The Communists considered Catholicism as a reactionary force that ever opposed the "Revolution" --communism. Repression against the Catholics resumed following the takeover of Hanoi after the Agreements of July 1954. It ran high along with campaigns for confiscation of private business and industry property and eradication of the petty bourgeoisie. The Catholic clergy, being regarded the mastermind of the exodus to the South, became the target for vengeance, and the Catholic faithful, the target for suspicion. Catholic priests who stayed and had nothing to do with politics met with difficulties. The priests performed under watch their ministerial duties, and the faithful practiced their faith in fear. Religious intolerance persisted with violence. The administration expelled from the country all foreign missionaries. Among them were the Dominicans and the Jesuits who served faith at the "Missions Etrangeres de Paris" and the Phuc Hung Center. All religious institutions and establishments belonging to the mission were dispossessed. Fr, Dupont was killed at Ke So. Ha Nam, and Fr. Fournier was assassinated in Hanoi.
"Normal church activities were not permitted to continue, albeit they were only conducted in the shadow for fear of repression. The seemingly active normalcy of the religious life of the Catholics was apparent. The Church’s The major part of them were either dispossessed or requisitioned. The autonomy as a social institution was banned The Church was tripped off the authority to operate its own systems of educational institutions and humanitarian establishments --schools, hospitals, dispensaries, social shelters, and orphanages. Priests and nuns were required to devote part of their time to productive labor in agriculture. Nevertheless, officials claimed that Catholics had complete freedom of worship as long as they did not question the principle of collective socialism, spurn manual labor, or jeopardize the internal and external security of the state (Ronald J. Cima, 1989:123-124)."
Catholicism resisted enmity and destruction in silence. Unable to destroy the faith with violence, the Communists diluted the Catholic Church with repressive measures to wear out its clergy and religious Orders and cowed its faithful into submission. In September 1960, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam proclaimed its official policy to concretize a resolution passed by the Third Party Congress of the Vietnamese Workers' Party. According to the new rulings, Marxism - Leninism should play the dominant role in the moral life of the country. It is the ideology of all the people. It is the basis on which the people build a new morality. To achieve their purpose, the Party created "work teams" to operate within the Fatherland Front. High dignitaries and priests of the Church were targeted with control and isolation from the faithful. The Church’s direction is placed in the hands of State-affiliated priests among whom were Vo Thanh Trinh, Ho Thanh Bien, and Vo Xuan Ky. In the same year, the Liaison Committee of Patriotic and Peace-Loving Catholics was created with an aim to win over the Catholic faithful’ s confidence. The Catholics who had chosen to remain were, in fact, reluctant to cooperate with the Communists. They were slower than the non-Catholics to embrace the political regime that tried with violence to "reintegrate" them into "the great masses of the people."
All through the Vietnam War (1960-1975), the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam suffered tragic losses, materially and spiritually. The clergy was paralyzed in their religious services. The faithful served their faith under rigorous circumstances In the most populated province of Thai Binh, for instance, church attendance presented a picture of loneliness and sadness. In many parishes, Sunday Mass was celebrated without a celebrant. The one-time most-frequented cathedral in Thai Binh Township and the one in Thai Ninh Prefecture were` all dilapidated. The Sa Cat Cathedral and Luong Dong Cathedral were deserted. There were no residential priests, and the followers were like a flock of sheep without a shepherd." To execute the tactics of "civil action," the administration occasionally loosened their grip but kept close watch on the Church. Religious services were allowed but under watch. Texts of preaching. were censured, and religious activities could only performed on prior authorization.
A Protest
Vietnam is a one-party rule. A single ideology, which is communism, governs the entire life of the citizens. The Communist Party of Vietnam, under the aegis of communism, assumes power in all sectors of the public life of v the people, legal, administrative, and judiciary. Democratic centralism allows only Communist party members voice aspirations, concerns, and ideas, commonly predisposed by and actuated with approval of the Party. The people have little voice in the process. They nevertheless seek to manifest aspirations by different forms of protest whenever opportunity presents itself. Witnesses who survived periods of hardship and religious repression in North Vietnam (1956-1960) told a Vietnam Human Rights Watch representative that the Catholic faithful never trusted the Communist Party and State.
