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| Protest after Ash Wednesday mass |
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| Hundreds praying at the site |
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| Dozens have camped at the site despite Tet |
On the Ash Wednesday, which coincides with the eve of Tet, Redemptorist priests, and their associates, carrying a large cross, led a procession to the site. There they prayed, chanted, and sang for hours braving cold rain and biting winds before dozens of crosses and icons of Our Mother of Perpetual Help hanging on the fences.
Thai Ha parish is run by Redemptorists. In 1928, they bought 6 hectares at Thai Ha, Hanoi to build a convent and a church. After the communists took control the North of Vietnam in 1954, most of Redemptorists were jailed to death or deported, leaving Fr. Joseph Vu Ngoc Bich to run the church alone. Despite Fr. Joseph Vu’s persistent protests, local authorities have managed to nibble bite by bite the parish’s land. The original area of 60,000 square meters was reduced to 2,700 square meters.
For more than ten years, Redemptorists in Vietnam have forwarded their petitions to the government asking for the return of their land, but all have gone unanswered.
At the start of the year fences went up and security officials were called in to protect the Chiến Thắng sewing company which had begun to build. Irritated, some parishioners began to protest. In the afternoon of 7 January the authorities came to allay the concerns of the crowd, promising that construction work would end. Instead the next day the Hanoi People’s Committee issued an official order authorizing the company in question to continue its work.
Angered by the turn of event, people realized that government institutions have made a mockery of their own words and of people’s sentiments in order to protect those who break the law. Since then, the clergy and faithful of Thái Hà parish have gathered at the site to held daily protests. Some protestors even have camped there for more than a month now to prevent any further construction from the state-run company.
Last week, local government asked Redemptorist Fathers to tell protestors who have camped there to go home to preparare for Tet. The priests actually had told them not to stay there braving cold in the frigid winter but none agreed to leave.
“I keep telling my children that I have to stay here to protect Church land.” a woman said. “Anyone who wants to exchange new year greetings with me can come here. I will not go home.”