[ Marcel Văn and Clerical Abuse | Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 ]

Marcel Văn died at an internment camp in Yên Bình in North Vietnam on July 10, 1959, four years two months and three days after his initial arrest. The conventional framing here would be that he could be a confessor of the faith, if not a martyr, as he died in the hands of the communists. And that is true. Yet it is not the whole picture. Exactly what leads Marcel to make the heroic decisions that he makes is related to one aspect of moral injury in his life.

In this article, I propose to continue on from Part 5 in this series on Văn and clerical abuse, furthering discussion of moral injury in the life of the Servant of God and addressing the remaining impact category of “moral confusion” or “confusion in moral perception and reasoning”—but I will not be stopping at how this impacts our little saintly brother’s life. I will press on to finding it as determining the very form of his death and, whether the postulators of the cause of beatification intended it or not, how moral injury makes Marcel a confessor of the faith, not just because of his death at the hands of the communists of North Vietnam, but also because of his survival of clerical abuse.

Moral clarity

Encounter with abuse, whether individually or at a greater or lesser distance, can also result in changes to “moral perception and reasoning (the ability to make sound moral judgments or the experience of moral confusion/disorientation).”[1] This is actually the impact category that, at least in my view, we can discern the most in the workings of Văn’s life. He responds positively, with moral clarity, and he also experiences the negative possibility, with moral confusion. I will deal first with how Marcel comes out of his experience of abuse with exceptional moral clarity.

The study on moral injury that I am taking as a benchmark and a diagnostic says that moral confusion can be resolved through either “the acceptance, rejection, or reimagination of previously held beliefs and/or the creation of new beliefs.”[2] If what is challenged in abuse is the plain fact that priests are not pure and sinless, acceptance could be “priests are good,” reimagination could be “some priests are good and some priests are bad,” and rejection and creation of new beliefs could simply be “priests are bad.”[3] Examples of statements of moral clarity in light of clerical abuse include the following:

“I, I have a very good understanding of what’s right and wrong because of the things that happened to me. And I choose to live in the light, I choose, y’know, healthy over harmful.”[4]

“And any kind of faults or difficulty we had, were not the, not because we were faulty, or we were bad, but because we were affected by a really bad man.”[5]

As I noted in Part 1, Marcel repeatedly stresses that he didn’t do certain things, they were done to him. This comes out especially strongly when he speaks about the sexual abuse he survived (A 134, 143).[6] This is a very clear example of moral clarity. He knows that these people are bad or do very bad things.

In fact, such moral clarity is almost a hallmark of the Autobiography. Some people might find Marcel highly judgmental. He frequently throws harsh words at his abusers and oppressors. In the context of a good psychological understanding, though, what he is doing is good and indeed morally healthy. He is asserting moral clarity. He is conquering moral injury. He is being moral.

Examples here abound. Marcel calls his Catholic school “a children’s concentration camp” (A 109) that should be called evil “all the more so because it was known as a totally Catholic school” (A 113). Speaking of Hữu Bằng, he describes life as “differ[ing] in no way from that of prisoners condemned to hard labour,” and recalls that they were “treated according to everyone’s whims” (A 319). Of this and similar violations, he uses the words “the status of a slave” (A 167; cf. A 456; SH 9),[7] “a prison” (A 300), “devils” (A 497), and “abuse” (A 497; To Father Antonio Boucher, 28 May 1951).[8] He openly acknowledges that, being treated like a slave, “my priestly vocation was nothing more than pure irony” (A 221). He categorically classifies the whole operation as a loss: “All I was able to learn at that presbytery was that children were compared to dogs, and that the young candidates for the priesthood were only ‘boys’ [i.e., slaves] useful to the parish” (A 537). The people at the presbytery were “much wickeder and more dangerous than people in the world outside,” and they “wore a mask of virtue to devour the inheritance of people of good faith” (A 395–396). Is it harsh? Yes. Is it judgmental? No, it’s moral clarity after abuse.

