Ngo Dinh Diem - Wikipedia

Ngô Đình Diệm was born in 1901 in Quảng Bình province, in Central Vietnam. His family originated in Phú Cam, a Catholic village adjacent to Huế. His ancestors had been among Vietnam's earliest Catholic converts in the 17th century.[4] Diệm was given a saint's name at birth, Gioan Baotixita (a Vietnamized form of John the Baptist), following the custom of the Catholic Church.[5] The Ngô-Đình family suffered under the anti-Catholic persecutions of Emperors Minh Mạng and Tự Đức. In 1880, while Diệm's father, Ngô Đình Khả (1850–1925), was studying in British Malaya, an anti-Catholic riot led by Buddhist monks almost wiped out the Ngô-Đình clan. Over 100 of the Ngô clan were "burned alive in a church including Khả's father, brothers, and sisters."[6]

Ngô Đình Khả was educated in a Catholic school in British Malaya, where he learned English and studied the European-style curriculum.[7] He was a devout Catholic and scrapped plans to become a Roman Catholic priest in the late 1870s. He worked for the commander of the French armed forces as an interpreter and took part in campaigns against anti-colonial rebels in the mountains of Tonkin during 1880. He rose to become a high-ranking mandarin, the first headmaster of the National Academy in Huế (founded in 1896), and a counsellor to Emperor Thành Thái of French Indochina.[8] He was appointed minister of the rites and chamberlain and keeper of the eunuchs. Despite his collaboration with the French colonizers, Khả was "motivated less by Francophilia than by certain reformist ambitions".[7] Like Phan Châu Trinh, Khả believed that independence from France could be achieved only after changes in Vietnamese politics, society, and culture had occurred. In 1907, after the ouster of emperor Thành Thái, Khả resigned his appointments, withdrew from the imperial court, and became a farmer in the countryside.[9]

Khả decided to abandon his studies for the priesthood and instead married. After his first wife died childless, Khả remarried and, in a period of twenty-three years, had twelve children with his second wife, Phạm Thị Thân, nine of whom survived infancy – six sons and three daughters.[10] As a devout Roman Catholic, Khả took his entire family to daily morning Mass and encouraged his sons to study for the priesthood.[11] Having learned both Latin and classical Chinese, Khả strove to make sure his children were well educated in both Christian scriptures and Confucian classics.[12] During his childhood, Diệm laboured in the family's rice fields while studying at a French Catholic primary school (Pellerin School) in Huế, and later entered a private school started by his father, where he studied French, Latin, and classical Chinese. At the age of fifteen he briefly followed his elder brother, Ngô Đình Thục, who would become Vietnam's highest-ranking Catholic bishop, into seminary.[13] Diệm swore himself to celibacy to prove his devotion to his faith, but found monastic life too rigorous and decided not to pursue a clerical career.[14] According to Mark Moyar, Diệm's personality was too independent to adhere to the disciplines of the Church, while Jarvis recalls Ngô Đình Thục's ironic observation that the Church was "too worldly" for Diệm.[15] Diệm also inherited his father's antagonism toward the French colonialists who occupied his country.[16]

At the end of his secondary schooling at Lycée Quốc học, the French lycée in Huế, Diem's outstanding examination results elicited the offer of a scholarship to study in Paris. He declined and, in 1918, enrolled at the prestigious School of Public Administration and Law in Hanoi, a French school that prepared young Vietnamese to serve in the colonial administration.[11] It was there that he had the only romantic relationship of his life when he fell in love with one of his teacher's daughters. After his love interest chose to persist with her religious vocation and entered a convent, he remained celibate for the rest of his life.[17] Diệm's family, educational, and religious values greatly influenced his life and career. Historian Edward Miller stated that Diệm "displayed Christian piety in everything from his devotional practices to his habit of inserting references to the Bible into his speeches"; he also enjoyed showing off his knowledge of classical Chinese texts.[18]