Paul KeenanThe Church in Vietnam is growing but not yet secure, writes Paul Keenan
Historians – and journalists – love dates. Such numerical checkpoints are a neat and vital component to segmenting stories and compartmentalising era-defining events.
So it was that April 30 just passed grabbed worldwide attention, signalling as it did the 40th anniversary of the ending of the Vietnam War.
Archive footage showed triumphant forces of the North storming through the streets of Saigon towards planting the flag of victory to signal unification of North and South under the one communist banner. More-up-to-date reportage showed old soldiers revisiting their experiences of that last day of war and touring museums where their weapons of conflict have been stored for the collective memory.
Of course, history is not that neat and inconveniently continues despite attempts at containment by storytellers.
This is borne out most lucidly by the experience of the Catholic Church in Vietnam. As April 30 brought war’s end, it also ushered in a whole new chapter, one in which to the victors went the spoils, and very much at the expense of the Catholic community.
Almost immediately after the cessation of hostilities with America and its South Vietnamese allies, the communist forces severed diplomatic ties with Rome and moved in draconian fashion against the Church and its interests. Properties, including churches and hospitals, were seized, educational facilities closed, charitable activities restricted.
A measure of the harshness meted out to the Church is contained in the story of the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon just days before its fall, quickly arrested and imprisoned for 13 years – nine in solitary confinement – and later, in 1991, to suffer forced exile until his death in Rome in 2002.
April 30, 2015 marked 40 years of that bleak history, too, and, hardly by chance, saw the bipartisan US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) call on Vietnam to work towards improving its track record on religious freedom and for the US State Department to return the nation to its list of Countries of Particular Concern; the State Department removed Vietnam from that list in 2006 just two years after its first inclusion.
In terms of Vatican-Vietnam relations, however, April 30 hardly serves as a neat checkpoint at all, given the narrative that has been unfolding over the many years since the fall of Saigon (and renaming as Ho Chi Minh City) and the fact that it is still an unfolding story.
A new Pentecost
Dates do figure in the tale, commencing with the 1989 visit of Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, then-chairman of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace. That official visit saw him tour no fewer than 11 dioceses and his being welcomed by Vietnamese government officials in what at the time was described by a Vietnamese prelate as “a new Pentecost”.
It would be a slow thaw from then to the first official visit of a Vietnamese government leader to the Vatican, in 2007, when Prime Minister Tan Dung met with Pope Benedict XVI, followed by a visit by President Nguyen Minh Triet in 2009.
Just two years after that visit, Vietnam agreed to recognise a non-resident Vatican representative for its Catholic community, one that is today six million strong (of a 93 million total), and second only to the Philippines in South-East Asia.
Since those first cordial meetings, further gains have been made, with the Vatican and Vietnam engaging through 2014 in ongoing dialogue towards full diplomatic relations.
Following a round of talks in September, Prime Minister Tan again travelled to Rome to meet Pope Francis – who was at that point on the cusp of appointing a new Vietnamese cardinal, Peter Nguyen Van Nhon, Archbishop of Hanoi (an event which took place in the February consistory).
Both the cardinal’s elevation and the prime minister’s visit play into another reality currently unfolding for Vietnam, however.
Mr Tan’s latest visit came during his tour of EU nations, part of a charm offensive by the leader of a country now operating very much as a capitalist powerhouse under all those communist trappings, much like China. The same administration eager to showcase Vietnam as a place to do business was quick to hail the elevation of Cardinal Van Nhon, a further demonstration to the international community of its open credentials.
The truth behind all of this is that not all of Vietnam’s six million Catholics recognise the current trend in positivity and that, depending on the region in which they live and try to worship, they still operate under old-fashioned communist restrictions and threats. Catholics have reported to the Christian advocacy group Open Doors incidences of harassment and surveillance by state officials, churches have been attacked and damaged by police, permits for church building can be nearly impossible to secure in some areas.
More broadly, Caritas Internationalis, first barred from the country in 1976, is still prevented today from opening an office in Vietnam.
It is for these reasons that USCIRF issued its April 30 call.
Simultaneous to that call, US legislators moved to introduce to Congress the Vietnam Human Rights Bill 2015, hoping to see it passed into law before human rights abuses are trampled in the rush of big businesses to court the capitalist potential of Vietnam. Under the terms of the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership, the country stands to be a big winner in terms of new investment. Backers of the bill, Democrat and Republican, insist that Vietnam does not deserve to be rewarded with trade benefits specifically because of its ongoing human rights abuses.
Rome, meanwhile, continues its quiet diplomacy. In January, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, visited Vietnam, and met with Pham Quang Nghi, secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee and a member of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The cardinal reported “much openness, a great willingness to carry on the dialogue that has started, and that can progressively take steps forward”.
For those who like dates, meanwhile, it might be interesting to note that also in January, as Vietnam was gearing up for its 40th-year unification celebrations, the Jesuits marked 400 years since their first arrival in the country.
Real history cannot be confined by dates. And, as it turns out, the Church can’t be confined by history.