The Difficulties

The Shortage of priests

Violations of religious freedom are evident. The Council of Ministers, at the national level and the local administrative authorities and party members, at the lower levels are empowered with legal authority to control the citizen’s secular and religious life. For instance, the most serious problem facing the Catholic Church is the shortage of priests.  Young Catholics are not only discouraged to enter the priesthood but also are bound to meet strict requirements, rules, and regulations  if they wish to serve their Catholic faith as a priest.

   A case in Evidence

Phan Van Loi was born on March 9, 1941 in Huong Tra, Thua Thien Province (Central Vietnam). He was admitted to the Little Seminary Hoan Thien, Hue, in 1961 then to the Grand Seminary Xuan Bich, Hue, in 1969. In May, 1978,  Phan Van Loi was dismissed from the priesthood and ordered to leave the Grand Seminary on ungrounded reason by the Communist administration in Hue. However, Phan was determined in his decision firm to continue to serve his religious faith as a priest. He was ordained without State authorization, that is “in hiding,” by Bishop F. X. Nguyen Van Thuan at Giang Xa, Son Tay (North Vietnam) on May 21, 1981. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Communist administration on October 21, 1981 for "unusual" religious  practices  He was sentenced to 4 years in prison and incarcerated in Dong Son Camp, Dong Hoi, Quang Binh Province. 

The reason for his arrest originated from his involvement in a play entitled “Let’s Offer Mother Mary Our Children”  on the “Day of Student Priests.” The play, which is based on a true story, relates he pilgrimage to La Vang Holy Cathedral on August 14, 1981 of a Catholic couple in Phu Cam, Hue. They earnestly prayed for the Holy Mother of La Vang and God’s divine favor, in their belief in God that their child would successfully enter the priesthood and successfully lead a priestly life. They were stopped and interrogated at a police checkpoint at My Chanh. Catholic nuns in a vehicle met the same difficulty. By kneeling down on the roadside to pray God for favor they were finally allowed to go.

The players were mostly seminarians. For unspecified reasons, they were all arrested and brought to stand trial before the Court. The Communist administration later discovered that Phan Van Loi, one among the convicts, had been ordained “in hiding.”  Phan  was  separated from the other convicts and transferred to another prison in Binh Dien, Thua Thien Province. He was imprisoned for three additional years. After his release from the prison, he was placed under house arrest  at 90/13  Phan Cu Trinh Street Hue, from October 1988. In the beginning of the ministerial year 1996, he served as  editor-in-chief of the “Ban Duong” (The Companion), selection of articles reflecting his meditations on the needs of the Children of God.  On April 21, 1998, he was convoked “to work with” the security service as a result of the publication of “Ban Duong.” His printed materials of a photocopy type and computer were confiscated.

        

The approximate version of the report by the priest on the “session of work” at the police headquarters  is as follows:

“[I said to the interrogator] Yesterday you came to my residence. You ransacked it unmannerly. You found no evidence whatsoever. You got improperly angry and seized a number of written religious  materials the possession of which, in your views, is in violation of the law, and thus is considered as illegal. Any Catholic priest is  naturally in possession of these photocopied religious materials like this. If you ransack any Catholic priest’s dwelling all over the world, or any place of residence of the Catholic priests in Hue Diocese, you will find the materials of this kind. I would then consider that you have enforced the law unlawfully. Those books are not on the black list. I bought them here and there. Naturally, Books of this kind are published without State authorization.  Control on religious publication is strict. But, they are sold in the street Why do you arrest those people who sell them and ransack the houses of those people who buy them, instead? Is it right to cause harm to a honest man --a priest-- to admonish other priests in Hue. You abuse authority to do this while our Bishop is absent from Hue. It is evident that it is an act of repression against religion.    

[The interrogator said]: We will carefully read the books we confiscate one by one to examine their contents and their techniques of printing then settle the matter. Any book that violates either one of these criteria will be held back. However, the main problem to solve  is that you have to admit that you have distributed the “Tin Nha” (News from Home) to Catholic priests in Hue.

      

[I replied]: I have already reported to you on this matter. We need not talk more about it. You should bring in witness for confrontation. That will settle the matter.

At this point, the interrogator changed his tone. giving a lecture on  moral conduct and principles of honor of a priest. Playing the role of a counselor, he explained to a priest  how to perform self-examination in the interests of the Church's service and individual life in the future. He advised me to legalize my status as priest to better serve my Catholic faith. The lecture is sometimes coupled with warning, threat, and insult with a tone of superiority “dare to do things but dare not admit  doing them” and “do things of which  the Church is really ashamed.” 

       

[I ] sat reading prayers [I then said]: “For a long time, I have preached about faith to people. Today, I listen to you  doing the preaching. Thank you.

       

They produced a whole pile of printed materials with this remark on the cover sheet “Report on the Violations of the Conduct of  Public Administration.” As they prepared to list the items they intended to confiscate in the report, I :verbally reacted::  “I protest the way you conduct public affairs. You do as you please, regardless of l due legal procedures. You can only draw up minutes and execute a temporary seizure of “evidences,” if you like. While paper is already at hand, list the items on it.” 

When one cadre of the Culture Department  prepared to draw up minutes, another one showed me a small sheet of paper with the printed word “SEALED”  and this line: “the offender signed” on it.  I protested: “Should I sign this paper, I would voluntarily avow that I have committed a crime, and you will use this as proof to arrest me in the future? I demand that you correct that line. “All right. Correct it yourself,” they replied. I crossed out  the line and wrote: “The proprietor signed.”

Phan Van Loi was arrested without a proof thereafter. (Tin Nha, No. 34, July, 1998).

