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Ban lifted for new cardinal
Welcome in homeland after long exile

Cardinal Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan will be allowed to return to his native Vietnam, after a decade in effective exile, the Fides news service has reported.
Having received his red hat from Pope John Paul II on February 21, the new cardinal “may return to the country of his birth where he will be afforded all the privileges normally given to overseas Vietnamese,” according to a statement released by the Vietnam foreign ministry. If he chooses to visit his home, Cardinal Van Thuan “will face only routine immigration procedures.”

The Vietnamese prelate, who had been imprisoned for 13 years, was forced to leave his native land in 1991. He was escorted to the airport by police, given a one-way ticket to Australia—ostensibly to visit relatives there—and told that he would not be allowed to return. As the coadjutor Bishop of Saigon, the future cardinal had been seen as an enemy by the Vietnamese Communist government because he was unusually popular among the people of the city, and because he had personal ties to the family of the former President Ngo Dinh Diem. 

The Vietnamese government has placed heavy restraints on the activities of the Catholic Church—insisting, for instance, on the right to approve bishops nominated by the Vatican. Sources in Vietnam, cited by Fides, indicate that the new attitude toward Cardinal Van Thuan might be part of a general relaxation in the government’s posture, indicating the prospect for an easing of restrictions on the Church in the Asian country.