Nguyen Duy Nhat, 48, was educated and grew up under Communist North Vietnam. A Catholic of Bui Chu Diocese, Ha Nam Ninh Province, Nguyen and his family survived misery during the Vietnam War. In 1977, the Nguyen family immigrated to the South. They settled in Cai San, Long Xuyen Province, where they sought by all means to escape from their one-time land of dream. The family came to the United States in 1988 and lived in Phillips Ranch, California. Nguyen recalled the difficulties life faithful in Bui Chu Diocese had faced the period following the Communist takeover of Hanoi in 1954:
"The spiritual life in the diocese under the new independent and free Democratic Republic of Vietnam wasn't better. In my childhood, I had learned from my experience that the Communists and the Catholics are incompatible. They are like fire and water; the one cannot exist in the presence of the other. There is no wonder if we, the Catholics, are subjected to Communist control. The local cadres are after us everywhere. Their target us with harm. Like devils and ghosts, they haunt our home day and night .
Bui Chu is one of the largest dioceses in North Vietnam. It is the birthplace of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam. The Catholics there are fervent. They serve their faith with resilience under the most extreme circumstances. By the time the Democratic Republic Government of Vietnam returned to Hanoi, there were approximately two hundred parishes throughout the diocese. Bishop Tinh was the Master of the Flock. Every follower, of course, venerated him. His goodness, integrity, and devotion to God were self-evident. The Communists knew that they could not, in any way, disunite the congregation under his leadership and neither could they disband the religious associations in the diocese by denigrating the Church and defaming the bishop. The local Communist cadres then staged up campaigns to denounce "the priests in the parishes to crimes of misconduct." They organized a so-called Congress of Catholic Youths at Quan Phuong Village. They selected "representatives" from the parishes, who, in reality, were the cadres disguising themselves as prominent, pious Catholics to participate in it. Their main objective was to disunite the Church members. They disabled the clergy, asking the Bishop to discharge certain priests.
Perceiving their vile scheme, Bishop Tinh, at the celebration of Holy Mass at Bui Chu Cathedral, pronounced he invalidated the cause of congress. His warning was clear: "Any Catholic youth participates in it will face excommunication." The congress was nevertheless proceeded inside the Main Cathedral. All "representatives" were in attendance. The parishioners quickly unveiled them. Whispering to one another, everyone came to recognize these scabby sheep. The atmosphere became tense. Everyone was furious as their vile intention was brought out. Right after the inauguration Mass, the parishioners, in groups, raked for them and challenged them with fists and feet. The cadres failed to trace out masterminds since the believers from one parish only chose the representatives in another parish as the targets for their furor.
The Communists never easily give in, however. They failed to use the masses to create pressure on the Church, disable, and disorganize it this time. Nevertheless, they bought the time and sought other means to avenge it. Step by step, they pushed forward legal measures, officially applying all rules and regulations on religions such as the resolutions, orders, and notices by the central government or by themselves to put the Church under control. They closed down the seminary at Ninh Cuong, Hai Hau District and the Orders at Trung Ninh, Luc Thuy, and so on, and confiscated the properties and lands of the Church. Father Luong Huy Han, Director of Ninh Cuong Seminary, who resisted the orders, was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and forced to starve in prison. He set a shining example to all Catholics. He sacrificed for his duties as a servant of God. Short of physical means, the seminary fell to decadence. Later, only 10 of the 29 seminarians that had been ordained were allowed to continue their priesthood; the rest were stopped short of their studies and were to return home. At last, the seminary ceased to operate, and, as consequence, the formation of priests was put to an end.
The shortage of priests became increasingly severe. There were 10 priests replacing the old priests, who passed away as years went by, to serve the Church in the diocese of nearly 200 parishes during nearly 40 years. All of them in their turn became old, but there was still no hope for replacement. In 1955, a priest had to take charge of the ministerial services at an average of 12 parishes at a time. This difficulty deeply affected the religious preaching and services tremendously. Sunday Masses rotated among the local cathedrals. The believers had to walk for miles and miles from the very early morning to go to church and attend Masses. The Communists thought that, by creating difficulties and mounting pressure on the Church, the Catholics would eventually renounce their faith. Contrary to their wishes, the more oppression they exerted on them, the more faithful to God they would become. On the annual celebrations, such as the Diocese’s Patronage Saint Day, the Commemoration Day for the Saint Martyrs, and the Commemoration Day for Our Immaculate Mother, as many as tens of thousands of the faithful came to the Diocese Main Cathedral to profess their faith!
