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The Roman Catholic Church in Vietnam is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome. Vietnam has the fifth largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philippines, India, China and Indonesia.

By the information of Catholic Hierarchy Catalog, there are 5,658,000 Catholics in Vietnam, representing 6.87% of the total population.[1] There are 26 dioceses (including three archdioceses) with 2228 parishes and 2668 priests.[1] .

Contents

[edit] History

Alexander de Rhodes - missionary and creator of Vietnamese alphabet

The first Catholic missionaries visited Vietnam from Portugal at the beginning of the 16th century. The earliest missions did not bring very impressive results. Only after the arrival of Jesuits in the first decades of the 17th century did Christianity begin to establish its positions within the local population. Between 1627 and 1630 Fathers Alexander de Rhodes and Antoine Marquez of the French Province[2][clarification needed] converted over 6,000.

In the 17th century, de Rhodes created a written system of the Vietnamese language largely using the Roman alphabet with added diacritic markings, based on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries. This system continues to be used today, and is called Quốc Ngữ (literally "national language").

[edit] Pigneau de Behaine and the Nguyen

Main articles: Gia Long and Pigneau de Behaine

The French missionary priest and Bishop of Adran Pigneau de Behaine played a key role in Vietnamese history towards the end of the 18th century. He had come to southern Vietnam to proselytise. In 1777, the Tay Son brothers killed the ruling Nguyen lords, and Nguyen Anh was the most senior member of the family to have survived, and he fled into the Mekong Delta region in the far south, where he met Pigneau.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Pigneau then became Nguyen Anh's confidant.[3][9] Pigneau hoped that by playing a substantial role in a Nguyen Anh victory, he would be in position to lever important concessions for the Catholic Church in Vietnam, helping its expansion in South East Asia. From then on he became a politician and military strategist.[10]

At one stage during the civil war, the Nguyen were in trouble, so Pigneau was dispatched to seek French aid. He was able to recruit a band of French volunteers.[11] Pigneau and other missionaries acted as business agents for Nguyen Anh, purchasing munitions and other military supplies.[12] Pigneau also served as a military advisor and de facto foreign minister until his death in 1799.[13][14] From 1794, Pigneau took part in all campaigns. He organized the defense of Dien Khanh when it was besieged by a numerically vastly superior Tay Son army in 1794.[15] Upon Pigneau's death,[16] Gia Long's funeral oration described the Frenchman as "the most illustrious foreigner ever to appear at the court of Cochinchina".[17][17][18]

By 1802, when Nguyen Anh conquered all of Vietnam and declared himself Emperor Gia Long, the Roman Catholic Church in Vietnam had 3 dioceses as follows:

  • Diocese of Eastern North Vietnam: 140,000 members, 41 Vietnamese priests, 4 missionary priests and 1 bishop.
  • Diocese of Western North Vietnam: 120,000 members, 65 Vietnamese priests, 46 missionary priests and 1 bishop.
  • Diocese of Central and South Vietnam: 60,000 members, 15 Vietnamese priests, 5 missionary priests and 1 bishop. [19]

Gia Long tolerated the Catholic faith of his French allies and permitted unimpeded missionary activities out of respect to his benefactors.[20] The missionary activity was dominated by the Spanish in Tonkin and French in the central and southern regions.[21] At the time of his death, there were six European bishops in Vietnam.[21] The population of Christians was estimated at 300,000 in Tonkin and 60,000 in Cochinchina.[22]

[edit] Later Nguyen Dynasty

The peaceful coexistence of Catholicism alongside the classical Confucian system of Vietnam was not to last. Gia Long himself was Confucian in outlook. As Crown Prince Nguyen Phuc Canh had already died, it was assumed that Canh's son would succeed Gia Long as emperor, but in 1816 Nguyen Phuc Dam, the son of Gia Long's second wife, was appointed instead.[23] Gia Long chose him for his strong character and his deeply conservative aversion to westerners, whereas Canh's lineage had converted to Catholicism and were reluctant to maintain their Confucian traditions such as ancestor worship.[24]