     The Shortage of Priests in the South

Harassment of this type was common practice, discouraging the Catholic youth to enter the priesthood.  In the parishes in Saigon, where international organizations and agencies have their ears to the ground, the ratio of priests to the faithful was exceptionally low, with only one or two priests for about 7,000 followers. There were 5 priests for 95,000 followers in the Phan Thiet diocese. The shortage 0f priests was also critical in the provinces of the Center. In the diocese of Nha Trang where the Catholic faithful  numbered about 150,000 out of the population of 1.4 million inhabitants. The entire diocese had only 117 priests for this huge faithful. The diocese of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands had only 56 priests for 185,000  followers.  The State tightened control on the Church. The State-created “Patriotic Catholics Committees” was vested with authority to direct the Church functioned alongside the Church’s clergy in the parishes. Methods of  administration and political measures as such, within twenty years, had decreased the number of the Church’s  Orders and priests to an alarming rate.

     The Shortage of Priests in the North

In the North, the shortage of priests became increasingly critical. In many parishes, there were no priests at all. In the Bac Ninh diocese, there were two bishops and one priest for 120,000 followers. In the Lang Son diocese, there was only one priest for 5,000 followers in a region of 25,000 km2. The priest was the Reverend Hoang Trong Quynh, who was then  over 70 years old. Bishop Vincent de Paul Pham Van Du was also very old. He was ordained in 1948. He became the bishop of the diocese in 1960 and had been in office there ever since. In 1990.  after 36 years  under the Socialist regime, the number of Catholic priests deteriorated immensely. There were only 7 priests for the faithful of 145, 000 in the Haiphong diocese. There were 2 bishops and 1 priest for 72,000 followers in the Bac Ninh diocese. By 1993, the total number of priests in the North was about 277 including 30 priests who were ordained “in hiding. In the Hanoi diocese, there were 16 priests 7 of whom were over sixty years old for the faithful of 150,000. In the Phat Diem Diocese, there were 23 priests for the faithful of 125,000. In the Bui Chu Diocese, there were 27 priests and 27 “illegally-ordained” priests for 300,000 followers. In many parishes, there were no priests at all. In the diocese of Lang Son, there was 1 priest, who was 93 years old (1998) for approximately 5,000 followers.

The total number of priests throughout the North  decreased alarmingly the following years. There were  about 277, including 30 priests who had been ordained “chui” (in hiding). It was much less than the number of priests in Saigon Archdiocese, where 300 priests served their faith. In  Hanoi Diocese, there were only 16 priests, 7 of whom were over 60 years of age, who were in charge of 150,000 faithful. In the Bac Ninh Diocese, there were 5 priests and 12 nuns for the  service of 100,000 faithful in 46 parishes. In  Phat Diem Diocese, there were only 23 priests for the 125,000 faithful.  In Bui Chu Diocese, there were 27 priests and 27 "illegally ordained" priests for 300,000 followers. The Communists expect that, in 15 to 20 years when the older priests will have died, the faithful will become leaderless and the Church will disintegrate by itself.  (The Committee for the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Vietnam, 1993: 11-12).

     

The shortage of priests in Thai Binh Diocese, which comprises Thai Binh  and Hung Yen provinces, was most critical. In March 1996, Bishop Nguyen Van Sang  could ordain only 4 new priests, raising the number of priests of the diocese to 35 for 140,000 followers. Many priests had to take charge of  two parishes. Since its foundation in 1936, the ecclesiastic personnel had never been obsolete. According the statistics established in 1938, the diocese was administered by 1 bishop, 25 priests, 333 Bible instructors, and 12 brothers for 120,000 followers.  The Bishop indicated that restrictions on the formation of priests instituted an obstacle. A large number of seminarians of the diocese had to wait for decades to be admitted to the seminary. Some seminarians  became old, 50 or even 60 years of age. Politics was all that matters. The Church  performed its sacerdotal services with a small number of priests.  “The Office of Religious Affairs disfavors the candidacy to the priesthood of people of old age. Young candidates devoted to the sacerdotal life are numerous, but the number of those who are permitted is limited. Only 14 students from Thai Binh Diocese are admitted to the candidacy.”

Monopoly of Power

   The Rights to Religious Freedom

     The Official Viewpoint

On December 31, 1993, the Permanent Mission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United Nations at Geneva defended the religions policy in Vietnam, saying; that “Vietnam is a country where approximately 20 million  people (nearly one third of the population) practice more than 10 different religions. Through thousands of years of its history, Vietnam hast experienced religious intolerance, discrimination, or conflicts. The Vietnamese State and the Communist Party of Vietnam have affirmed that Religious beliefs constitute a spiritual need of the believers as proclaimed in the political report delivered before the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1991. In the light of Vietnam's tradition of national union, the Vietnamese Government pursues a consistent policy of broad national union between believers and non-believers with a view to encouraging the Vietnamese of all social strata and diverse religions in the whole country and abroad to contribute to the national cause of building Vietnam into a strong country with a rich people and a civilized country. In order to dispel prejudices and complex difficulties existing among the people as a result of 30 years of war, the Vietnamese State is committed to ensuring abolition on all narrow-minded prejudices and discriminatory attitudes towards religions fellow countrymen.  On the legal plane, religious rights and freedoms are guaranteed in Vietnam's Constitution. Article 70 of Vietnam's Constitution stipulates that citizens are entitled to the rights to  freedoms of belief and religion,  to practice or not to practice a religion. All religions are equal before the law. To concretize and realize the provisions in matters of religion in the Constitution, the Vietnamese Government has promulgated specific orders:  Circular 234 (signed by the President of the Republic on June 14, 1955), Resolution 297 (adopted by the Government Council on November 11, 1977), Decree 69 (issued by the Government Council on March 21, 1991) and Circular 479 (issued by the Prime Minister of the Government).”

