Jean-Baptiste Phạm Minh Mẫn (5 March 1934 â 22 March 2026) was a Vietnamese Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City from 1998 to 2014. He also previously served as Coadjutor Bishop of Mỹ Tho from 1993 to 1998. He was created a cardinal in 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
Phạm Minh Mẫn was born in CàMau, Cochinchina, French Indochina on 5 March 1934. His great-grandfather was an emigrant from Guangdong. He is the eldest son of a family of seven children, the youngest of whom is also a priest of the Diocese of Cần Thá. One of his siblings now resides in Australia while another now resides in the United States.
When he was five, his first cousin once removed, Francis Xavier Trðáng Bá»Âu Diá»Âp, visited his family and encouraged them to enroll Mẫn at La Salle Taberd School in Sài Gòn the next year, which would make him eligible to attend the minor seminary once he turned ten. Diá»Âp also encouraged his mother to let him learn the Latin prayers and allow him to become an altar boy.
The family immediately followed Diá»Âp's advice. Mẫn later recalled that he would go alone the next morning to serve as an altar boy when Diá»Âp would celebrate Mass. He went to Taberd and eventually Cù Lao Giêng Minor Seminary until the seminary was burned down during the First Indochina War. He was ordained a priest on 25 May 1965 by Bishop Jacques Nguyá» n Ngá»Âc Quang, for the Diocese of Cần Thá. After studying in the United States at Loyola University of Los Angeles, Mẫn taught at the Saint Quý Minor Seminary until he was appointed rector of the minor seminary in 1974 and of the local major seminary in 1988.
Mẫn was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Mỹ Tho in 1993 and promoted to Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City in 1998.
In August 1999, he celebrated a Mass at La Vang for the closing of the jubilee year commemorating the 200th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary. The Mass was part of a three-day pilgrimage that was the largest Catholic event in Vietnam, with an estimated three hundred thousand people attending.
He was made a cardinal in the consistory of 21 October 2003 by Pope John Paul II. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. On 7 March 2013, Mẫn was the last of the cardinal electors to arrive to attend the 2013 papal conclave, which elected Pope Francis.
On 28 September 2013, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Paul Bùi VÃÂn ÃÂá»Âc, who had served as the Bishop of Mỹ Tho since 1999, as Coadjutor Archbishop with the right to succeed Mẫn. On 22 March 2014, Pope Francis accepted Mẫn's resignation as archbishop.
Mẫn died at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center of Sài Gòn, on 22 March 2026, at the age of 92. He was surrounded by archdiocesan representatives, family, Archbishop Joseph Nguyá» n NÃÂng, and Bishop Joseph Bùi Công Trác. He was also visited by the papal representative to Vietnam, Archbishop Marek Zalewski, shortly before his death.