Le Van Duyet and many of the high-ranking mandarins opposed Gia Long's succession plan.[25] Duyet and many of his southern associates tended to be favourable to Christianity, and supported the installation of Nguyen Canh's descendants on the throne. As a result, Duyet was held in high regard by the Catholic community.[26] According to the historian Mark McLeod, Duyet was more concerned with military rather than social needs, and was thus more interested in maintaining strong relations with Europeans so that he could acquire weapons from them, rather than worrying about the social implications of westernization.[26] Gia Long was aware of the fact that Catholic clergy were opposed to the installation of Minh Mang because they favoured a Catholic monarch (Canh's son) that would grant them favours.[26]

Minh Mang began to place restrictions on Catholicism.[27] He enacted "edicts of interdiction of the Catholic religion" and condemned Christianity as a "heterodox doctrine". He saw the Catholics as a possible source of division,[27] especially as the missionaries were arriving in Vietnam in ever-increasing numbers.[28]

Duyet protected Vietnamese Catholic converts and westerners from Minh Mang's policies by disobeying the emperor’s orders.[29]

Minh Mang issued an imperial edict, that ordered missionaries to leave their areas and move to the imperial city, ostensibly because the palace needed translators, but in order to stop the Catholics from proselytizing.[30] Whereas the government officials in central and northern Vietnam complied, Duyet disobeyed the order and Minh Mang was forced to bide his time.[30] The emperor began to slowly wind back the military powers of Duyet, and increased this after his death.[31]

Minh Mang ordered the posthumous humiliation of Duyet. This resulted in the desecration of his tomb, the execution of sixteen relatives, and the arrests of his colleagues.[32]

Duyet's son Le Van Khoi, along with the southerners who had seen theirand Duyet's power curtailed, revolted against Minh Mang.

Khoi declared himself in favour of the restoration of the line of Prince Canh.[33] This choice was designed to obtain the support of Catholic missionaries and Vietnamese Catholics, who had been supporting the Catholic line of Prince Canh.[33] Le Van Khoi further promised to protect Catholicism.[33]

In 1833, the rebels took over southern Vietnam,[33][34] with Catholics playing a large role.[35] 2,000 Vietnamese Catholic troops fought under the command of Father Nguyen Van Tam.[36]

The rebellion was suppressed after three years of fighting. The French missionary Father Joseph Marchand, of the Paris Foreign Missions Society was captured in the siege, and had been supporting Khoi, and asked for the help of the Siamese army, through communications to his counterpart in Siam, Father Taberd. This revealed the strong Catholic involvement in the revolt.[34] Father Marchand was executed.[34]

The failure of the revolt had a disastrous effect on the Christians of Vietnam.[35] New restrictions against Christians followed, and demands were made to find and execute remaining missionaries.[36] Anti-Catholic edicts to this effect were issued by Minh Mang in 1836 and 1838. In 1836-1837 six missionaries were executed: Ignacio Delgado, Dominico Henares, Jean-Charles Cornay, José Fernández, François Jaccard, and Bishop Pierre Borie.[37][38]

[edit] Roman Catholicism in South Vietnam (1954–1975)

From 1954 to 1975, Vietnam was split into North and South Vietnam. In a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45] President Ngo Dinh Diem's policies generated claims of religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese minority, he is widely regarded by historians as having pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. Specifically, the government was regarded as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.[46] Diem also once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[47] Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it.[47] Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas saw weapons only given to Catholics.[48] Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies,[49] and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[50] Some villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.[51] The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and its holdings were exempt from reform and given extra property acquisition rights, while restrictions against Buddhism remained in force.[52][53] Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform; U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. In 1959, Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary.[54]

The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam.[55] The newly constructed Hue and Dalat universities were placed under Catholic authority to foster a Catholic-influenced academic environment.[56] In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, where Diem's elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was the archbishop, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying Buddhist flags during Vesak celebrations.[57]. A few days earlier, Catholics were allowed to fly religious flags at a celebration in honour of Thuc. This led to a protest against the government, which was suppressed by Diem's forces, killing nine civilians. This led to a mass campaign against Diem's government during the Buddhist crisis, and Diem and his family were deposed and killed.[58][59]

