RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE (II)

Religious Intolerance

By Van Nguyen




The Reverend Chan Tin, on the occasion of the visit to Vietnam of the U.S. Congress International Commissioning for Religious Freedom in mid-April 2004, expressed his views in an analysis on the situation of religious freedom of the Roman Cath+lic Church. The priest specified, in particular, the violations of human tights and religious freedom committed by the communist regime. 

A Half Brazen-face of the Truth

 When it is accused by many countries of the world of its violations of human rights, the Vietnamese regime never ceases to protest, using as a pretext that there no violation whatsoever of these rights, Still, the rights of all citizens in the country are always guaranteed in this country. The reality, however, shows that the acts of the regime are entirely contrary to what it says. It even has no hesitation to flout the natural and fundamental rights of the citizen. People realize that this regime to tell lies without shame. It takes the international community for a band of children, credulous people that can be led in a boat easily and the countries that accuse it for an assembly of slanderers. In any case, amazing lies are not wholly useless. It is necessary for foreign diplomats to manifest some reserves on these accusations, lest the benefit of doubt lend the regime an advantage in one way or another.  

In reality, it is observed that a fairly large number of citizens in the country, ‘those people who only express peacefully their divergent political views are oppressed, persecuted, imprisoned or executed. The cases of Fr. Ngyuyen Van Ly, of Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, and those of Nguyen Hong Son, Nguyen Vu Binh, and many other personalities, are the proofs that are more than substantial than anything to verify in these instances. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese authorities impertinently and brazenly continue to deny the verity. They proclaim that the persons who are the objects of repression, of imprisonment, and of execution are all the violators of the law, although no proof is produced in a convincing and clear manner. In many cases, the opponents are condemned in catimini for insignificant motives m a hasty process and devoid of necessary conditions to guarantee the minimum of justice.

In face of these accusations, the Vietnamese regime flatly denies the exactions on grounds that international agencies are the victims of unfounded information. But, when foreign delegations ask to come to investigate on the spot with their own eyes what is precisely existent, the regime flatly refuses to accommodate the access to the locations where the exactions in question take place or the occasions for the meetings with the persons suspected of being imprisoned for political divergence of views. It is argued about the fact that whether or not the security of the delegations is guaranteed and that, they insist, if ever, on securing this guarantee, they do it at risk and in peril.  With hindrances and threats barely veiled as such, it is necessary enough to stop the investigation.  

I suggested to the investigators not to be naïve and not to let themselves to be manipulated by the Vietnamese government to the extent to see their investigations fail to proceed, even to avail themselves of manipulation. If they want their investigations to come to concrete results, they have to call for at all costs the right to come the places where they want to come and to see the persons they want to meet, if the Vietnamese authorities refuse to satisfy the demands. That simply means that the accusations leveled against them by international opinion are founded on evidences. If this regime is truly innocent of these accusations, does it have anything to hide and to avert? The investigators should then go ahead with their job and prove its innocence!    

A Subtle Policy of Anti-religious Repression

On the plane of religious freedom, the Vietnamese government invariably proclaims that in the Constitution as well as in the realities of the social life, the freedom of religion is always respected, shamelessly ignoring the facts that prove the contrary. The rights to freedoms of the citizens are stammered out flatly and inarguably. One can mention, as a case in point, the campaigns of repression against the Christians of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands and the provinces of Northwest (Son La and Ha Giang), and, most recently the destruction of chapels of the Evangelical Churches in Saigon and surrounding suburbs.  

In its repressive policy against the religion, the communist power is founded on an extremely clever and subtle juridical apparatus, rich in laws, decrees, and ordinances. It operates in association with diverse articles of the laws and decrees which, if taken apart, they do not bear anything like repressive. The repression comes in play when these different articles are maliciously associated to stand against a given situation. For example, a certain article stipulates that the believers can only practice their cult in the designated authorized places (churches, pagodas, and temples). Bit, at the same time, the regulation governing the construction of real estate’s decrees that all projects for construction, in order to be realized, are subject to prior authorization from the State. Reading these articles or decrees independently or separately the one from the other one does not find a priori any kind of anti-religious intention. However, to interdict the believer to practice their cult, it is enough for the authority not to deliver the permit for construction. Then, due to lack of the authorized places of cult, the believers are resigned to practice their cult at home or in some other places. That is the reason for the practice of cult becomes illegal and is exposed ipso facto to the lightning of the law. And, the authorities only use it as a pretext for repression, to beat, arrest, and imprisons those believers who they charge with crimes of infringements on the law while they themselves are the true violators. Under these conditions, even the believers who desire to practice their religion legally are caught in a dilemma and do not know what to do!        

