Requests and Demands
On April 4, 1990, the
Conference of Catholic Bishops of Vietnam, held in Hanoi, sent a letter of
recommendation to the Communist rule requesting it to create favorable conditions
for religious activities, to respect the rights to religious worship, and to allow
it reopen seminaries and to attend to the humanitarian services. Religious laws
in replacement of atrocious reptrssive practices were used to put Catholics and
followers of other religious under the control of the State. The Decree 69 HDBT
of March 21, 1991, shows these vile intents.
Remarks on the Decree
69/HDBT of March 21, 1991
The Decree 69/ HDBT of March
21, 1991 met with strong and direct criticisms among the Catholic circles,
which were reflected in the articles in the newspapers overseas. One of them
noted:
“ After the disintegration
of the Communist parties in Eastern Europe, the Communist Party of Vietnam,
fearful of similar antigovernment political movements in Europe that might take
place in Vietnam, hung on to its hostile policy against the religions. The
Decree 69-HDBT of March 21, 1991, which came out with the most rigorous
dispositions as a result of a deliberate decision aiming at restricting religious
activities and preventing opposition from the religions.
"People come to realize
that this is an instrument the Vietnamese Communist administration creates to
nullify the influence of religions in the life of the people. While, the State,
by Article I of the Decree, guarantees the right to freedom of religion and the right to not to follow a religion, prohibiting
discrimination against all beliefs and religions, it imposes rules and
regulations with strict measures on the exercise of religious freedom. It
regulates religious activities, celebrations, and practices, conditioning the
faithful' s religious life to carry out the State's objectives, policies, and
to enforce the laws and regulations and subject them to the circumstances under
which they can hardly serve their faith.
Article 7 , in addition,
stipulates that all religious activities must not hamper the State labor
production, thought reform, and military obligations. The State, by this
article only, has all that it desires to compel the follower to observe
whatever discipline which it finds necessary for the defined tasks and to
obstruct the follower’s participation in religious practices and activities.
The authorities, thereby, can easily prevent the follower from attending Holy
Sunday Masses or holiday celebrations, for instance. In terms of labor
production and thought reform, the Decree inherently empowers the cadres with
the necessary application of the law owing to which they have the full
authority in the decision making process to coerce the follower to work
slavishly for labor production and dutifully attend political indoctrination
sessions. Thus, schedules for work hours and political education sessions are
coincidentally arranged on purpose with the Church’s programs of religious
services and activities. To neutralize all other religious activities, the
cadres can also organize the so-called days of labor for socialist production
or full-time sessions of political indoctrination on religious holidays or the
days of religious celebration. As a
result, the follower, being worn out after long days of hard labor or tedious
indoctrination, will neglect their
religious duty.
Decades before, the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Catholic faithful in the North were forced
to work wage-free for the State on Sunday morning and attend political
indoctrination on Sunday afternoon. To execute this measure, the cadres simply
excuse themselves with the reason that they simply enforced the law. In reality, they intentionally hindered the
faithful from attending the Sunday Mass or practicing their religious duties.
These servants of the people were at the same time the true lawmakers and law
enforcers even though the laws can only be compiled by the legislative body.
With such a legislative power, they voluntarily issued administrative orders to
invalidate the admission of the Catholic laymen to the schools of Medicine,
Pharmacy, and Pedagogy. They even assigned a Catholic civil servant to a
position in the political machinery, the security service, and the party
leadership hierarchy. Strict measures on a Catholic in matters of public
security were evident: Their religious identity was remarked on their
identification cards. In this way, the
police could easily check his social background. In any event, a citizen could
be discriminated against only on account
of his or her religious faith.