At one point, the parish priest, Father Nhã, tries to generate a Catch-22 that forces Marcel to steal from the priest and parish themselves, in order to satisfy the demands of the priest. Marcel sees through this. He claims that Father Nhã “would have treated me as a thief but, before God and my conscience, I was not guilty of any fault” (A 180–181). This, too, is moral clarity. In a Catch-22 setup, you can’t, in a moral sense, steal from someone who makes you steal. That’s not stealing.

Perhaps the most striking single incident here is the fact that Marcel has the moral clarity to offer a vow of virginity. He calls it just that: virginity, not continence or chastity (A 463). For a victim of sexual assault, that’s moral clarity. As Dawn Eden (Goldstein) recounts in her book on healing after sexual abuse, there is a lot of confusion among the faithful on this matter. A virgin who is raped before being martyred is still counted among the martyrs of chastity by the Vatican. It is enough to resist rape. The martyr doesn’t have to succeed in maintaining a bodily integrity.[9] Similarly, Saint Augustine writes: “What sane man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his purity?”[10] In other words, physical virginity may be violated and moral virginity remain.

Văn doesn’t doubt his own virginity, nor his purity. Although he has been “used… to commit an action against the sixth commandment,” he “resisted energetically” (A 134). There is no evidence in the written record that he ever doubted his moral purity. In the first notes we have written by Marcel’s hands, we have him say, “My Jesus, very chaste spouse of my little soul, my heart is still pure” (OWN0.24).[11] We don’t know exactly what happened—as is the case with some martyrs of chastity. But we do know Văn resisted. Ergo, he is morally a virgin. He is still “pure” in his heart. No matter what happened, he is a virgin and “pure” in every morally important sense. The plain reading of his own account is that, horribly, something did happen—but Văn isn’t going to think this changed him morally. Văn doesn’t let popular misinterpretation of moral matters deter him. He has the gift of his virginity and “purity” to offer in a vow. He has moral clarity.

Moral confusion manifested in the internal forum

Moral confusion is essentially a problem with the truth. This affects Văn much deeper than I will treat in this first section. There is a much more major thread in his life, and I think it is perhaps his deepest moral injury. He struggles to understand when to tell the truth to others, and his response in the wake of abuse is to take on himself more blame than he really deserves. This external forum will merit a section of its own (below). But it is also connected to a similar deviation in the internal forum. We cannot neglect this.

The painful injury to moral functioning in the internal forum that Marcel knows is scrupulosity.[12] Scrupulous persons essentially take on themselves more moral responsibility and blame than is correct. Scrupulosity is more or less the internal-forum version of the major external-forum difficulty that Văn develops. The internal register and the external one don’t need to go together. But if they do, it should hardly be surprising. One injury to moral assignment of responsibility can easily exacerbate an injury to another.

Attention to the Autobiography reveals scrupulosity not to be present in Văn’s earlier childhood. Yes, he was stubborn (A 9–10; To Bernadette Nguyêt, 3 May 1950). Nonetheless, this stubbornness did not in childhood turn itself upon his spiritual health. Yet, by the time he is in his novitiate, it has; he suffers from scrupulosity (e.g., Conv. 439, 502–506, 662; OWV 776–777).[13] It is of course possible for scrupulosity to arise from causes other than moral injury. The obvious reference point here for Văn would be Thérèse (e.g., Ms A, 39r–39v, 41r, 44r; LT 92),[14] first liberated of such concerns by the grace of Christmas (Ms A, 46v) and definitely cleared after a general confession which resulted in the priest declaring she had never committed a mortal sin (Ms A, 70r). But again in the case of the Little Flower, the scruples first arise during her greatest psychological turmoil—something which Văn knows aplenty in the crucible of abuse.

One memorable example of scrupulosity in the life of Marcel Văn is that he asked his spiritual director permission to forego a mortification due to tiredness or illness and it was granted; his health situation did not change, yet Marcel felt a need to ask permission again the next day, even though the permission had no time limit stipulated (Conv. 661–662). In short, by the novitiate, he is quite scrupulous. It impairs him. It simply wasn’t like this for him in childhood. In between these two times, though, is obviously the whole gamut of normal growth. But in between too is all the clerical abuse. We can’t prove the connection definitively. But we can wonder.