Another example, in one part, such decree proclaims that the citizen is free to teach his religion, in another, such decree demands that to become a priest or a pastor, there must be authorization from the government. One should not think that, even in the most justified cases, the authorization is easily accorded. That is why to face their normal needs; the Churches have to appeal to a number of priests or pastors ordained in hiding (ministers of the cult ordained without authorization from or knowledge of the State) for help. From this fact, the priests or pastors ordained in hiding, like in other situations, the simple believers who teach the religion take risk to be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and executed as we have witnessed in the past.      

With such a judiciary system that is contradictory and inexplicable at will, the authorities can arrest or imprison the believer any time for infraction on the law and not because of their religious practices.

In fact, the use of this judiciary apparatus, for the less intricate measure to oppress the religion, is only applied to the Churches that refuse the submission to the control of the State. Those that accept to be strictly controlled by the State enjoy a relative freedom. In this way, for the practice of cult at home, for instance, the local authorities can blind their eyes on certain practices of the believers of the Churches that accept the control of the State. On the contrary, if these believers belonging to independent Churches that refuse such a control, they risk becoming the targets for harassment such as acts of merciless repression by the local authorities.  Isn’t it the ultimate goal of the State to force all the Churches to submit themselves to its control!  In a way, an observer from the exterior can only find certain cases where there is an appearance of freedom. He may not pay attention to those where every freedom is totally absent. To prove that the freedom of religion exists in Vietnam, it is enough for the authorities to exhibit the cases of the first category and bypass in silence those in the second category.   

The Religious Policy of the State vs. the Roman Catholic Church

Concerning the Roman Catholic Church, a Church which is bestowed on an international statuary and structured organization, the regime has to show a certain respect while doubling subtlety in its repressive strategy. In appearance, it always takes good care to fancy itself in the international community that this Church is entitled to the liberty of religion. But, at the same time, it takes advantage of the fact that the Catholic hierarchy rarely raises protests against its measures of restriction of freedoms, of repression, and of expropriation of properties of the Church, pretending to be the counterpart of the Church to confer it titles of certain facilities. To pay the price of these facilities, the Church, in a way, is to be resigned to accept the interference of the State in its internal affairs.

Actually, there are patent proofs that show the direct interference of the authorities in the internal affairs of the Church. The formation, the nomination, and the displacement of the personnel in the interior the Church are subject to prior approval by the State. Thus, in the long run, the persons who work in and for the Church will only be the people in the regime’s pay ready to submit themselves to its exigencies. Without taking into consideration the prejudices that they thus cause to the Church. Good people and competent persons of whom the Church is in need fear for bearing witness of its authenticity, to pursue and its holy development is categorically standing astride from the leading roles in the bosom of the Church. This situation will lead without doubt to a serious degradation of the quality of the Church, a Church that will be able to continue to survive but a falsified form. And, in the end, the Church will progressively become a tractable instrument in the hands of the regime. Once the time comes, the regime will come up with a full freedom for the Church, even being free then, the Church will only have the capacity to execute the orders of the Party and the State.     

     

This policy is really subtle and pernicious. Being free at least, from coping with some energy intervention or demonstration, it inevitably brings in, in the long run, unpredictable results. The Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, then, might no longer be an authentic Church as the one exists in other free countries and integrates in the proper nature that should be its own in all times.

Presently, the curriculum for the formation of priests in the seminaries always comprises the mandatory study of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, a philosophy normally reserved for members of the Communist Party, who only represent 2% of the population. Isn’t it the manifest will of the Party and the State to form the instrument for their service in the ranks of the future priests and seminarians?

The interference of the State in the affairs of the Church can only be realized owing to the persistent and comprehensible silence, and, above all, some timid protest on the part of the hierarchy and the clergy.in numerous cases of abuse of power of the authorities, such as abuses of conscience, for instance:

-when the authorities abusively appropriate the lands and institutions of the Church (such as the monastery of Thien An in Hue, the sanctuary of La Vang in Hue, the presbytery in Hanoi, the Pontifical University in Da Lat, and so on),

-when the authorities impose the study of Marxism-Leninism in the seminaries,

-when our nation and our people are due to bear serious prejudices as a consequence of recent dramatic events such as the cession in cacatimini a part of the historic national territory to China.

              

All these facts show the prophetic character of the mission of the Church seriously is at fault within the hierarchy and the clergy of our country, as a consequence of the policy of interference and manipulation of the State. Precisely, it is due to the loss of the intrinsic quality of the Church that the exterior manifestations of a superficial religious freedom appear to dissimulate serious damages the Church has to suffer within its body. In reality we can see crowded churches on Sundays and solemn processions on the fete-days of Palm Sunday and Christmas Eve. This spectacle authorizes people a short time to enjoy “the freedom” from which the Roman Catholic Church benefits. On the contrary, those who give careful thoughts find in this more of a reason to be pessimist and worried about the upcoming days of the Church. Because, in the end, if the Church has lost in intrinsic nature, what would it be the cause the existence and freedom of the Church are still meant to serve?