục consecrated on 17 October 1981). Thục collaborated with Vezelis in the operation of a seminary in Rochester, New York,[46][47] United States.

Thục began to be increasingly sought-out by the expatriate and refugee Vietnamese community, including old friends and contacts from Huế and Saigon.[48] They facilitated his extraction from sedevacantism and Thục returned to the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church definitively in 1984.[1][49]

Nevertheless, his retraction is denied by some sedevacantists, such as Father Francis Miller, a Franciscan friar who lived with Thục in Rochester, and Bishop Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers and Bishop Adolfo Zamora, two bishops consecrated by Thục in 1981.

Miller states that there is no sufficient evidence of Thục's retraction, and claims that, on the contrary, among Thục's last words to him in New York City (where Thục had been taken by Vietnamese priests[46]) were:

They want me to sign a reconciliation and renounce all that I have done. [Laughing:] Why would I do this? [Seriously:] This would destroy the work God gave me to do of preserving the sacraments for the future. I cannot do that![50]

This is similar to what Thục is said to have told Bishop Louis Vezelis, who as stated above, lived with Thục in Rochester:

He [ Pio Laghi ] wanted me to disavow what I had done. But, I did not because that would have destroyed all that I had done.[5]

Des Lauriers wrote that:

The document spelling out his [Thục's] submission to JP-2 [John Paul II], and said to be signed freely by Mgr. Thuc in July of 1984, was followed by an "exhortation." This exhortation was addressed to the three bishops (of which I am one) consecrated in 1981 by Mgr. Thuc urging the three bishops to follow in the footsteps of Mgr. Thuc and submit to JP-2. Now if Mgr. Thuc really had such sentiments and was not under pressure, he would have told me so himself. But, the fact is that Mgr. Thuc did not respond to the letter which I sent to him at this time and I still don't know if he received it. Let me add that Mgr. Thuc, even if less than candid, was sufficiently perspicacious to be capable of knowing that an exhortation coming directly from him would impress me, while one coming from the mediation of official Rome could not in my eyes appear other than ridiculous! This exhortation "via Wojtyla [John Paul II]" (who Mgr. Thuc abhorred even more than Paul VI if such is possible!) was a joke! The production of Ratzinger, this exhortation smells of cosmic falsity - and this because it emanates from hell. It is signed "pseudo- Thuc" or by the "ectoplasm of Thuc" - every aspect of Thuc but the real Thuc.[51]

Thục was taken from New York to Kansas City, Missouri, by air, and from there was driven down to Carthage, Missouri, to the Motherhouse of the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix. He died there on 13 December 1984, the feast of Saint Lucy,[5] at the age of 87.

That his retraction was false is affirmed by many sedevacantists in general,[5][52] and so is the belief that he was kidnapped or abducted[51][52][53][54] by the Vietnamese clergy when he left Vezelis' Franciscan monastery and was taken to Missouri, where he died.