Word: tu
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...have risen the twin bishoprics of Bui Chu (pronounced Booey Choo) and Phat Diem (pronounced Fat Zee-em). In a predominately Buddhist country and against the rising tide of Viet Minh Communism, they have established their predominately separate existence as independent Roman Catholic theocracies ruled by Monsignor Le Huu Tu, Bishop of Phat Diem, and his protege Monsignor Pham Ngoc Chi, Bishop...
...Tu is the only Catholic bishop in the world (besides the Pope) with his own private army: two battalions of regular troops, five battalions of militia. His cathedral enclosure includes an army barracks. Adjoining the priests' quarters is a small factory for making grenades, mortar bombs and grenade throwers. The two bishops are temporal as well as spiritual rulers over a principality of 1,070 square miles and 2,600,000 population, of whom one-quarter are Catholics, the rest mostly Buddhists. The flat skyline of the two bishoprics is spiked by the tall spires of no less than...
Chubby, cheerful Bishop Pham Ngoc Chi celebrated the occasion by smoking his first cigarette in 23 years. At lunch, an excited waiter spilled gravy all over Bishop Le Huu Tu's white fleece cape and cream-colored soutane. After lunch, Bishop Le Huu Tu set out for his own see of Phat Diem aboard one of the principality's boats, flying the yellow & white papal standard, and manned by a crew of young huskies armed with new Tommy guns and wearing on their shoulders Le Huu Tu's own crest, a Chinese dragon coiled around a trumpet...
Bishop Le Huu Tu is an interesting personality; for 17 of his 54 years he was a Trappist monk. He has black eyebrows and protruding teeth. When he smiles, revealing a dazzling expanse of teeth and pink gums, and his long, bony hands flutter sensitively, he suddenly becomes transfigured into a man of charm and considerable magnetism. In 1945, before his rebellion, Communist Boss Ho Chi Minh named Bishop Tu "Supreme Counselor." "Being Supreme Counselor to Ho Chi Minh," explains Tu suavely, "was only an expedient. I realized from the first that he was Communist, but I used to tell...
Cheers for Father. Le Huu Tu has so far managed to protect his bishopric from the Communists. Phat Diem is too small to warrant full-scale Viet Minh attack and too determined in its self-defense to be taken without such an attack. Le Huu Tu chuckles at his own cunning. Phat Diem people are happy about it too, because the net effect so far has been favorable : while other towns in the delta region have been systematically destroyed by earth-scorching Viet Minhs, Phat Diem and Bui Chu are alone unscathed...