Vietnamese cardinal praised for living out God’s love

By Joachim Pham, National Catholic Reporter

SAIGON, VIETNAM – The Saigon cardinal who just retired last weekend is complimented on his efforts to reunite local priests and work for the common good.

Cardinal Archbishop John Baptist Pham Minh Man of Saigon officially resigned Saturday. (Joachim Pham)

Cardinal John Baptist Pham Minh Man presided at a special ceremony Saturday to inaugurate a new building in the St. Joseph Major Seminary compound. Present were Singapore-based Italian Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, the Vatican non-resident representative to Vietnam, 23 archbishops and bishops from throughout the nation, some 200 priests and hundreds of Catholics who helped cover the cost of the construction.

During the ceremony, local Catholics also marked the 80th anniversary of Cardinal Man’s birthday by giving him gifts and praising his efforts over the past 16 years to build the local church.

Cardinal Man’s “main motivation for serving the church is to obey God’s will and follow Jesus’ example,” Coadjutor Archbishop Paul Bui Van Doc, Man’s successor, said. The cardinal also deals with all things in harmony with the love of God and human beings, he added. 

Archbishop Doc, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, said Vietnam’s only living cardinal is endlessly kind, sympathetic and grateful to all people, and that he treats people with a friendly manner.

Auxiliary Bishop Peter Nguyen Van Kham said the cardinal, who used to catch fish and sell food on streets for a living when he was a child, “makes efforts to promote reconciliation among local Catholics.”

Before this event, Cardinal Man told NCR a week ago that when he started to serve the archdiocese in 1998, he was deeply concerned about divisions between priests who had joined the National Assembly or other state organizations and the rest who were in favor of church teachings.

The cardinal, who only recently uses a stick to walk, said his predecessor Archbishop Paul Nguyen Van Binh (1910-1995) had allowed some priests to join the National Assembly. Archbishop Binh, the archdiocese’s first prelate who led the archdiocese during and after the Vietnam War, asked local Catholics to live in harmony with the communists and to work with others to rebuild the city. He also held dialogue sessions with the communists to help both sides understand one another better.

Cardinal Man said Archbishop Binh asked a priest who was a National Assembly member and had fathered a child to remain his priesthood after the priest had petitioned to give it up.

“I could not exclude those priests who joined the National Assembly from the priest college, as I highly respect what he (Archbishop Binh) did for the local church,” Cardinal Man said.

“I also do not stand for any side. I follow God, who teaches me to love all people,” he said.

He said he respects local priests’ freedom and tries to promote brotherly solidarity among them and to bring them closer together. His policies differ from his predecessor’s in some ways, however.

Read the full article by Joachim Pham from National Catholic Reporter.