    The Reality

Inconsistencies in the provisions of the laws and the enforcement practices of the  laws with persistent, inconsistent, harsh and measures of the authorities had led to discontent or even unrest in various religious communities. There were voices raising problematic issue by the Bishops of Vietnam in their petition to the government in October 1993. The prelacy of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam requested the government to allow all  Catholic priests and religious returning from  reeducation camps to resume their pastoral duties, that Catholic laity be free to contribute  to  educational services  the Church to  be free to maintain its own ministerial publications. And, although some seminaries reopened, there were still more candidates than spaces. The Bishops of Vietnam hoped that other closed seminaries would soon be reopened, and the State to return to the Church the confiscated properties and the facilities of various Catholic religious Orders. In conclusion, the Church's leadership wished that " the basic conditions that are indispensable to the normal functioning of a religion and that would allow the Catholic Church to serve the country and the people effectively be the concerns of the government."

   

There were other issues that were of great concern to the Church. The Bishops insisted that the plight of the nearly 55,000 refugees that still suffered misery in the refugee camps in Southern Asia. They had been denied refugee status and had faced with forced repatriation They were concerned as well with the unresolved problems affecting American children,  the continuing effects  of Agent Orange, and other consequence left y the destruction.

       

“We pray that, with the growing dialogue in these  recent years and, nowadays,  with the lifting of the economic sanctions, greater tolerance and understanding will come, thus characterizing the  relations between the two countries. We hope in particular that the Vietnamese authorities will develop a more respectful and tolerant approach toward the religious institutions of their country. Religious liberty will ever an essential criterion for improving relations between the United States and Vietnam. As the advocates of improved relations between our two countries, we remain committed to defending the rights and dignity of all believers in Vietnam.” As always, their requests  came to no response.

    The Measures

In late March 1993, the Chairman of the State Committee for Religions, Vu Quang, informed the Episcopal Conference in Saigon of the government’s new policy concerning religious practices. There would be solutions to the current religious issue. The government would be ready to allow a number of Catholic priests to go and study religious subjects overseas. Those priests who returned from reeducation would be allowed to resume their priesthood unless their conduct proved to be appropriate. Seminaries that were legally accredited by the government would be allowed to perform religious functions.  Nevertheless, Catholic priests were still not be allowed to study abroad without authorization and those priests who returned from reeducation were not permitted to perform their religious services as pastors.

Other measures were executed. The state-affiliated daily Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberated), on August 17, 1975, reported that, on August 15, 1975, at a meeting of the Catholic clergy in Saigon, Mai Chi Tho, the then Vice-chairman of Saigon Military Management Committee, affirmed with antipodal remarks that to nominate a bishop, for instance, is not only a religious matter. Catholicism is essentially an incorporated component of the Nation. Therefore, the appointment of a person to head a diocese must be approved by the revolutionary administration. Following this line of politics, in October 1993, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council had pronounced its protest against the Vatican's nomination of Bishop Huynh Van Nghi of Phan Thiet diocese as the Coadjutor Administrator of Saigon Archdiocese. The Council also announced that it would never bear to see Bishop Nguyen Van Thuan to become the Archbishop of the Saigon prelacy, charging the Bishop with anti-revolutionary crimes, a blood debtor to the people and the mastermind of national discord. The protest, in reality, came out of preexisting decision. The Communist rule wanted Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh to remain the unique supreme leader of the Saigon Archdiocese. Its hostile attitude toward Bishop Nguyen Van Thuan might result from political reason. The Bishop is a nephew of the late President of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem`, an old political adversary to the Communist regime.

Artifices, in effect, were devised to blind public opinion from the reality. On November 11, 1993, the State Catholic priest Huynh Cong Minh, the pastor of the Archdiocese Cathedral of Saigon, informed without an ecclesiastic order before the First Congress of the Ho Chi Minh City Committee for Solidarity of Catholics that Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh had asked all Catholic priests to withdraw from the said organization. The State priest even stressed that “the participation of Catholic priests in the Committee as well as in other political and social organizations are the responsibilities of the laity, and not of the clergy. Political realities in the past had not allowed the laity to assume this task. Therefore, the archbishop gave a number of priests permission to temporarily be in charge of it. The situation has changed. The country is in the process of renovation, and the economic, social, and political activities have gone back to normalcy. The archbishop wanted all activities of the laity to be normalized, and, thus, the clergy` will eventually be able to assume the task that the laity cannot. Their task, now,  is to perform religious duties, an area where the religious personnel are in want.” 

The declarations by the State priest were really unconvincing. People knew very well the Committee of Union of Catholics led by the “Gang of Four,” of which Hynh Cong Ninh is a member, was only an instrument in the hands of the Communist Party. It was used as a means to an end in the monopoly of power of the Communist Party. The political regime sought through its activities to impose control on the Catholic Church. Nonparty members in it only played a nominal role.  Genuine priests could only be exploited to the service of the regime. Being aware of the anxiety of the Catholic clergy to a presence of certain true priests who would involve in the activities of that State-created organization, Huynh Cong Minh assumed the role of a State spokesman to maneuver the public. His assertions came from the common  tactics usually applied by the Communist, "to move a step backward in order to move two steps forward.

The control of the State on the Church fomented indignation among Catholic circles and parishes. Leaflets denouncing violations of religious freedoms by the Catholic Movement for Religious Freedom were found at La Vang Cathedral in Quang Tri Province, Central Vietnam (August 18, 1993) and in Long Thanh Catholic Community and the Ho Nai parishes in Dong Nai Province in South Vietnam (September 5, 1993). Regarding the issue of religious freedom, the Committee for the Struggle for Religious Freedom, in its communication to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights in 1994, had this to say:

"If there exist now 20 million believers, that is one-third of the Vietnamese population, as the Permanent Mission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United Nations reported, it is then understood that 50 million of the Vietnamese population are atheistic. Supposing that the aforementioned statistics were authentic, it reveals a desperate tragedy: after 50 years under the Communist rule the Vietnamese Communist Party and its administration have successfully transformed the traditionally pietistic Vietnamese into atheists, with only one-third of them are now religious believers. This fact alone reveals how crafty the so-called  religious policy of the Vietnamese Communist Party and State is.”

