VERY REV FR MINH-THUY NGUYEN BIOGRAPHY

Fr Minh Thuy was born in Saigon, South Vietnam, on 4 December 1958.

He is the middle child of five children to Nghiem Nguyen and Tuoi Nguyen (nee Nguyen).

After commencing his study at La Salle Brothers College in Saigon, Fr Minh Thuy continued his secondary education at St Phillip Minh College, which was also a minor seminary where he undertook seven years of formation towards the priesthood at the age of 19.

In 1979, Fr Minh Thuy was forced underground – including being chased and shot at - by the Communists who were determined to make him join the army to invade Cambodia and Laos.

His father, who was in the army of the previous government and the director of a bank before 1975, had already been imprisoned in 1977 and his two older brothers had been recruited to the army prior to the Communists took control of South Vietnam in April 1975.

The next two years were spent living without any identification, constantly trying to avoid being captured, moving from house to house.

In April 1981, 22-year-old Minh Thuy made the decision to flee Vietnam by boat in a vessel which was only 13 metres long, together with another 78 people, including some 30 young children.

They spent the next five days and five nights drifting on the Pacific Ocean until they were rescued by a German supply ship. 

The boat was brought to Pulau Bidong Island in Malaysia where Fr Minh Thuy stayed for one month before being accepted to go to Australia.

Arriving in Perth at the end of 29 August 1981, Minh Thuy commenced a course to learn English, while working part-time as a gardener and cleaner. 

From 1982 to 1983, Fr Minh-Thuy commenced a period of vocational discernment at St Charles Seminary.

He commenced his official training to the priesthood in 1984 at St Francis Xavier Seminary, Adelaide, for the next six years, being ordained to the Diaconate on 18 August 1990 by Archbishop Leonard Faulkner at Sacred Heart Church Hindmarsh, Adelaide.

He was ordained a priest on 6 July 1991 by then Perth Apostolic Administrator Bishop Robert Healy, following the death of Archbishop Foley, having spent the past 11 months in the parish of Spearwood.

His first appointments as Assistant Parish Priest, saw him return to Spearwood, then onto Kalgoorlie in 1993, then Mirrabooka in 1994 and then as Parish Priest at Southern Cross in 1998.

In February 2001, he was appointed to a growing Vietnamese Catholic Community, co-ordinating the purchase of the former Macedonian Community Centre building on Wanneroo Road as the new Mass and multicultural centre in 2005. 

This was followed by appointments as Parish Priest at Bayswater for nine years in 2009 and most recently at Thornlie from 2018 until April 2023.

In 2023, Archbishop Costelloe SDB appointed Fr Minh-Thuy Nguyen as the Episcopal Vicar for Clergy and a member of the Curia of the Archdiocese of Perth.