It seems that Marcel was able to conquer this scrupulosity while still at Hanoi. When his friend Nghi writes to him with great anxiety about the forgiveness of sins, Marcel writes back a gem of a letter. He counsels Nghi that, since he is “buried in the forest and the mountains, with no one to confess sins to,” he should have confidence in the merciful love of God. True, with sacramental penance, he could be very sure. But he must also be confident because of his situation and God’s love. Văn even goes so far as to write five pretty stanzas of four verses specifically for Nghi about this spiritual problem and its solution (To Nghi, 3 May 1949). He later sums everything up in the merciful love of God:

If you look well, you will see that those only who are discouraged and lack confidence in God, end up by falling into hell.

All the anxieties which come to our mind are like the voice of God which reminds us of the necessity of prayer … and … of real confidence which abandons itself completely to God, so as to be delivered by him of the most fearful occasions. (To Nghi, 9 Nov 1949)

Scrupulosity must be vanquished. Judging by where Marcel is positioned here to help another, it seems he has made great strides in overcoming his own scrupulosity. He certainly was afflicted with it. It likely originates, as with Nghi, in horrible experiences of sins “formerly committed unwittingly” (a reference to what I would call moral injury and abuse). But Marcel is on the brighter, lighter side of the path now, able to reach out, past his own experience, to those still in the dark.

By the time Marcel is at Saigon, scrupulosity seems to be a thing of the past altogether. Even though he commits infractions, “I remain completely at peace, without any worry, without any fear” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 13 Jun 1951)—and this despite the accusations and calumnies coming from superiors, something he didn’t have to contend with when under Father Boucher’s wing in Hanoi. Later still, at Đalạt, he can even say that “it is very difficult for me to confess, since at the time of confession all my sins fly away somewhere” (OWN2.87). Scrupulosity is gone. He’s grown up. But he grew up in recovering the spontaneity, trust, and peace of his early childhood, before abuse stole it from him.

Moral confusion manifested in the external forum

Văn became a liar. If I put it as bluntly as that, it will hopefully give enough of a shock to perceive the problem of moral injury. But then again, this phrasing hardly does justice to exactly when and why Văn would say things that were not true. In the wake of his abuse, he didn’t lie for his own benefit. In fact, just the opposite. He would admit to wrongs that others had done and which were not true about himself. He would take more blame on himself than was real. He would become a people pleaser and a scapegoat at the same time. This, he perceived, was safe. It made problems disappear faster. Marcel recounts this condition over and over in his writings.

The fullest account of this moral injury occurs in the Autobiography:

I was being led away to be punished very often without knowing at all what it was all about. In view of this, I got into the habit of admitting my guilt. Whatever the crime, whenever my mother wanted to know who had done it, I took the initiative and said: “It was me, mammy.” If she forgave me, I thanked her: if she punished me, I put up with it. In my opinion it was neither a lie nor a miscarriage of justice. This was my reasoning: a misdeed is obviously a misdeed, but if no one committed the fault it does not exist. Once it does exist there must be, necessarily, a guilty person. However, if it happens that this person does not dare to admit the fault, consequently, I will admit it in their place. Concerning brother or sister, if one is punished instead of the other, it can be considered that the other is already punished. (A 426–427)

He adds:

My mother had hardly finished scolding me, and I was still expecting the cane, when my sister Lê rushed towards me with a very red face and gave me three hard slaps. She scolded me thus: “Good-for-nothing! I did it. You knew it was me…” [His mother responds:] “Why didn’t you say so? Do you think you are acting virtuously? … So I’ll admire you? You devil! All you know is how to lead others into sin. Go away! Go where you want.”

[The young Văn says in turn:] “Oh, I know very well that if anything goes wrong I get the blame. That’s why I loyally accuse myself beforehand.” (A 428)

This is the form that Marcel’s moral confusion took. He was willing to cough up to things that others had done. There is behind this a hint of virtue. He is willing to suffer for others. But there is also a great error in moral reasoning. You can’t suffer for the wrong others have done by admitting to it untruthfully.

