Ngo Dinh Thuc Pierre Martin
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Image:Thuc.jpg Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (chữ nôm: 吴廷俶) (approximately pronounced "Ngoh Din Took" ) (October 6, 1897–December 13, 1984), Roman Catholic Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam, was born in Huế, on October 6, 1897, of affluent Catholic parents. His younger brother, Ngô Đình Diệm, was president of South Vietnam.
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Early Ecclesiastical Career
Thuc entered the junior seminary in An Ninh at the age of 12. He spent eight years there before going on to study philosophy at the major seminary in Huế. After his ordination to the priesthood on December 20, 1925, he taught at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was then selected to study theology in Rome and returned to Vietnam in 1927 after being 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, at the age of 41, Father Thuc was chosen by Rome to direct the Apostolic Vicariate at Vinhlong. He was consecrated bishop on May 4, 1938, being the third Vietnamese priest raised to the rank of bishop. On November 24, 1960, Pope John XXIII named Bishop Thuc Archbishop of Huế.
Thuc's brother, Ngô Đình Khoi, was buried alive because of his refusal to become a minister in the first communist government. Thuc's three other brothers, Ngô Đình Diệm, president of South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Nhu and Ngô Đình Can, his close collaborators, were all assassinated. President Diệm was assassinated on November 1, 1963. Of all his siblings, only Thuc and Luyen escaped assassination. Luyen was serving as ambassador in London and Thuc had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. After the Council (1962-1965), for political reasons, Archbishop Thuc was not allowed to return to his duties at home and thus began his life in exile.
Palmar de Troya
Image:Thucpalmar.jpg Palmar de Troya, Spain, a town just outside of Seville, was the site of supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the late 1960s and the 1970s. The visionary and founder of the Palmarian sect, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez staged ecstasies and supposedly received the stigmata. Archbishop Thuc traveled to Spain due to the intervention of Rev. Maurice Revaz, who until he became convinced of the Palmar de Troya apparitions, had taught Canon Law at the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) seminary of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Ecône, Switzerland. Revaz left the SSPX for the Palmar de Troya group. Archbishop Lefebvre himself did not believe in the apparitions of Palmar de Troya and often warned his faithful of the many recent apparitions being reported; even more after Professor Rev. Revaz had left Lefebvre's traditionalist Roman Catholic seminary for "this fraudulent group in Palmar".
Archbishop Thuc however did believe the apparitions initially and agreed to provide the Palmar de Troya-based Carmelite Order of the Holy Face with Holy Orders. On January 11, 1976 Archbishop Thuc consecrated Dominguez Gomez and four others to the episcopate, after having earlier ordained two of them to the priesthood. Three of the men consecrated by Thuc had already been Roman Catholic priests for a long time: among them two diocesan priests and a Benedictine father. Since the consecrations were not done with the Pope's approval, Pope Paul VI excommunicated Archbishop Thuc.
Archbishop Thuc promptly broke with Palmar de Troya - not directly because of Paul VI's objections, but rather because he came to conclude that the Palmarian movement was deviant and illegitimate, and that the apparitions were fraudulent. He asked for the excommunication to be lifted and to receive absolution of all ecclesial penalties, to which Pope Paul VI immediately agreed.
Dominguez Gomez and his followers proceeded to say mass, ordain their own priests and consecrate bishops for their initially vagant clerical order, in the end effectively setting up a parallel church in opposition to Rome. Upon the death of Pope Paul VI, Dominguez Gomez claimed to have been mystically crowned pope in a jail, only hours after the death news reached him, founding the Palmarian Catholic Church.
Sedevacantism
Archbishop Thuc then moved to Toulon in southern France, where he had a confessional in the cathedral and once concelebrated the Novus Ordo Missae (the New Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969), until about 1981. Archbishop Thuc proceeded to consecrate several bishops without papal mandate. On May 7, 1981 he consecrated a Dominican priest, theologian and former professor at the Roman Lateran University, Guérard des Lauriers. On October 17, 1981, he consecrated two Mexican priests and former seminary professors, Moises Carmona of Acapulco and Adolfo Zamora. Both of these priests were by then convinced, that the Papal See of Rome was vacant and the successors of Pope Pius XII were all heretical usurpators of Papal power. In February 1982, in Munich, Archbishop Thuc issued his declaration declaring the See of Peter vacant. In his declaration he intimated he desired a restoration of the hierarchy to end the vacancy, but his newly consecrated bishops instead became a fragmented group. On September 25, 1982 he conditionally consecrated the former Old Catholic bishop, Christian Datessen. It is also alleged that during this period, Archbishop Thuc consecrated various individuals of dubious character. The bishops consecrated by him rapidly proceeded to consecrate other bishops for all kind of Catholic splinter groups, most of them Sedevacantists.
Shortly after the Datessen consecration, Archbishop Thuc departed for the United States at the invitation of Bishop Louis Vezelis, a Franciscan former missionary priest who had agreed to receive episcopal consecration, in whose New York friary he took up residence.
It is alleged (by the Vezelis group in particular) that Archbishop Thuc was "abducted" by a group of Vietnamese priests while in New York and was taken to Missouri and hidden away from the contact of his (sedevacantist) friends. There he was subsequently held incommunicado. It is possible he returned to union with John Paul II and abjured his former position of Sedevacantism although there is no confirmation one way or the other. Under these uncertain circumstances in the United States, Archbishop Thuc died on December 13, 1984.
Controversy
Some opponents of Thuc and even some sedevacantists claim that the Thuc-line episcopal consecrations might have been invalid because they allege Archbishop Thuc was no longer in mental capacity. This opposition however was sufficiently refuted by several authors [1]; the Holy See itself recognized and regularized Thuc-line priest and bishop Alfred Seiwert-Fleige, who was reconciled by John Paul II. Seiwert-Fleige was allowed to function publicly as a priest, though was ordered to lay down his episcopal functions. His Holy Orders were recognized as entirely valid though. Seiwert-Fleige publicly concelebrated at a papal Mass of John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in 2001. By information of other sources it is also alleged, that the Vatican has kept registries of all the Thuc-line bishops as valid episcopi vagantes.
In addition to the consecrations above, Archbishop Thuc conditionally re-consecrated the following bishops who formerly belonged to the Old Catholic Church; Jean Laborie on February 8, 1977, and Christian Datessen on September 25, 1982. Laborie and Datessen founded their own missions. Reportedly, Archbishop Thuc conditionally re-consecrated Michel Fernandez and Roger Kozik, both formerly of the Palmarian Catholic Church, on October 19, 1978 and who returned to more or less traditionalist Roman Catholicism as episcopi vagantes.
It has been reported, but remains unconfirmed that Archbishop Thuc also consecrated Labat d'Arnoux on July 10, 1976, Claude Nanta de Torrini on March 19, 1977. Probably these consecrations did not take place.
Finally, there is the case of the episcopus vagans Jean Gerard Roux. Roux alleges that he was consecrated by Archbishop Thuc on April 18, 1982. However, it is reported that he was consecrated earlier and later by other bishops. There remains a cloud of doubt concerning the circumstances of Roux's ordination and consecration.
External links
- In Memoriam Monsigneur Peter Martin Ngo-Dinh-Thuc by M.L. Guerard des Lauriers, O.P.
- The Thuc consecrations' history and backgrounds
- Sedevacantist Declaration of Archbishop Thucde:Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục
fr:Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc nl:Pierre-Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc vi:Ngô Đình Thục zh:吴廷俶