[edit] Present time

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Notre Dame Cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City (former Saigon)

The first Vietnamese bishop, John Baptist Nguyễn Bá Tòng, was consecrated in 1933 at St. Peter's Basilica by Pope Pius XI.[19]

In 1976, the Holy See made Archbishop Joseph Mary Trịnh Như Khuê the first Vietnamese cardinal. Joseph Mary Cardinal Trịnh Văn Căn in 1979 and Paul Joseph Cardinal Phạm Đình Tung in 1994 were his successors. The well known Vietnamese Cardinal Nguyên Văn Thuân, who was imprisoned by the Communist regime from 1975-1988 and spent nine years in solitary confinement, was nominated Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and made its President in 1998. On February 21, 2001, he was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II. [19]

All Vietnamese Catholics who had died for their faith from 1533 to the present day were canonized in 1988 by John Paul II as Vietnamese Martyrs.

Vietnam and the Vatican currently do not have diplomatic relations with one another. However, there have been meetings between leaders of the two states, including a visit by Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to the Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI on January 25, 2007.

Official Vatican delegations have been traveling to Vietnam almost every year since 1990 for meetings with its government authorities and to visit Catholic dioceses.

In March 2007, a Vatican delegation visited Vietnam and met with local officials. [60] The sides discussed the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations in normal atmosphere, but have not provided a specific schedule for the exchange of ambassadors. The issues of continued restrictions on Catholic life in Vietnam and the nominating of bishops by the Pope without or with insisted by local government approval of Vietnamese bodies remain obstacles in bilateral dialog.

Vatican officials also visited Quy Nhon and Kontum dioceses, which had never hosted such delegations before.

In March 2007, Thaddeus Nguyễn Văn Lý (b. 1946), a dissident Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced by Vietnamese court in Hue to eight years in prison on grounds of "anti-government activities". Nguyen, who had already spent 14 of the past 24 years in prison, was accused of being a founder of a pro-democracy movement Bloc 8406 and a member of the Progression Party of Vietnam.[61]

On September 16, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận's death, the Roman Catholic Church began the beatification process for him.[62] Benedict XVI expressed "profound joy" at the news of the official opening of the beatification cause.[63] Roman Catholics in Vietnam also reacted positively to the news of the opening of the Cardinal's beatification process.

In December 2007, thousands of Vietnamese Catholics marched in procession to the former apostolic nunciature in Hanoi and prayed there twice aiming to return the property to the local Church.[64] The building was a historic Buddhist site until it was confiscated following the French colonisation of Vietnam, on grounds of protecting Catholics, before the communist North Vietnamese government confiscated it from the Vatican in 1959.[1] That was evidently the first mass civil activity of the Vietnamese Catholics since the 1970s. A little later the protests were supported by Catholic faithful in Hồ Chí Minh City and Hà Ðông, who put forward the same demands for their respective territories[65]. As a result in February 2008, the former building of the apostolic nunciature in Hanoi was promised by the Vietnamese Government to be returned to Roman Catholic Church[66]. Though later in September 2008, the authorities changed their position and decided to demolish the building to create a public park[67]

[edit] Roman Catholic dioceses

There are 26 dioceses including three archdioceses. The Archdioceses are:

