On May 15th, the postulator of the cause for the Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Cardinal Van Thuân, Waldery Hilgeman and Dr. Luisa Melo from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Vatican visited the house of Shalom International Office in Rome. The holy Mass has been celebrated by Fr. Cristiano Pinheiro, the International Assistant of Shalom Community and after the Eucharistic Celebration Shalom missionaries served a dinner. It was a fraternal moment of sharing where Fr.Cristiano explained for the guests that cardinal Van Thuan’s testimony is well known among Shalom Community members and the servant of God is already loved by Shalom Community. Many texts and books of the cardinal is part of formation process of Shalom missionaries. The international assistant also revealed that Shalom Community desires to serve the Catholic Church in Vietnam.
Cardinal Van Thuân was from Vietnam and because religious persecution spent 13 years in prison, nine of them in solitary confinement, without ever going to trial, and “while imprisoned in conditions of poverty and hardship of freedom, never lost his nerve, never gave in to hatred towards his captors. As he was being forcibly “re-educated” he used another method to teach his enemies. His guards became his pupils. The sincerity of his relationships changed relations within the prison. ” His jailers, secretly, gave him pieces of wood with which he made a cross and a piece of wire, which became a chain. He wore it around his neck for the rest of life, even as a cardinal.(AsiaNews)