Vincent Nguyễn Văn Bản was born on November 25, 1956, in Tuy Hoa in Phu Yen Province, the seventh of nine children in a devout Catholic family originally from Hai Duong Province who fled south at the end of the First Indochina War.

In 1975, he entered the major seminary of the Diocesan Training Center of the Diocese of Quy Nhơn, where he studied philosophy and theology until 1988.

[1][2] He was ordained a priest on September 16, 1993, by bishop Paul Huỳnh Đông Các and was incardinated in the Diocese of Quy Nhơn.

After his ordination, he served as vicar of Tuy Hoa parish until 1996, when he was sent to France to study at the Institut Catholique de Paris, where he obtained a master's degree in theology in 2005.

Upon returning to Vietnam, he was appointed head of seminarian formation for the diocese and professor at the major seminary of Nha Trang.