    A Show of Power

The show of authority was apparent. For instance, the civil authorities refused to grant authorization to three Vietnamese bishops to go and attend the conference organized by the Federation of Conferences of Bishops of Asia scheduled to be held in Manila, January 1995. They said that they would not allow the bishops to attend the event because the Conference of Bishops of Vietnam Reunified had not yet been a member of the federation (Much Vu, October 1994). Vu Quang, Director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs, might have explained to the bishops that it was the old Conference of Bishops of South Vietnam that had been a member of the said organization. The new Conference of Bishops Reunified was not a member in the federation. During the process, twelve Bishops had requested in vain the Communist authorities to give permission to come to Manila to participate in the event. 

On October 7, 1994, Archbishop Etienne Nguyen Nhu The, the Titular Archbishop of Tipasa in Maretania and Apostolic Administrator of Hue Archdiocese, reported to the World Bishops Conference at the Vatican that the religious life in Vietnam was suffering restrictions. The situation gave rise to many problems, “particularly those concerning the formation of priests, the lack of means for the reconstruction of diocesan premises, and the shortage of ministerial personnel. Congregations that are devoted to religious education and charitable activities cannot pursue their missions in accordance with their own charisma because of the State monopoly of power in the areas of religious and humanitarian services. Thus, despite some relaxation in 1986, the Catholic Church of Vietnam had not had  significant freedom. As a matter of fact, “the household registration system restricts freedom of movement and residence status caused difficulties for the clergy to perform ministerial duties and religious services and religious organization and to operate religious activities even within religious communities. Meetings for religious services, in principle, are not subject to  authorization. Nevertheless, authorization prior to any form of assembly is required.”

  

State oppression ever persisted. On October 1, 1995, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, again, sent a letter to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet reminding him of the difficulties that it had met as a result of the application of the State’s hostile politics of the government on the religion.  The prime minister had already given promises and granted solutions to the problems the Church had presented in its previous requests, namely, the ban on restrictions on movement of the priests and bishops to perform pastoral duties. the creation of a seminary at Hue, and the considerations of  the proposal from the Episcopal Conference on processing procedures for  admission of prospective seminarians to seminaries. Most problems concerned remained unsolved, thus causing the pastoral duties of the clergy as well as the religious life of the faithful more difficult.  It took off much of the Church's utmost persuasive fervor due to the hostile politics on religions of the government.    

   The Conference of Bishops of Vietnam for many years had wished to be allowed to own and operate a house of editions to print and diffuse diverse religious materials. Nevertheless, their requests for authorization had never been accorded. Surprisingly, the Directives 379/TTG, issued on July 23, 1993 decreed, among other regulations, that "the authorization for printing religious books must be given in conformity with the law on publications, as foreseen in Article 18, and "the organs of administration of the State with competence in the matter of  publication  will determine concretely [the legal procedures for the creation of] the houses of editions that take charge of  publishing most  books of prayers and religious works conveniently.” (EDA 291)

As always, the Vietnamese Communist Party turned kept a close watch on ideological deviations of the organizations orbiting within its system. The religious circles are of particular concern. The review “Catholicism and the Nation,” which is an propagation  organ of the State-sponsored Committee of Union of Catholics, in its issue of June-July 1997, was called into order by the Committee of Ideology and Culture of  the Communist Party Section  of Ho Chi Minh City. In its letter addressed to the editorial staff, the Party authority blamed the review for forming erroneous judgments on history and historical personages as they did not chime with the official appreciation of the Communist Party.  For instance, the Reverend Truong Ba Can, the editor-in-chief and a regime’s “protégé,” was blamed for his devious judgments on Stalin and his regime. Indeed, In his article in the monthly supplement, the politician-priest described Stalin as a leader who had acquired numerous merits but who at the same time had committed numerous unforgivable errors and mistakes. The commentator further proliferated that under Stalin’s  leadership, the Soviet regime became “sanguinary and cruel.” The two adjectives “sanguinary and cruel,” the authorities stressed, did not depict in any way the true picture of the political regime even if, during a certain period under his leadership, Stalin carried an erroneous politics. “Sanguinary and cruel” were only appropriate for the description of a capitalist regime or the fascist regime of Hitler. By giving improper judgments of value on Stalin and his regime, the review involuntarily incited animosity towards socialism among those who tried to discredit the “Revolution.” 

The editor was also blamed for infringement on the unwritten orientation rules and regulations according to which opinions and viewpoints that did not  reflect the Party’s lines of  politics are likely deemed to be deviations. The warning was equally addressed to the author of an article published in the same issue. The article appeared in a form of a prayer of a priest who repented his sin and asked for redemption on Ash - Wednesday.. expressing excruciating grief: “Lord, We Have Caused Misfortune to the Generation to come.” The author evoked in veiled terms the misconduct in matters of abuse of power of a dogmatic State education agency. Weaknesses of similar type reflected the worries of the population about the  penury of intellectuals, the increase in evils, the practices of commercialization of the instruction, and the quantitative insufficiency and qualitative incompetence of the teachers as well.

To justify their remarks, the authorities redirected public opinion to the Party’s orientation. Everyone must constrain himself to the study and practice of socialist ideals as well as the contents and methods that are prescribed by the Party’s political lines in the domain of education. To elevate that spirit, after having recommended the teachers to fight against the actual degradation of ideology education and the expansion of religious propaganda to  poison  the school environment, thus genuinely strengthening civic, ideological, and moral education, and the practice of Marxism-Leninism..   