Article 8 of the Decree
stipulates that all regular religious services and activities (Mass attendance,
religious preaching, or Bible study, and so on), at the worship place must be
conducted in accordance with the customs and annual programs in the local
areas. Only can the services and
activities that are registered with the local authorities' authorization be exempt
from permission. Notwithstanding, special religious services and activities are
subject to prior authorization. Since
the lexicon of the law is not defined, the cadres may interpret it as they see
it fit. The term worship place is, for instance, ambiguous. It can be either a
pagoda, a temple, or a cathedral; it can also be either a pagoda, a temple, or
a cathedral and its dependent buildings. Thus, in some localities, religious practices and activities are to be
performed inside the pagoda, temple, or cathedral. Schedules for these religious services are to
be registered with the local authorities annually. The celebration of Holy
Masses, the Bible study, or the practices of chants of worship for celebrations
are all to be conducted or performed inside the pagoda, temple, or cathedral. The
rules and regulations can be varied according to the authorities whims and
wishes. In other localities, the cadres allow the religious to conduct the
Bible study and the singing practices of hymns inside the dependent houses
within the surroundings of the pagoda or cathedral. In other localities, the
regulations are observed with strict control. Buddhist or Catholic Boy Scouts
Associations, the “Legio,” the Little Souls, and so on, are dissolved, and
their activities are thus prohibited.
Many followers were detained as a result of their visits to patients in
hospitals or of giving aids to the poor in the name of their religious
organization. Many of them were often accused of performing unlawful religious
propagation. Many others were arrested and banished to long-term reeducation.
As regards religious
propagation, Article 14 stipulates that the Church is permitted to print and
publish prayer books and books of religious study and printed culture materials. However, this Article only provides empty
words since the printing, publication, or importation of prayer books and
printed culture materials are all subject to rules and regulations. Moreover,
all printing houses, exportation and importation agencies, and information and
culture services are owned or directed by the State. Private enterprise in this
area of business is prohibited. Even the printing of calendars used for
religious services and books for religious study are subject to permission.
Still, the State Department of Mass Communications and Culture only authorizes
the publication of a limited number of copies of the materials of this kind. In addition, in order to be given
the permission, the Church is required to find recommendation of a
State-affiliated dignitary, Buddhist monk. or Catholic priest. The Church finds
difficulty to publish journals or bulletins. Only those journals published by
State-affiliated religious organs are
permitted to publish unconditionally. They naturally carry out the Vietnamese
Communist Party’s policies, propagandizing its goals and canvassing the
followers' support to serve its purposes. Religious teachings in these journals
is often diffused to the advantage of the Party and State.
Not much less rigorous are
the regulations on the practice of humanitarian services. Article 16 of the
Decree stipulates that all dignitaries, priests, religious associations and
humanitarian services are allowed to operate in the areas of activities
permitted by the State. Nevertheless, since
the takeover of political power in South Vietnam in 1975, the government
has proceeded with harsh measures to nationalize physical resources of all
religions. The Church has thus been devoid of material resources for humanitarian
services; neither has it had access to humanitarian activities. The Communists
certainly doubt that these services will only accredit certain religious
leaders with prestige. Therefore, all humanitarian activities must operate
under the control of Party-affiliated associations and the Fatherland Front.
Consequently, after decades in power, the Communist administration has failed
to replace the religious associations in
promoting maintain humanitarian services with success. This failure also
results from the irreparable irresponsibility of the cadres whose
corrupt practices plague the
nomenclature.
The population, on the other
hand, does not support the Party and State in these efforts since humanitarian
aids do not always reach the needy. Many State-operated camps for the blind and
lepers, deprived of budget, have sent their patients back to their families,
which, in turn, can hardly afford to take care of them and have to send them
back to the camps. Having found no support whatsoever to subsist, these
unfortunate patients have no choice but wander around the streets of large
cities and survive at the mercy of passersby. Foreign visitors to Ho Chi Minh
City, formerly Saigon, could see groups of lepers trailing behind them in the
streets and begging for alms. To cope with this situation, the State
authorities, in the recent years, have invited the nuns they had been
repudiated from humanitarian services to return to help them in the camps for
the blind and lepers, orphanages, hospitals, and nursing homes since the State
cadres are incapable of handling these tasks. State authorities may have come
to think that these services would not accredit the members of religions with a
political role Nevertheless,
humanitarian service in other areas such as the rescue for or giving aids to the
victims of floods or fires were specifically
considered the tasks of the officials. They must be operated and
supervised by Sate-affiliated organs and the Fatherland Front, instead. In
Saigon, humanitarian aids to the needy by the Catholics were for years conditional
on the approval by the Catholic priest Huynh Cong Minh, a Hanoi protégé and
prominent member of the State-affiliated Union of Patriotic Catholics. Sources
said that restrictions in these
instances could stem from the fact that rescue aids to the needy which,
especially those from international humanitarian foundations, were generally
luxurious gifts, and were thus an easy prey to the cadres.