A similar propensity to lying is admitted to by Marcel years later in a letter to his elder sister:

I ran away several times to return home, but mammy never asked me why I had run away. If she had interrogated me she would not have believed the truth of my words. In fact, I was prompted to lie, because if I had not done so, how would I have been able to endure the strokes of the cane? (To Lê, 15 Aug 1946)

And to his aunt he frankly admits, “I was forced to lie” (To Aunt Khánh, 2 May 1947). He accuses himself: “I did not make any progress in virtue. I did nothing but go backwards and become more intractable, more stubborn, etc.” (To Aunt Khánh, 4 May 1947). But I think Văn wrongly ascribes these defects to “certain faults common to childhood” (To Aunt Khánh, 4 May 1947). They are exactly the opposite. They are the consequences of a moral injury, one of the primary manifestations of which was a fractured practical relationship with the truth.

It seems to me that, unconsciously at least, Văn draws a parallel with what was natural in Thérèse, then broken in her: “when she was unjustly accused, she preferred to remain silent and not apologize, [yet] this was not merit on her part, but rather natural virtue… What a shame that this good disposition later vanished!” (Ms A, 11v). Given his intense familiarity with Story of a Soul, it is difficult to imagine that this characteristic of the young Thérèse does not influence his interpretation of events somehow. But if this was natural and in need of supernatural purification in the Little Flower, it is the result of abuse in Văn. It is not natural propensity needing to be curbed, but rather moral injury tricking the psyche into smoothing paths that are naturally more rugged.

Yet Marcel himself sometimes contradicts the hypothesis that this is a fault common to childhood. The dependence on abuse is acknowledged by him in a letter just a couple of months after the one in which he ascribes the fault to childhood mistakes:

Myself, when I was small, if I had not been badly beaten, I would never have told a lie, but because I was often beaten, because of it I came to regard the lie as being the truth, and that with the best intention. But from the time I understood the truth, I would never dare to lie. Furthermore, I was inclined to admit to faults which could attract punishment; but I have never been punished for having admitted my failings. (To Lục, 12 Jul 1947)

Văn diagnoses the same causality in the behaviour of a friend, Bái, who also “suffered a lot in Hữu Bằng at the hands of a gang which oppresses children.” Marcel says, “He is very sincere and it is only through fear of the cane or a slapping that he often lied” (To Nghi, 11 Jan 1948). It is the abuse that fractures the relationship with the truth. Marcel acknowledges that Bái would not be like this otherwise. He would not have the moral difficulty inside him.

Perhaps we can assume that over the period from May 1947 to January 1948, Marcel comes to terms with the reality of what happened. His model, Thérèse, may have done similar things to him because of natural temperament. That’s possible. But he did it because of what was done to him. Moral clarity is growing in him. He’s not this person. This is what was shoved into his psyche. It’s the “the after-effects of the sickness of my soul” (A 533). It’s moral injury.

Such a reassessment is a long time coming. In fact, progression in clearing up this moral confusion starts much earlier. The earliest effects seem to follow the grace of Christmas 1940 and that of October 1941. At the presbytery, there was a pen stolen, and Văn properly asked permission to go find it. Three times he asked, and there was no answer. He was being ignored. Since he couldn’t properly attend the lesson without a pen, Văn decided to go anyway. When he returned, he was called out for supposedly disrespectful and disobedient behaviour. Văn replied:

“Sir, if I have done anything wrong, please forgive me this time because, truthfully, I did ask your permission, but you were not paying any attention to what I said. That is why I thought you were allowing me to leave. Please excuse me this time.” (A 487)

Văn silently accepted the beating that followed. Yet he has moral clarity: “I no longer wished to beg forgiveness since I was not guilty of any fault. He hit me simply because he wanted to, simply to appease his anger.” (A 487) In this particular event, there is no compulsion to accept fault for something that is not his fault. The fault lies with the person who tempted him to make a move, then beat him for doing what was necessary to fulfil his duties as a student. This is not a complete healing of the moral injury. But it shows a first step. Văn still had many more to take.