Control of thought was persistent and pervasive throughout a long period. The rights to information of the Church was limited within the places of worship. In April 2000, in an interview accorded to the review “Catholicism and the Nation,”  the press organ of the Committee of Union of Catholics in Ho Chi Minh City, Pham Ngoc Chau affirmed the exact date of the creation of a Printing House for Religious Editions. The State cadre even enumerated the objectives of the printing house and specified the character of two categories of publication of different forms, one for the books with religious contents, books of prayers and the other for books for religious teaching. In the latter category, there were two sub-categories, one for the publication of books of religions published by the religion and the other for the books on religions published by the Communist Party of Vietnam and the State. (EDA 309)

The review “Catholicism and the Nation”  cited as proof, a number of works had already appeared in this house of editions such as the ones administered by the Bishop of Long Xuyen Bui Tuan and Father Ngo Duc Hau, the editor of the “Journal of Jesus.” According to Pham Ngoc Chau, during the interview in April 2000, the House of Editions would have published 120 book titles belonging to the first category. Many Catholic and other religious works  might have been  published in the year 2000, among which were the Buddhist Scriptures (Holy Writings), the Old Testament, the New Testament, the “K'oran” as well as the prophetic writings of the Founder of Hoa Hao Buddhism Huynh Phu So (EDA 269).

      

Restrictions on diffusion of information and communication between the Church and faithful became even stricter. The Catholic review Hiep Thong (Communion) was suspended at  the command of the Bureau of Religious Affairs and the secretary of the Episcopal Conference. The review might survive if it changed its subjects and form, although the notice from the authorities indicated clear decision  on the matter.

    

Along with the suspension of “Hiep Thong,” the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam ceased to have its official voice. The Party-affiliated review “Cong Giao va Dan Toc” (Catholicism and the Nation) seemingly played the role of an semiofficial organ of information and apparently assumed the role of “spokesman” of the Church. To make it clear about the nominal role of the review to public opinion, the Reverend Chan Tin, an advocate for human rights and religious freedom. declared his protest against the decision by the International Catholic Union Press (UCIP) to  recommend the “Catholicism and Nation” with a gold medal  during  a congress held at Fribourg, September 17-23, 2001, which honor it did not deserve. 

In his letter to the UCIP on October 12, 2001,  the Reverend Chan Tin stressed that “the organization has made a serious error, due to lack of adequate information on the role that the review “Cong Giao va Dan Toc” and the Committee of Union of Catholics.  They only play a nominal role of demagogues within in the political context created by the Vietnamese Communist Party. The award only evokes an outrage and deepen a wound inflicted on the honor of the whole Vietnamese Catholic community and, especially, those who have suffered injustice, imprisonment ,and  residence surveillance, or are resigned to live in forced silence for their struggle for freedoms of speech, of the press and of religious freedom in Vietnam.”

The review, in effect, had been created in Paris before the end of the Vietnam War. Its office was later installed in Saigon after the war and became the press organ of the Committee of Union of Patriotic Catholics, the precursor of the Union of Catholics. The latter association then became a member of the Fatherland Front. Its function was, according to the terms used in its charter, was in charge of mobilizing the Catholics to engage in carrying out important objectives of the Communist Party and State. The authorized Catholic publication  is not the least representative of the entirety of the Catholic faithful of Vietnam.

The Repression

Having failed to create  a self-directed Vietnamese Catholic Church of the Chinese type in March 1979, the Communist administration sought to repress the Church by violence. On the one hand,  it intimidated the clergy and confiscate the Church’s facilities. However, facing  flexible but resolute defense of the Church, it had to manipulate the  Communist-created Union of Catholics to replace the Union of Catholic Patriots, exerting pressure on the Church.  On the other hand, it used diverse measures, both political and administrative, to maneuver tricks against the Church. To defend its legitimacy as a religious institution, on April 4, 1990, the Episcopal Conference of Vietnam published a letter of recommendation requesting the Communist administration to create favorable conditions for religious activities, to respect the rights to religious worship, to allow the Church to reopen seminaries, and  attend to the service of the poor. The requests cane to no response.

     The Role of the Committee of Union of Catholics

The Committee of Union of Catholics, an organization operating in the orbit of the Party-satellite  Fatherland Front, actually played the role of a watchdog of the Party and State  to  control the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam at all levels of the Church’s hierarchy. It was even vested with authority to designate members to work beside the clergy the local parishes. This organization, like its predecessor, was the successor to the Committee for Solidarity of Patriotic Catholics. Since the term “patriotic” sounds “too Communist.” it is then stripped off. Structurally, It  operated under the direction  of  the “Gang of Four,” (Huynh Cong) Minh, (Truong Ba) Can, (Phan Khac)Tu, (Vuong Dinh) Bich. People do not know, however, how close they were to the Party’s leadership, but had great influence on State-affiliated work teams at the parishes. Oftentimes, they tended to exert their influence on local priests and prestigious members in the hierarchy of the Church. Nevertheless, their pressure fluctuated with various circumstances. For instance, during the years of 1985-1986,  the Archbishop Nguyen Kim Dien of Hue Diocese, Central Vietnam, was constantly harassed by the local civil authorities. He was finally arrested, interrogated, and detained for 120 days at the Binh-Tri-Thien police headquarters. Released, he was immediately placed under house arrest. The Reverend Tran Van Quy of the Hue diocese was coincidentally arrested and interrogated about the archbishop’s activities from 1980 to 1986. A delegate from the Committee of Union of Catholics in Saigon came to Hue with an intent  to complicate the matter. Nevertheless, the Most Reverend Nguyen Kim Dien  categorically ruled out every artful argument of the delegate in the interests of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam. Facing complexities of the situation, the work of the Committee was, however highly appreciated by the Party and State. At the close of the assembly of the Episcopal Conference that took place in Hanoi from October 6-11,1997, the chief of the State Office of Religious Affairs Le Quang Vinh, on his own initiatives, spoke highly of the merits of the Committee and evaluated the role it played alongside the bishops and the contributions that this organ had paid to the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam.

