Primary Sources — His Own Words
Documented letters, speeches, and spoken statements attributed to Jean Cassaigne
"I who made of my poverty a pride and my joy — here I am, become a prince of the Church. But I tell them all: they will change my costume and my cage, but they will not change the man."
Letter to his father, on being appointed Bishop of Saigon, 1941 A1
"I ask your Excellency to allow me to submit my resignation to the Holy See and to retire to the leprosarium of Djiring, near my children whom I have the most beloved and whom, in his goodness, the divine Master allows me to resemble."
Letter to MEP Superior, March 5, 1955 A2
"In leaving Saigon, I regret nothing, I have lost nothing — on the contrary, I won everything. I did my duty there for fourteen and a half years and I am sometimes surprised to have been able to hold out for so long."
Letter to his cousins in Urgons (Landes), 1955 A3
"What I feared most was not death, but a wound that would have prevented me from giving myself to the missions."
Letter (wartime period), on fear of wounds vs. death A5
"The villagers take them into the forest, build them a thatched hut and leave them there alone to live or die. Then, weak and lonely in the deserted hut, the lepers no longer have the strength to do anything... They will slowly die a miserable death, will collapse in some corner and die of hunger and cold, without anyone knowing."
1943 Saigon public presentation on leprosy in the highlands A6
"Une grâce." ("A grace.")
His two-word response when told he had leprosy, December 1954 — recorded in the MEP obituary by Father Fernand Parrel B1
"Well, here's a good one — they just bombed me into being a bishop!" (Il m'en arrive une bien bonne… on vient de me bombarder évêque!)
To French friends at the bungalow, on learning of his episcopal appointment, 1941 B2
"I have only three wishes in my life: to endure, to suffer, and to die here, among my Montagnards."
Said repeatedly in his final years at Di Linh B4
"Vietnam is my homeland. God wanted it that way. My dream will soon come true: I held on, I suffered here, I am going to die and want to be buried with my children, in the mountain country."
At his sickbed, to General Nguyễn Văn Hiếu's representative, April 12, 1972 B5
"The good Lord loves me, because he chose for me the best prayer, which is suffering — the one he reserves for friends."
Said to friends near the end of his life B6
"I ask those who, while alive, I could not help, please forgive me."
His tombstone epitaph — written at his own request. Di Linh leprosarium bell tower. D3