Around this time, there are some nearly prophetic words in the Autobiography. His aunt tells him, “You have to be stubborn to become a hero. When he says ‘no,’ he means ‘no,’ and when he says ‘yes,’ he means ‘yes’.” Then she adds: “If you can always be as strong in the way of truth, that would be really splendid” (A 453). This is a point not to be forgotten. The words of Văn’s aunt are prescient. She tells him that the virtuous aspects of his stubbornness and resoluteness can be channelled into truth itself. This would be the conquering of his moral injury. It’s exactly that conquest that leads Marcel to his death.

The final victory over moral confusion

At every stage of his journey, after the initial periods of abuse in childhood, Văn learns a new aspect of “the revolutionary method of the gospel” (A 625), and this form of “revolution” always attacks the moral injury that he endured. Always. Each new grace reconfigures, somehow, the moral injury that has eaten him up. The final victory, however, is delayed until his death. The very means of dying is an open attack on the first effects of moral injury caused by abuse—and thus, it demonstrates a high, intense, illuminating degree of heroic virtue, as well as illustrates for us all what spiritual liberation must be for abuse victims. We cannot give in to the effects of moral injury. At the same time, their final vanquishing may be long delayed. It might configure the shape of our life, our spiritual journey, our own path of holiness. The moral injury is horrific, but it is the fight against it that spells out a way, perhaps the most determinate way, God will work in and for us.

On May 7, 1955, Marcel was arrested while out on a shopping run in Hanoi. He was assigned the status of “Prisoner 304A” and sent to a prison within Hanoi itself. Eventually, he was given a trial, then sent to one internment camp, then a second. It took four years of this, but eventually he expired on July 10, 1959, from beriberi and tuberculosis (SH 38–41).

If we back up the story a bit and refuse to rush to the ending that caricatures the communists as out to imprison, kill, and silence Christians, we’ll see a bit more at work here. It’s a lot more complicated.

Văn’s reasons for going back to the North have some patriotism in them. He wanted to be “a hero-saviour of the country” (OWN7.2) and for his “death to be the beginning of peace in Vietnam” (OWN2.54). But for Văn, “to love my country is to love the truth” (OWV 823)—and when he speaks thus, he is actually writing a lengthy report to his spiritual director about clerical abuse. There is this personal background of pain always sitting there when he connects country and truth. But even more than this, there is specific continuity in moral injury.

Early on in his trial, Marcel was given the opportunity to get a very light sentence and go free. All he had to do was appear before the judge and confess to a very minor crime that he hadn’t committed, then there would be no reason for further inquiry and reeducation. That’s it. He could practically go free, instead of rotting in a labour camp for a projected ten years.

When this deal was offered to him, Marcel sealed his fate. He was given the opportunity to escape. As he tells his director of conscience, in a rare letter from the years of incarceration: “I can avow that if I wished to live, I would no longer be enclosed within this prison” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 17 Nov 1955). But he couldn’t take the communists up on their offer. The precise reason for this is as follows:

In confessing a crime, the grave or light aspect of it does not concern me, what counts with me is whether or not I committed it. I shall therefore never confess to a crime which I have not committed. (SH 39)[15]

This is the key to the whole ordeal. Note that what Marcel says is exactly what his immediately post-abuse self would never have said. It’s precisely an overturning of his moral confusion. It’s a final healing of his moral injury. He will never confess to a crime that is not his—never! The end of the moral injury has come. He has been wiped clean—forever!

What the young brother endures after this takes, as his aunt had foretold, all his resoluteness and stubbornness and converts them into arms of heroic virtue. As Marcel tells us, “In the last months I have had to fight with all my strength to endure all the torture of brainwashing” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 17 Nov 1955). He was “locked for five months in a dark cell” before being sent to an external camp (To Tế, 17 Nov 1955), first at Gò Mà, then at Mơ Chèn (To Father Denis Paquette, 20 Jul 1956), finally to Yên Bái (To Father Bích, 8 Sep 1957), also called Yên Bình (SH 41). He became “no more than a breathing corpse” (To Tế, 17 Nov 1955).