      

The Bishops, on their part, pointed out that,  in the context of the politics of “doi moi” (renovation), it was suitable to let the laity only to participate in  the operation of this political organization and take charge of responsibilities as the representatives of the laity in it. Traditionally, they added, in diverse branches, the responsibilities in the direction of the Church's religious activities resided with personalities with merits.  They evidently had acquired merits or possessed honorific titles. Moreover, responsibilities should be given to specialized people. A priest must serve first his pastoral duties.   

Resentment against the presence of priests in the Committee of Union of Catholics wais strong. This organization, in the eyes of the Catholic laity, was a political watchdog of the Communist Party. The Episcopal Conference  reaffirmed the statement by the late Archbishop of Saigon Diocese Nguyen Van Bin when he had delegated the general vicar of Saigon Cathedral Huynh Cong Minh to the meeting with the Committee of Union of Catholics on November 11, 1993 with this message: “Nowadays, the situation has changed. Our country has engaged in the process of complete renovation. The economic, social, and political situation is on the path of normalization. That is why the archbishop desires that the activities of the Committee of Union of Catholics should also be normalized. Our laity brothers must assume their role. The priest should come back to his duty, that is, he should be accorded the credentials to perform his ministry services, which responsibilities lay people cannot assume.”

Pham Ngoc  Hai, a devout Catholic of Vuon Soai Parish, Saigon, recounted the circumstances in which religious practices were  conducted in the Saigon archdiocese: "The Catholics are now free to some extent to observe  their religious practices and  activities. They are allowed to perform religious practices and activities, but all these performances are  restricted to the worship place. They are mainly Holy Masses. Bible studies for converts, teenagers, and the youth. They are conducted within the church. only Al celebrations for the All Saints' Day, Christmas Eve, or reception parties are all under the writ of authorization. Outdoors activities and services of the “Legio,” the Catholic Youth Association and the Sacred Heart of the Holy Mother are strictly prohibited to operate. Even the practice of charity is forbidden. While the 1984 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam recognizes the right to freedom of religion, the State places the Church under its control with all forms of regulations, restrictions, and authorization. Worse still, pious Catholics are publicly derided. Bishop Nguyen Van Sang of Thai Binh Diocese (North Vietnam) reported at the International Caritas Conference in Rome, May 29, 1991: "Anyone who practices charity and performs religious creeds is criticized as being backward and benighted." (Trung Tan, VHRW 3 (November 2001)

   

Prior to “renovation” when the religious policy for the South had not come into force, the authorities’ measures of control varied from one region to another. In some parishes such as the Vuon Soai Parish in Saigon where the State priest Phan Khac Tu was in charge of the ministry, those priests returning from reeducation camps were allowed to celebrate Sunday Masses because of lack of priests. Seminaries were closed. Seminarians had to return home. Pious youths were barred from entering the priesthood, Dignitaries in certain dioceses sought to fill the gap by forming priests in hiding. Upon completion of this type of religious education,  if they were lucky, they had to perform their sacerdotal duties secretly. They were subject to self-isolation as police raids were continually performed against them (Trung Tan, VHRW 3 (November 1991). 

   

Demands for Religious Freedom

During October  12-19, 1992, twenty-six bishops representing twenty-one dioceses attended the Fifth Congress of Catholic Bishops held in Hanoi. Again, they issued a letter of opinions demanding the Communist Party to lift the restrictions on religious activities, to terminate prohibition against Catholic converts to serve their faith, to restore the Church’s right to religious propagation, and to return to it the right to property ownership. Also, in the motion to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet on October 26, 1992,  the Episcopal Conference of Vietnam demanded the rights to freedom of religious activities of the Catholics in various dioceses. As regards the legitimacy of the Church, the Episcopal Conference stressed that "being the superior organ that is responsible for the Catholic communities inside the country, the Conference needs to have proper conditions and adequate means to render its services corresponding to its role as the representatives of the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam. Therefore,  "the Church has the right to free assembly, to assemble wherever it is deemed necessary and convenient. The Catholic Bishops equally have the right to free movement to perform their sacerdotal duties in their dioceses.  The  restrictions on the formation of priests have to be lifted. Of most importance, the  State is requested to return to Church the cathedrals, monasteries, seminaries, abbeys and real estates properties that are managed and occupied or  unsuitably used by the State."

The Persecution

   Arrests and Imprisonment

For nearly two decades after the reunification of the country, the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam still suffered tragic persecution due to profession of faith of  the clergy and faithful.  The Communist rule continued to ruthlessly persecute numerous Catholic dignitaries, priests, and believers. The history of Vietnam under “renovation” recorded  such cases of religious persecution as follows:      

   

In the North, the Catholic  community of the ethnic minority H’mong was targeted with persecution. Recognized among the preachers who were arrested and detained were:  1. Sung Khai Pha in Ha Giang Province was repeatedly arrested in 1992, “for spreading illegal religious propaganda,” 2. Vang Seo Sang in Ha Giang Province was repeatedly arrested in 1992, “for illegal religious propaganda”  and 3. Ly Van Dinh was repeatedly arrested in 1992, for” spreading illegal religious propaganda.”

In the South, fervent and prestigious personalities and  priests were the victims of persecution. Recognized among them were Ngo Van An, Doan Thanh Liem, the journalist Nguyen Ngoc Lan, and the Reverend Chan Tin.

 In the open letter of August 15, 1989, Ngo Van An demanded the Episcopal Conference of Vietnam to manifest strong will of independence from the State  as regards the creation of the Committee of Union of Catholics. Ngo Van An was subject to interrogation by the police in December 1990. He was arrested on February 25, 1991. He was sentenced without trial to three years of forced labor and detained at Phan Dang Luu Prison, Saigon.  