A Vile Trick
Nguyen also said: "We should not underestimate the Communists. They are very cunning in using their artful tactics to destroy their adversaries. They are clever at deceiving people to win the final battle. They know how to wait for the right time to execute their scheme. The right time came with the agrarian reforms in 1956. Seizing this opportunity, the local cadres immediately carried out artful measures not only to wipe out the landlords but also to exterminate those whom they considered the enemies of the regime. Among these "enemies" were the intellectuals and officials of the old regime, the clergy of all religions, and, especially, Catholic priests and the followers of virtues and prestige. Nguyen’ s father-in-law, Dinh Van Tac, a pious and virtuous Catholic of Quat Lam Parish, was one among them. These "reactionaries" were brought to trials before the People's Court, chaired by the cadres themselves and persecuted by their henchmen. In every parish, there were two or more victims sentenced to death and shot on the spot. Father Dinh Quang Hien of Phu Nhai Parish was also brought to trial. Unable to accuse him of any crime, the local cadres charged him with the crime to evade the taxrs: He had not paid land taxes for uncountable years, dating back to the founding of the parish (200 years)! He was imprisoned for 6 years afterwards. This artful trick was certainly a warning on the part of the local authorities and the first step in executing their tactics to destroy religion and silence any opposition that might occur in the future (Trung Tan, VHRW. Interview with Nguyen Duy Nhat, October 20, 1994)."
Glory in Faith
However repressed under control, the Catholic faithful lived their faith’ The Catholic clergy, in particular, showed courage and tenacity, setting the example to the faithful. Fr. Pham Dinh Tung was eminently known for his devotion to the services to the Church. In 1950, he was assigned for the direction of Bach Mai Center of Social Works. In 1955, he was appointed the director of the Little Seminary Saint Jean. He met with difficulties from the authorities who sought to put the seminary under their control. In 1960, the authorities increased control on the Church. He resisted with resilience the instruction of Marxism - Leninism in the seminary. As a result, the institution was closed down, which fact he accepted with bitter grief to maintain independence from the State. In 1963, he was nominated the bishop of Bac Ninh Diocese. Facing regulations and restrictions from the administration, he overcame difficulties in silence, not only to let the religious life of the diocese subordinate to the ciil authorities but also helped to develop it in others. Over 40 years in the jaws of atheism, he humbly devoted himself to the service of the Church. He was nominated the Archbishop of Hanoi and became the second Cardinal of Vietnam on November 11, 1994.
All through the period following the Geneva Agreements of July 1954, the religious life was stifled. In large cities, Haiphong, Nam Dinh, and Hanoi, religious services and activities were paralyzed. The little body of priests who stayed after the exodus to the South became the target of hatred and suspicion. Catholic priests were summoned to interrogation at local headquarters or offices of the administration. They were required to attend meetings at local street wards’ offices to be indoctrinated. Many of them were attributed to as the collaborators with or henchmen of the French. Many were brought to stand judgment before the People’s council. In Nam Dinh, Fr. Quynh was restricted to solitary detention, Fr. Nhan was targeted with harassment, and Fr. Trong was placed under house surveillance. Everywhere, the clergy were in constant insecurity because of their commitment to observance of religious duties and resistance to the interference of the authorities in the Church’s internal affairs.
The resistance to atheism of Fr. Giuse Lasan Nguyen Van Vinh, the pastor of the Main Cathedral of Hanoi Diocese was self-evident. Fr. Ngguyen was born on October 2, 1912 in the village of Ngoc Lu, Binh Luc District, Ha Nam Province. He was Intelligent, pious, and gifted in music. Under the auspices of Fr. Depaulis, he was admitted at his early teens to the ecclesiastic school of Puginier in Hanoi. He attended the Secondary Seminary Hoang Nguyen at Ha Tay in 1928, the Grand Seminary St. Sulpice, Paris, France, in 1935. He was ordained priest on June 20, 1940. A graduate from both the Paris Institute of Music and the University of Sorbonne with a "Licencie en Philosophy." He returned to Vietnam in 1947, after 17 years of study abroad. Bishop Francois`Chaize -Thinh of Hanoi Diocese appointed him the Pastor at the Main Cathedral of Hanoi. After the Geneva Accords Agreements of 20, 1954, the then Bishop Trinh Nhu Khue of Hanoi entrusted him to take the seminarians to immigrate to the South, he nevertheless insisted on asking his superior the privilege to stay in the diocese of Hanoi.