To decimate the Churches'
influence over the faithful and deprive them of their authority over their
clergy, the administration, by the Articles 19 and 20 of the Decree vests the
authorities with full control over the Church, giving them the authority to
approve of the legality of the ordination, assignment, and displacement of a dignitary, priest or monk.
Abuses of power engender correspondingly. Officials could easily
eliminate a prominent and prestigious dignitary, priest, or monk from a key
position and substitute a religious of prestige with a State protégé, and thus gradually consolidating the
State-affiliated clerical contingent.
This and other vile schemes,
in the last analysis, revealed the Communist administration the mastermind of a
rigorous policy of attrition against the religions, not only to restrict their
religious services but also intentionally uproot the legitimate Churches from
the Vietnam soil. It intentionally transformed them into servile
State-affiliated organizations, artfully
destroying any potential opposition from them. Until 1992, the
Communists had not approved of the Vatican's confirmation of a cardinal in
replacement of the late Cardinal Trinh Van Can, who had passed away many years
before that. Still, Hanoi furtively canceled the Vatican’s official Episcopal
nominations for the dioceses of Hanoi, Thai Binh, Hung Hoa, Thanh Hoa, and Hue.
It even banished the priests of prestige to the parishes in the suburbs or
remote areas in the countryside.
Contenders of a Bad Faith
To move on its path of
socialism, Hanoi introduced a new economic reform plan in its effort to
stabilize the totalitarian Communist State.
In September 1992, the Communist-instituted National Assembly elected General
Le Duc Anh the President of the State and reelected Vo Van Kiet the Prime
Minister of the government. This legislative organ also adopted a new
constitution, codifying in many areas “the free market economy in the direction
of socialism” and recognizes in the area of religion the rights of the
citizens to ”practice or not to practice
a religion.” This is only a half of the truth.
The State, in practice, always looks for way to bring the religion under its
control. Restrictions have been already devised to compel a believer to submit
himself to the State authority, with such provision as “no one shall be allowed
to take advantage of belief and religion to violate the laws and policies of
the State.”
The believers in
Vietnam are incontestably bound by many
restrictions of the law to practice worship.
The Decree 69 of the Government Council on March 21, 1991 and, later,
the Circular 02 of February 1993, as a case in evidence, establish more
intricate guidelines and instructions to implement the previously-promulgated
laws on the religion. The latter decree, indeed, prescribes provisions that are
ambiguous and vague with twists of words, such as “the places of worship shall
be protected by the State” (Article 11); and “all religious denominations are
allowed to have their places of worship, prayer-books, worship articles
necessary for religious use and all
priests, to print and publish prayer-books (Article 14). The latter article
proves to be ambivalent as religious practices are bound by the restrictions of
the law, they are limited to and performed within the worship place, and
religious denominations are not allowed to open seminaries and training
establishments (Article 77).
The law, again, invigorates
the authority of the security police in this respect. The Decree 69/HDBT,
indeed, specifies rules and regulations with strict requirements: 1. Ordinary
religious activities inside the worship places such as reunions for prayers, preparations for a ceremony, assemblies for catechism studies
and so on must be conducted in conformity with the religious customs of the religion
concerned and in accordance with the annually-registered programs, and all
these activities are subject to prior authorization. Special religious
activities that are different from the ordinary religious ones are subject to
prior approval of the authorities (Article 6); 2). 2. The clergy, adepts, and
organizers for religious activities including those followers who are
responsible for the religious services, i.e., who are in charge of the
religious services in the area where they conduct religious activities, need
prior approval from the local administrative authorities (Article 20); and 3.
For religious congregations (or religious collective organizations or the
like), if they wish to set up religious activities other than those described,
they will have to solicit permission and obtain authorization from the Council
of Ministers or the agencies to which authority is already delegated by the
Council (Article 21).