The dioceses are:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Catholic Hierarchy Web Site
  2. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia, Indochina
  3. ^ a b Hall, p. 423.
  4. ^ Cady, p. 282.
  5. ^ Buttinger, p. 266.
  6. ^ Mantienne, p. 520.
  7. ^ McLeod, p. 7.
  8. ^ Karnow, p. 75.
  9. ^ Buttinger, p. 234.
  10. ^ McLeod, p. 9.
  11. ^ Buttinger, pp. 237–240.
  12. ^ McLeod, p. 10.
  13. ^ Cady, p. 284.
  14. ^ Hall, p. 431.
  15. ^ Mantienne, p.135
  16. ^ Karnow, p. 77.
  17. ^ a b Buttinger, p. 267.
  18. ^ Karnow, p. 78.
  19. ^ a b c "Catholic Church in Vietnam with 470 years of Evangelization". Rev. John Trần Công Nghị, Religious Education Congress in Anaheim. 2004. http://www.lavang.co.uk/raditruyengiao/Catholic%20Church%20in%20Vietnam-%20470%20years%20of%20Evangelization.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-17. 
  20. ^ Buttinger, pp. 241, 311.
  21. ^ a b Cady, p. 408.
  22. ^ Cady, p. 409.
  23. ^ Buttinger, p. 268.
  24. ^ Buttinger, p. 269.
  25. ^ Choi, pp. 56–57
  26. ^ a b c McLeod, p. 24.
  27. ^ a b McLeod, p. 26.
  28. ^ McLeod, p. 27.
  29. ^ Choi, pp. 60–61
  30. ^ a b McLeod, p. 28.
  31. ^ McLeod, pp. 28–29.
  32. ^ McLeod, p. 29.
  33. ^ a b c d McLeod, p.30
  34. ^ a b c Chapuis, p.192
  35. ^ a b Wook, p.95
  36. ^ a b McLeod, p.31
  37. ^ McLeod, p.32
  38. ^ The Cambridge History of Christianity, p.517
  39. ^ The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam HistoryNet
  40. ^ Gettleman, pp. 275–76, 366.
  41. ^ Moyar, pp. 215–216.
  42. ^ The Religious Crisis - TIME
  43. ^ Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.
  44. ^ Maclear, p. 63.
  45. ^ SNIE 53-2-63, "The Situation in South Vietnam, 10 July 1963
  46. ^ Tucker, p. 291.
  47. ^ a b Gettleman, pp. 280–282.
  48. ^ "South Vietnam: Whose funeral pyre?". New Republic. 1963-06-29. p. 9. 
  49. ^ Warner, p. 210.
  50. ^ Fall, p. 199.
  51. ^ Buttinger, p. 993.
  52. ^ Karnow, p. 294.
  53. ^ Buttinger p. 933.
  54. ^ Jacobs p. 91.
  55. ^ "Diem's other crusade". New Republic. 1963-06-22. pp. 5–6. 
  56. ^ Halberstam, David (1963-06-17). "Diệm and the Buddhists". New York Times. 
  57. ^ Topmiller, p. 2.
  58. ^ Karnow, p. 295.
  59. ^ Moyar, pp. 212–213.
  60. ^ "Vatican: Vietnam working on full diplomatic relations with Holy See". Catholic News Service. 2007-03-12. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0701398.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-15. 
  61. ^ Asia News, March 2007
  62. ^ "Late Vietnamese cardinal put on road to sainthood". Reuters. September 17, 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL17299320070917. Retrieved 2007-09-17. 
  63. ^ UCANews at Catholic.org
  64. ^ UCA News
  65. ^ Vietnamese Catholics broaden their protest demanding justice, Asianews, 01/15/2008
  66. ^ Archbishop of Hanoi confirms restitution of nunciature, thanks pope
  67. ^ In Hanoi, stance of repression against Catholics seems to have won, Asianews
  68. ^ "Catholic Dioceses in Vietnam". Giga-Catholic Information. 2007-05-10. http://www.gcatholic.com/dioceses/data/countryVN.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-15. 
  69. ^ [http://www.gcatholic.com/dioceses/data/countryVN.htm "Catholic Dioceses in Vietnam"]. Giga-Catholic Information. 2007-05-10. http://www.gcatholic.com/dioceses/data/countryVN.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-15. 

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

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Roman Catholicism in Asia
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1 Sometimes included in Europe, depending on the border definitions.  2 Officially known as Myanmar.  3 Sometimes included in Oceania, and also known as Timor-Leste.  4 Transcontinental country.  5 Commonly known as Taiwan. 
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