The lawyer Doan Thanh Liem was arrested without charge in 1990. The lawyer was a signatory to a letter of protest to the Catholic Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh denouncing the artful scheme of the Communist-sponsored Committee of Union of Religions and accusing the Vietnamese Communist authorities in Hue of their violations of freedom of religion, and, specifically for their detention of the Catholic Vice-archbishop Nguyen Van Thuan. On May 14, 1992, the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City imposed on the lawyer  a 12-year imprisonment. The official daily Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberated), reported the Court's accusations against him such as maintaining relations with U .S. high ranking officials as well as the old officials of the Republic of Vietnam, printing and diffusing anti-socialist documents and calling for the abolition of the monopoly of power of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the dissolution of the Communist-created National Assembly, and the promotion of a regime of political plurality.  He was also attributed to as a reactionary for drafting a project for a new  constitution for Vietnam. In reality, the lawyer had served as a legal counselor for Michael David Morrow.

Sources close to the lawyer said that Doan Thanh Liem was a graduate from Georgetown University in Washington D. C. On May 14, 1992, the Ho Chi Minh City Court sentenced the lawyer to 12 years in prison. His trial aroused deep concerns among celebrities and political circles in the United States. A group of 125 politicians and celebrities signed a letter of protest to Party Secretary-general Do Muoi requesting him to release the lawyer forthwith and unconditionally. Recognized among those who signed the letter were Senator Jesse Helms, Jane Fonda, David Dellinger, David Berrigan, and Tom Hayden. Nevertheless, the protest came to no result.

On May 12, 1993, the Ho Chi Minh City police released the Catholic priest Chan Tin and the journalist Nguyen Ngoc Lan from arbitrary detention. The Reverend Chan Tin, a Redemptorist, and Nguyen Ngoc Lan, a Catholic intellectual, were always under police guard. They were the principal inspiring authors of the open letter of August 15, 1989 in which they demanded the Episcopal Conference of Vietnam to manifest more independence vis-à-vis the State and to define the assumed role of the Committee of Union of Catholics.

The journalist Nguyen Ngoc Lan, who had  been under house surveillance, was charged with secretly sending abroad a two-volume diary whose contents, according to the Communist rule, denigrated the political regime. On May 16, 1990, the police broke into and searched his home at Tan Phuoc  but found no evidence. The journalist was nevertheless placed under constant administrative detention at his home and was prohibited to leave the quarters where he was living. He had to report himself to the police headquarters every week. At every interrogation, during the time under permanent detention he refused  to answer any questions and held firmly to hiss political  standpoint.    

Along with the articles severe criticisms on the State's acts of religious repression and persecution, the Reverend Chan Tin preached in a series of sermons during the Lenten in 1990, arousing the State’s interference in the internal affairs of the Church, and thus committing violations on religious freedom.    

The priest, who had also been placed under administrative detention., was charged with acts of subversion. against the regime. He was arrested while he was residing at the Redemptorists Cathedral on Ky Dong Street, Saigon. The Reverend Chan Tin was designated a new residence at a small church in the district of Duyen Hai, 70 kilometers east of Saigon. Five days later, he was prohibited from celebrating Masses and  his preaching was terminated. On June 22, 1989, after an interrogation by the police, he was put under house arrest for three days. The priest's movement was restricted within the village of Can Thanh. He was prohibited from performing his priesthood. His citizenship was withdrawn, and he had to report himself to the police every fifteen days. The authorities also interdicted his relations with other fellow priests at the Redemptorists Order on Ky Dong Street, Saigon. The police showed vigilant zeal in the search for and confiscation of the priest’ s records of preaching. A priest of a diocese in the Central Highlands who obtained one of these records was arrested and sentenced without a trial to three years under administrative detention. International organizations, such as the CIDSE was not allowed to go to and visit the priest at the  place of detention.

     

Reactions from the Laity

    

The Catholic laityhad every confidence in their Bishops' leadership as expressed in their petition to the government following the issuance of the Decree 69 HDBT. TIn it, the spiritual leaders particularly demanded the State to materialize the rights to religious freedom by opening access to the five immediate needs of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam. The government was required to show respect for the execution of the Sacerdotal Order of  the Vatican nomination of Bishop P. X. Nguyen Van Thuan to the rank of Vice-archbishop and the legitimate successor to Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh of the Saigon prelacy. It should  not interfere in the internal affairs of the Church in the conduct of religious affairs such as the selection of students to the priesthood and education of seminarians, the ordination of priests, and the nomination of bishops. It should facilitate the instruction and study of catechism. It should create favorable conditions for the Church to form Catholic congregations and to open educational religious facilities and allow the Church to operate educational and charitable services. It should unconditionally return to the Church all properties it had appropriated or borrowed for temporary use. It should compensate as amends for any facility that is lost or damaged due to poor State management. It Should respect, protect, and create favorable conditions for the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam to serve  best the policy of National Solidarity and develop its international relationship with other religious communities and the Churches in other countries. It should  respect international treaties and covenants by which it had pledged to abide. 

   

Nevertheless all demands fell to the deaf ears.  Even charitable services were subject to State supervision The Decree 69/HDBT of March 21, 1991, in particular, stipulated with restrictions  that "humanitarian services are regulated by law. The ecclesiastics and religious organizations may devote themselves to  humanitarian activities in the domains of activities where permission can be granted by the State. Humanitarian organizations. Humanitarian services  that are currently sponsored by a religion is allowed to continue to function accordingly and in conformity with the orientations of competent organs of the State. All religious activities that are related or connected to those of the Churches in a foreign country have to be conducted in conformity with the State policy and approved by the Council of Ministers."

