For twenty years, specifically on the sixteenth of September 2002, the Vietnamese Cardinal Phan Tuan passed away, after a long struggle with illness, who was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and spent thirteen years under arrest by the communist authorities in Vietnam, and the Pope declared him honored for five years. Gone. For the occasion, the Dean of the Congregation of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Reh, wanted to remember the late during the Mass he presided over in the Basilica of Saint Mary in Trastevere, Rome.
“I was appointed a Cardinal with the late in the Consistoire in 2001, and we were sitting side by side and when the late Pope John Paul II reminded us after taking an oath that we must be ready to defend the Church and to strengthen the faith even if it requires bloodshed, I whispered to him that he had already He did so, reflecting on his thirteen years in prison, and he answered me saying that God’s plans are a mystery but always inspired by love. With these poignant words, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Reh wished to remember his brother, the late Cardinal François Xavier Nguyen Van Toan, during the homily he delivered during the Divine Liturgy, knowing that Pope Francis declared the late venerable on May 4, 2017, and will be declared beatified after acknowledging a miracle that took place through his intercession.
Mass was celebrated in the Basilica of Saint Mary in Trastevere, a short distance from the headquarters of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, where Cardinal Van Toan arrived in 1994 to perform his duties as Vice-President, and then as President from 1998 until his death. Among the faithful who participated in the mass were a large number of the Vietnamese community in Rome, as well as monks and nuns belonging to the various monastic societies and lay faithful. The late Cardinal left a great impression in their hearts, who was considered a witness to meekness, as Cardinal Michael Cherny, Dean of the Vatican Department for the Service of Integrated human development.
Cardinal Cherny had highlighted the qualities and characteristics that marked the life of Cardinal Van Toan, during the opening of a conference organized on the fifteenth of this month on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his passing. Also participating in the meeting was the beatification petitioner, Father Waldery Hilgeman, who pointed out that many Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese believers are constantly talking about the blessings they received through the intercession of the late Cardinal.
Returning to the sermon of Cardinal Ray, at the beginning of the celebration of the Mass, he asked for the intercession of Venerable Van Tuan during this difficult stage that the world is going through today, due to wars and the effects of the Covid pandemic. During the sermon, he reminded the faithful that the late Cardinal fell ill a few months after the Consistory, and pointed out that he visited him more than once in the hospital, and he was always calm and reassured. At first he was talking about his future projects, such as drawing up a summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which his successor completed later. And after touching on other topics, when he accepted the idea of death, realizing that he would enter into the great love of God.