Marcel himself is aware that the way he is dying requires heroic virtue: “love remains—and with love, a heroic will” (To Tế, 17 Nov 1955; SH 39). He won’t be deterred: “The enemy is nasty, dishonest, and very sly. He can destroy my body but he cannot weaken my will. Also, Jesus tells us not to be afraid.” (To Tế, 17 Nov 1955) What is the enemy trying to get Marcel to do? Give in to untrue things, of course. It started with the offer of a small lie, a confession of a more minor crime instead of the greater one he was accused of, to save his neck. It continued with proper propaganda and reeducation in the labour camp.

Throughout all this, Marcel was “always joyful and supernatural” (SH 39). Fellow detainees have told of “how radiant he was with faith, peace, and joy” (SH 41). Yet even his relations with others in the camps tell of his final victory over moral confusion.

Marcel, as a religious brother and an evidently holy person, was regarded as a source of spiritual care by his fellow Catholics. As at the presbytery, where the younger children had gathered around him, so too in the camps did people gather around him. But at this stage of his life, Marcel had finally dispensed with the self-reliance and the plague of falsehood he used to smooth over relations. He did not deceive those who come to him for help. They think he is indefatigable, but he openly allows them to see their error:

Concerning myself, since the day that I arrived at the camp of Mơ Chèn, I am very busy as might be the little priest of a parish. Outside the hours of obligatory work, I have to welcome continuously people who come, one after the other, to seek comfort near me, whom they consider as someone who does not know fatigue. However, they see well that neither am I very strong.

I am very happy, for during these months of detention, my spiritual life has not suffered, and God himself has made known to me that it is his will that I am accomplishing here. Many times have I asked him the favour to die in this camp, but each time he has answered me: “I am quite ready to follow your will as you always follow mine, but there are souls who still have need of you: without you, it would be impossible for me to reach them. So, what then do you think, my child?” “Lord it is for you to think for me.” (To Father Denis Paquette, 20 Jul 1956; cf. SH 40)

This, too, is a version of the conquest of moral injury. Marcel doesn’t have to be strong. He doesn’t have to hide. He doesn’t have to be perfect. He doesn’t have to fear rejection. He doesn’t have to keep up a front. He just is who he is. He’s wounded. His fellow prisoners come to know it. But this makes them love his holiness more. Marcel has been freed from the moral injuries subsequent to abuse.

Văn’s aunt wasn’t the only one to foresee how he could become a saint. Marcel himself had a bit of a premonition of it. In a relatively superficial way, he thought of a death from tuberculosis (OWN2.84). In a deeper sense, like his aunt, he probed the moral causes, too. But his prediction is just imperfect enough to show exactly how much greater God is and how much more perfectly he can save us than we can save ourselves.

Once in communist-controlled Hanoi, Marcel started to suspect the shape of his end: “Perhaps, later, the communists will force me to admit myself guilty of some concocted crime and will then condemn me according to criminal law” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 18 Apr 1955). Note, though, just how he gets it a bit backwards. Marcel fears being made, by duplicitous psychological tricks, to say something untrue, then condemned on the basis of a lie. He fears the reactivation of his moral injury under psychological pressure. What in fact happens is the opposite.

Quite contrary to Văn’s fears, the communists try to get him to lie, not to admit to a serious crime, but to get him to admit to something small which would then let him go free in short order. They want to break and destroy him, then let him return, demoralized. What happens is that Marcel will not lie. He is condemned to “reeducation” anyway, not because of a forced confession that implicates him in a crime he didn’t commit, but because he won’t save himself with a lie. Whereas, in the wake of abuse in childhood, he had previously condemned himself with a lie, now he turns it all on its head. He, by God’s grace working within him, vanquishes altogether that moral injury regarding truthfulness that he fears the communists could exploit.