     Reactions from the Catholic Circles

On September 8, 1991, Mugs. Nguyen Duc Tien proclaimed at a conference on religious freedom in Santa Ana, California, that the Vietnamese Communist Party made at least three grave errors in its policy on the religions. It confuses patriotism with enthusiasm for socialism; it restricts the rights to religious freedom, and it lacks understanding of the noble goals of religions and the psychology of religious people. The dignitary advocated that freedom of religion is a basic human right; it is a right, and not a privilege. The Vietnam Interfaith Committee of the Struggle for Religious an the United States raised concerns about the repression of the Communist administration, enumerating incidents of  oppression and suppression of the clergy and faithful of all Churches and calling for international investigation into the religious situation in Vietnam.  

Commenting on the Decree 69 - HDBT, in its letter of opinions on April 14, 1991, the Conference of Catholic  Bishops of Vietnam had this to say:

“Although the 1992 Constitution recognizes the right to freedom of religion, the practice of this tight encounters many difficulties and complexities. Almost all resolutions on the religion in the past have been expressively carried out. Some of them are less coercive but are still aiming at restricting rather than facilitating religious activities. Stylistically, the phraseology of the law is ambiguous with  twist of words or contradiction in terms, such as “... is allowed ... but requires permission.” Of all human rights, the right to religious freedom is among the most important rights. Therefore, it must be respected as a right, and must not be regarded as a privilege. The Decree 69 HDBT, March 21, 1991, is only a series of restrictions on religious preaching, services, and activities, and the result of it is a gradual disintegration of the Churches in Vietnam. Consequently,  these restrictions will open doors to a futile struggle between the people and the political regime.

People in any place and at any period of time seek and continue to seek true democracy and the respect for their rights and opinions. Every man should be allowed to practice his own religion. Every man  should have the right to express truthfully what he thinks.  He expects his opinions to be heard, considered, and given response. With all things considered, the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Council of Ministers should prove to be flexible, righting wrongs and creating  favorable conditions so that every citizen will be able to contribute to the building of the country. Of first and utmost importance, the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Council of Ministers must respect the rights to freedom of religion of the Vietnamese people. It is now the right time for them to revoke forthwith the unpopular Decree 69/ HDBT, March 21, 1991 (Lu Gang, VNHRW, 1992: 7-9).

Religion Practices under "COI MO"

Contenders for freedom and democracy argued that “COI MO” (Openness) is s expressively negative. If we are not careful, we will be put at the risk of  destroying the country's traditional intellectual, moral, and spiritual values . The difficulties facing the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam remained the same ones  reflected in the motion of the Episcopal Conference of Vietnam sent to SRVN Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet on October 26, 1992, in which it  requested for the respect for the rights to religious worship. It reads, in part:

“We are glad and hopeful to be the witness to an era of renovation of the country in the domain of religion and every other domain of life as well. However, being people who are responsible for the building of happiness and the spiritual life of our Catholic compatriots who live within the people's communities, we cannot help from expressing our thoughts and anxiety about the remaining difficulties that are facing the Vietnamese Roman Catholic Church. Being the superior organ that is responsible for the Catholic community inside the country, the Vietnamese Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to have proper conditions and adequate means for its operations of activities and to be able to perform its functions suitable to its role as the representative of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam.

The Episcopal Conference requested that restrictions on  religious services and activities of  the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam be lifted, and the basic rights to serve the religious faith be respected. The faithful have the right to assembly whenever it is necessary and wherever it is convenient. The Bishops have the right to free movement to perform bishopric duties in their dioceses because, in a number of dioceses, the bishops are required to apply for permission before they go and perform their duties within their dioceses. The Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam should be free to communicate to and share responsibilities with  the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Churches in other countries, such as to participate in religious activities organized by the central ministry at the Holy See when invited and to have relationships with other Conferences of Catholic Bishops and to attend congresses, especially those organized by the Alliance of Asian Conference of Catholic Bishops, It should be  allowed to publish a monthly magazine to inform the laity of activities of the Catholic community and to disseminate materials of beliefs through Bible and catechism studies with facility and, at the same time to be allowed to print and publish with facility books relating to religion.

Like any other social organization in the country and the world, the staff formation and the administration of the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam are operated in accordance with the Church's religious rules of laws and regulations and are competent within the Church's hierarchy in their service for the Church.  There should be a harmonic progression for the formation of a staff that is sufficient enough to meet the needs for the religious services of the followers. There are now only three seminaries with a limited number of seminarians throughout the country. Therefore, there are urgent needs to open more seminaries to allow the Church to receive a large number of seminarians as are required by needs in each diocese (the existing number of seminarians is very small as compared with the number of seminarians required by actual needs), to allow to establish preparatory schools for prospective seminarian, to allow to ordain, in accordance with the stipulations defined by the Church, priests whom the Bishop considers as meritorious, to allow the bishop to transfer with facility the priest from one region to another as required by the needs of religious services and are necessary for the service of the followers, to restore the functions of those priests who return from reeducation and allow them to perform religious services, to allow members of the Church to study and receive in-service training overseas when these opportunities are offered or as required by needs and to participate in conferences abroad so that they will be able to serve better when they come back home, to allow monasteries and nunneries to receive, form, and transfer their members so that these people will better perform their duties, suitable to their specialization, and to cease preventing voluntary Catholic converts from serving their faith and causing difficulties to them. As far as the properties of the Church as concerned, the Church is in need of more worship places and places for activities.  Therefore, the Government is asked  to return to the Church its cathedrals, monasteries, seminaries, abbeys, and real estate properties that are under the management  of the State and occupied by the State or that are being used unsuitably the State, and to allow with facility the Church to repair, rebuild, and build worship places and places for activities to meet the Church’s religious needs."

The Conference of Bishops stressed that above-mentioned requests are only the common proposals of any organization that is officially recognized by the government. They are also the aspirations of the Vietnamese Catholic Clergy and Laity. If they are realized, they will help create a new spirit and motive force for the building and protection of the country.

The Roman Catholic Church

     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).