Rome Newsroom, Jul 25, 2023 / 09:00 am
The Vatican has united two foundations into a single new foundation named for Venerable Nguyen Văn Thuận, a Vietnamese cardinal known for his spiritual reflections on hope, written during and following 13 years of confinement in a communist prison.
The Văn Thuận Foundation replaces the Good Samaritan and Justice and Peace Foundations, according to a July 25 rescript issued by Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, with the permission of Pope Francis.
Venerable Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Văn Thuận was born in Vietnam in 1928. In 1967, he became bishop of Nha Trang. He was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Saigon in April 1975, just six days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese army.
He was arrested and spent 13 years in a Vietnamese communist reeducation camp. During his imprisonment, which included nine years in solitary confinement, he smuggled out handwritten messages to be circulated among the Catholic community.