In the capacity of the principal of Dung Lac High School, he and his fellow priests such as Fr. Nguyen Ngoc Oanh, Fr. Nguyen Minh Thong, and Fr. Nguyen Han Quynh organized and conducted courses of catechism for converts. The administration of Hanoi forbade these activities for security reasons and issued an administrative order to ban all religious activities in the school. New rules and regulations were to be executed, instead. A picture of Ho Chi Minh must be hung on the wall in each classroom. The students had to stand at attention and sing Viet Minh national anthem and praise glory to Ho Chi Minh. Fr. Nguyen Van Vinh, in the capacity of the pastor representing the diocese of Hanoi concurrently the principal of Dung Lac High School refused to comply with the order. The Holy Cross on the wall was kept intact. The high school was closed down.
To show to the world that there was religious freedom in Vietnam, on the Christmas eve of 1957, city cadres were sent to the diocesan cathedral to make ground for an inspection. The diocese was fined for extravagant decoration of the cathedral, wasting the time and money of the people on meaningless activity. The following year, the administration renewed the trick. The new pastor, Fr. Trinh Van Can, resolutely protected the Church’s rights to worship, disallowing the civil authorities, who were all plain-clothed security agents, to cause trouble. The cadres resolutely made a row. To protect the cathedral from unlawful intrusion, the pastor had the bell tolled. Crowds of parishioners rushed to the worship place. The two parties exchanged arguments with shouts. Fr. Nguyen Van Vinh successfully prevented the agents from exercising abuse of power.
On Christmas Day of 1958, the civil authority forced Fr. Nguyen Van Vinh to hang the Viet Minh red flags alongside with the Church’s banners around and inside the cathedral. He adamantly had the Church’s banners hung only. Fr. Trinh Van Can, Tr. Nguyen Van Vinh, and several parishioners were brought to stand trial before the People’s Court of Hanoi. The Pastor Trinh Van Can, the organizer of the celebration, was sentenced to 12- month house arrest, Fr, Nguyen Van Vinh was charged with the crimes "to assemble illegally the masses, cause public disorder, calumniate and denigrate the regime, and cause division of the population." The priest was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was imprisoned, first, at Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi then removed from one prison to another. The last destination was Cong Troi (Gate to Heaven), a devastated camp in the Hoang Lien Son Mountains.
Fr. Nguyen Van Vinh lived the Catholic faith, taking side and sharing hunger and misery with fellow inmates. His benevolence was regarded as an act of opposition. He became the target of rancor. He was constantly placed under solitary detention. A senior official from the Ministry of the Interior, on his prison tour, told him that if he willingly cooperated with Fr. Nguyen The Vinh, the President of the Liaison Committee of Patriotic Catholics, which was a satellite organization of the Communist Fatherland Front, he would be released from prison immediately. The priest categorically refuted the proposal. His unbending will made him a lifelong prisoner. He never came back to Hanoi Diocese Cathedral. He died a doubtful death on February 18, 1971.
To Serve Faith in silence
During the Vietnam War, the religious life the South was in bloom. New parishes and dioceses mushroomed, notably in the areas surrounding Saigon.. Pagodas temples, and monasteries thrived. Educational institutions and humanitarian establishments multiplied. Schools, orphanages, dispensaries, and hospitals belonging to various religions extended to the rural areas.. In the North, where communism dominates in every aspect of life of the citizen, the State imposed strict laws, rules, and regulation on all sectors of the social life. The religions were not an exception. Worse still, they became the targets for elimination. Catholicism was regarded as the most dangerous reactionary counter-force. Catholics who survived the periods of hardship and religious repression during land reform talked with fear about the State control. It was such a severity that even the most fervent Catholic could only resign himself to inaction.
In the distant rural areas, religious intolerance became much more rigid. The agricultural commune kept a close watch on the daily life activities of every laborer in it. All was for socialist production. Religious practices were flatly banned from schedules of daily housework. Priests could only perform religious services in the early hours of the days. The followers thus could rarely attend morning masses. In many communes, movement outside of the parish of the priest was forbidden. Celebrations were most often performed in hiding. Cathedrals and chapels were closed down as a result of shortage of priests. The teaching of Bible was outlawed. Assembly for prayers were strictly forbidden. The faithful served their faith in silence.
During the second phase of land reform (1956-1958), the administration confiscated or requisitioned the Churches' properties. Many Catholic cathedrals and Buddhist pagodas were converted into meeting halls or granaries. The religious life was put at risk. The formation and ordination of priests was at a deadlock. Catholicism in the North fell into a decline. Being regarded as a counter-reactionary force that was ideologically detrimental to the "Revolution," the Party and State resolutely stifled the Church’s formation and ordination of priests. In 1955, after the exodus for freedom to the South, there remained only some 300 priests to serve approximately 600,000 followers.