If we grasp just how much this is a reversal of what plagued Văn after the clerical abuse as a child, and hung a shadow over him all the way until mere days before his arrest, then we can also understand that God did the impossible, utterly defying all expectations and destroying the vestiges of this worst of all moral injuries the Servant of God suffered at the hands of the servants of God. We can also, I think, be confident in the sanctity of Văn. This is heroic virtue. It is all grace.

Confessor of the faith

The cause of beatification of Marcel Văn was introduced under the possibility of seeing him acknowledged as a confessor of the faith. The choice was deliberate. Marcel died in an internment camp, and he certainly wouldn’t have ended up there if he had not been a Catholic and a religious brother. The cause could have been one of a martyr. This would have been easier. In the Vatican process, to move from Servant of God all the way to martyrdom requires only one acknowledged miracle. A confessor of the faith requires two.

But those introducing the cause thought that Asia has enough martyrs already, and what is unique about Marcel is that he is a teaching saint. He has voluminous writings. If he is ever canonized, he will be the first Asian saint with such a corpus of writing. And more than that, many people close to the cause think he is a good candidate for Doctor of the Church—santo subito, dottore subito!—and generally speaking, Doctors and martyrs are categories exclusive of one another. The only exception made thus far has been for Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, declared Doctor Unitatis by Pope Francis just last year.

What, however, the postulators of the cause have unwittingly done is made Marcel a confessor of the faith, not only because he suffered for the truth at the hands of the communists of North Vietnam, but also because he suffered for the exact same truth in the wake of clerical abuse. The reason he doesn’t take a “get out of jail free” card in the North is because of his adherence to the truth. The truth that he adheres to is exactly the same kind of truth about culpability that plagued his life as moral confusion, i.e., moral injury, following his abuse. In fact, he had been living with this moral injury for a full two decades before his arrest and trial. And God knows it was painful.

It is simply absurd to point to Marcel as a confessor of the faith and not, at the same time, be saying something about the survival of clerical abuse. We are literally talking about the exact same pain, the exact same chain of moral injury. The final conquest happened when Marcel was in the hands of the communists. But the battle was begun because of clerical abuse. You can’t whitewash this out of existence. If Marcel Văn is declared a confessor of the faith, it will be because of his sufferings for the faith both at the hands of the communists and at the hands of priests, clericalized persons, and the entire apparatus of a culture of shame, denial, and cover-up. Among other things, Văn will be, whether people are willing to acknowledge it out loud or not, a confessor of the faith in the abuse crisis.

Images in header: last photo of Marcel, not many days before his arrest, in civilian clothes for a supplies run; geography of Yên Bình district

[1] Marcus Mescher, Kandi Stinson, Anne Fuller, and Ashley Theuring, “Measuring & Exploring Moral Injury Caused by Clergy Sexual Abuse,” Xavier University (2022), 1.

[2] Ibid., 8.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 9.

[5] Ibid.

[6] A = Marcel Van, Autobiography, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 1; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2019).

[7] SH = Father Antonio Boucher, Short History of Van (Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2017). References to section number, not page number.

[8] To = Marcel Van, Correspondence, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 3; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2018).

[9] Dawn Eden, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (Notre Dame. IN: Ave Maria Press, 2012), xxxi–xxxiii, 168–176.

[10] Saint Augustine, City of God, trans. Marcus Dods, in Philip Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1^st series, vol. 2 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1887), 1.18; quoted in Dawn Eden, My Peace I Give You, xx.

[11] OW = Marcel Van, Other Writings, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 4; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2018). Additional system for abbreviations explained on page 14, e.g., OWN = notebooks; OWV = various writings.

[12] The single best resource I know on scrupulosity is William Doyle, “Scruples and their Treatment,” from the late 19^th century.

[13] Conv. = Marcel Van, Conversations, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 2; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2017).

[14] All references to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux using the system in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Cerf / Desclée de Brouwer, 2023), with translations my own.

[15] There is nearly identical wording in Charles Bolduc, Frère Marcel Van (1928-1959). Un familier de Thérèse de Lisieux (Montreal/Paris: Éditions Paulines & Médiaspaul, 1986), 109, where it is noted that these are words of Marcel at a trial in May 1956.