I have been reading the book I mentioned in my posting Tic-Tac-Thuc on Archbishop Ngô-Đình Thục who had lived off the top of the hog in Vietnam with his nasty brothers, a little like Saddam Hussein in Irak. I’m afraid the story, which seems plausible enough to me, is not edifying. It is difficult to conceive of the validity of the Sacrament of Order conferred in “sordid” conditions and outside any real ecclesial context.

The story is little different from that of other bishops at the origin of “lines of succession” of independent bishops. Ngô-Đình Thục was no traditionalist but rather thought in terms of Catholicism inculturated into Asia and his native Vietnam. It would seem that his money had run out and he needed generous benefactors like Dr Heller in Münich, editor of Einsicht and arch-sedevacantist. For that reason, he was prepared to write up a piece of doggerel to support the sedevacantists after having been responsible for the Palmar de Troya fiasco.

I recommend reading this book for a realistic evaluation of this prelate and his misfortunes once the tyrannical regime of his brothers was over in Vietnam. It is time for sobriety.

I am grateful to be far away from that world of bishops of bugger-all and closer to my own English origins. Diversity is indeed what we need in the Church, but being a little more serious than some of those little tin-pot popes and prelates.