Monday, November 14, 2011
Vietnam: With More Than 1500 Seminarians and 80,000 Young Catechists, the Church's Future Looks Bright
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thousands of Vietnamese Catholics Pray for End to Persecution
Following the siege of a parish in Hanoi, the brutal beating of a religious, and the desecration of a crucifix, thousands of Vietnamese Catholics gathered on January 24 at the Redemptorist monastery in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) in southern Vietnam to pray for the end of the persecution of the Church in the Asian nation. Earlier in the day, thousands of Catholics gathered at the cathedral in Hanoi to pray for the nation.
State-controlled media outlets reported, with evident delight, that the parishioners at Dong Chiem had been forced to remove all crosses from a hill on the grounds of what had long been the parish cemetery. The demolition of a large crucifix there sparked a confrontation between parishioners and police. While the state media reported that Catholics had been persuaded to move their crosses through “a long process of patient reasoning, persuasion, and education,” the parishioners said that they were victims of harassment, intimidation, and violent coercion.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly asked the US president and State Department to redesignate Vietnam as a country of particular concern in recognition of its egregious violations of religious freedom, but both the Bush and Obama administrations have chosen not to follow the commission’s recommendations. The nation had been designated a country of particular concern until 2006.
6.8% of the Vietnam’s 85.2 million residents are Catholic.
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
- “Let us not forget our fellow Redemptorists and the faithful of Vietnam”- Appeal from Redemptorist Superior General (Fides)
- Vietnam: parish under siege; Hanoi archdiocese protests police violence (CWN, 1/21)
- USCIRF Urges President to Designate Vietnam as a CPC in Letter (USCIRF)
- Countries of Particular Concern (USCIRF)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Viet Catholics in Unprecedented Mass Protests Against Police Violence
From Catholic World News
An estimated 500,000 Vietnamese Catholics participated in a mass protest against police violence-- the largest such demonstration of the country's Communist era-- on Sunday, July 26. The protest was a response to last week's brutal police assault on Catholics protesting the confiscation of parish property. The Vinh diocese announced unflinchingly: "We have enough evidence to state that the police of Quang Binh had beaten our faithful before arresting them illegally." The mass demonstrations sparked new police violence, as two priests in the central coastal city of Dong Hoi were badly beaten and left in critical condition
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.