Father Doan, guest in the Jerusalem kehilla

Father Doan is a Jesuit from Vietnam and serves as the director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem. He was invited to the Jerusalem kehilla to speak of his experiences in the Vietnamese prisons in the 1980s.

Father Doan began his words with a review of the history of his homeland and a description of the Church there. After this introduction, he told his personal story. As a young Jesuit, he was sent to Rome to study in the 1970s. He succeeded in his studies but before the end of his stay in Rome, as the Communist forces from North Vietnam were about to invade South Vietnam, the head of the Jesuit order decided to send father Doan back to Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. He told him: "This is a mission!". Father Doan arrived on the last plane that entered the country before the borders were sealed.

In those days, the beginning of Communist rule in the south, he was chosen as superior of the Jesuit order in the country. For six years he was able to lead the order and he served too as an advisor to the Catholic Vietnamese bishops in these difficult days. In 1981, Father Doan was arrested by the authorities, accused of being a Vatican agent working against Communism.

Father Doan spent nine years in the prisons and work camps. There he had many conversations about faith, the Bible and the Church with those who arrested him. He succeeded also in ministering to his fellow prisoners and his talk he described the meetings in prison, the secret prayers and the friendships that were forged.

He summarized his experience with words that impressed his hearers: the sense of freedom despite the bars, the desire to serve and the victory of pardon. He also emphasized that the persecutions against the Church only contributed to her growth and today she is stronger than ever.

This was a golden opportunity to broaden horizons and learn about our Vietnamese brothers and sisters and learn from them.

At the end of his talk, he proposed praying together a prayer he wrote in prison. The words of the prayer were published on the Vicariate site and can be found here