From 1970 to 1975, the various Churches in North Vietnam, especially the Roman Catholic Church, survived the extreme difficulties. The invasion into Kampuchea of the Armed Forces of the Republic of South Vietnam aggravated the war situation. Fearful of a similar invasion into North Vietnam, the Hanoi administration particularly executed stricter control on all Catholic parishes. Those followers who were active in the service of the Church were arrested and sent to the reeducation camps, and a number of them were detained, without trial, and only released until 1985. Until 1990, the number of Catholic priests in the North was still meager. There were only 7 priests for the faithful of 145,000 in Haiphong Diocese, 15 priests for the 72,000 faithful in Bac Ninh Diocese, and 5 priests for the 95,000 faithful in Phat Diem Diocese.
Typical of the religious life in North Vietnam in the postwar period is the case of the Christendom of Khac Can, Thanh Liem District, Ha Nam Ninh Province. This is a small congregation of poor peasants living on the left bank of the Day River, about 60 kilometers south of Hanoi. Their settlement dates back to the second half of the 19th century at the time the French invasion was expanding to the North. It built a chapel and, later, a cathedral. Its members could only recite Sunday Mass once a month due to shortage of priests. They nevertheless served their faith with fervor. They attended Holy Masses and celebrated ceremonies and events at nearby churches all around the year.
A distant and isolated Christendom, Khac Can survived sufferings of the days of hunger of March 1945 and misery after the Viet Minh uprisings of August of the same year. It sustained even more hatred and violence during the Indochina War. Misfortunes fell on the small Christendom in the years of agrarian reform 1952-1956. The impact of campaigns of denunciation of crimes swept away with it the ways of life its members held dear. The agricultural commune with its cooperatives conditioned the peasantry’s life, molding the poor peasants of Khac Can into a new life of slavery.
Like life elsewhere in the country, traditional religious manners were gradually made to disappear. The century-old cathedral was requisitioned and transformed into a multipurpose shed where farm implements of all kinds were stored. Religious groups were disbanded. Religious services and practices were banned, and could only be performed in hiding. The worship of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Malenkov, and Ho Chi Minh replaced the worship of God. On the wall of the central compartment of the house were hung on order the pictures of world Communist leaders. Icons of worship were taken away from the altar for God and the Holy Mother Mary, and a picture of Ho Chi Minh was put in their place. The children of God could only bury their faith deep in their hearts.
The Vietnam War broke out. Young recruits were sent to the B battlefront, and those young Catholics from Khac Can were among them. On the day of departure, they were given each a Holy Cross which they kept with themon the way to the battlefront. The Holy Icon would protect them from all hazards and a certain death in the distant South. All through the war, like the Vietnamese elsewhere in the North, their family members lived miserably, "to bite the grain into four and save one fourth of it for the support of the South." They barely survived the hardships of the war under the rules and regulations of the agricultural commune and its cooperatives.
The Communist takeover of South Vietnam paved the way for revival of God worship. Witnessing the prosperity and freer ways of life of the people in the South, the "liberators" from the North who survived storms of B52 bombs raids along the Truong Son Trail and hopeless hard-fought battles at Khe Sanh, Pleime, Dak To, Dak Sut, .. . came to realize that they deserved a better life. They brought with them the memory about the life in the South on their coming home to visit their families. Curious members of this small Christendom sought with all means to come to the South to see with their own eyes of what they had only heard. On their returning home, they brought with them compassion of their relatives in the South and gifts among which were bibles, icons, priest tunics, and articles of worships. Their love for God that had been buried in their hearts and their faith that had been forbidden to serve revived. To live the faith became a "sina que non" spiritual need. They boldly gathered for prayers and resolutely gained back their worship place. The century-old cathedral was almost in ruins.
Little by little the bird build its nest. Every member of the Christendom clubbed together to rebuild their church, the poor with their labor, the rich from afar, in the South and abroad with money. The whole congregation regained their faith that they had been forced to renounce. A dutiful self-sacrificed priest assiduously formed separate groups of laymen into competent catechumen. Children were taught the Ten Commandments, to say prayers, and sing Holy songs. A group of two, then, three and four Sisters adamantly served and practiced their faith in hiding without fear of threat. By 2008, they successfully built and ran a preschool and a dispensary with financial aids from a generous family abroad. The local administration have sought in vain to attenuate the vigilance in the service of faith of this mall congregation at Khac Can Commune (Nguyen Yen, A letter from the North. Manuscript: March 19, 2001).
