Tensions between the Church and Hanoi government have gone deeper unprecedently when a series of protests – bolder than ever - from Catholics as a religious community have erupted in both North and South Vietnam. A Vatican delegation will be in Hanoi next month to discuss with the government on Church property issues.
Among other things, Church property will be a main topic to be discussed in the 15th visit to Vietnam of a Vatican delegation scheduled in June, Monsignor Barnabe Nguyen Van Phuong, chief of Asian affairs of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, discloses in an interview with VietCatholic News Agency yesterday.
Vietnam has not had diplomatic relations with the Vatican since its communist government took power in 1975. The situation of the Church in Vietnam was improved due in good part to the persistent efforts of the Holy See to maintain an official dialogue with the authorities, including a more or less annual visit to Vietnam of a Vatican delegation.
The appointment of bishops remains one of the thorniest issues, with the officially atheist Communist government refusing to yield control and the Vatican loath to concede its traditional right to appoint church leaders. It results in the long delays in securing the appointment of bishops and diocesan administrators, and difficulties in the carrying out of the Church's normal activities. “This has always been a central point on the agenda in the bilateral meetings between the Vatican and the Vietnam government,” said Mons. Barnabe Nguyen.
The Vatican delegation will visit Our Lady of La Vang Shrine, the main religious Catholic shrine in Vietnam. Local government has promised to return all the land that surrounds the basilica seized by the government in 1975. The decision was announced last month. The area affected covers 21.18 hectares (out of a total of 23.66 hectares originally expropriated) around the basilica.
According to Mons. Barnabe Nguyen, the central point of this visit will be in Hanoi where daily prayer protests are still ongoing. On December 18th last year, a rally was held drawing thousands Catholics to the street after Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi released a pastoral letter telling his congregation that the government planned to convert the nunciature within the premises of his palace, seized illegally by the government since 1959, into an entertainment and commercial center. The daily demonstrations quickly grew into major events when more and more Catholics gathered day and night praying in front of the building. Every day, priests and Catholic followers lit candles, placed flowers and sang at the iron fence. These events have attracted attentions of international Catholic and secular media, and through them of the international community.
Hanoi Catholics prayer protests pose great threats to Vietnam government. This is the first time it has to deal with the protests – bolder than ever - from Catholics as a religious community. Also, these protests occurred just a few months after Vietnam created a watershed, especially for the US, through a wave of harassments, arrests and criminal charges against human rights and democracy advocates engaged in peaceful and perfectly legal activities. Vietnam had been put back on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) since May 2007. Apparently, it did not want to suffer more economic measures from US and other Western countries.
Protests soon reached to Thai Ha, a parish in Hanoi, where land owned by the Redemptorists was seized by the Communist government. The local authorities mobilized its armed force to back new construction works on the Church land. In response, after each Mass in the morning and evening, Redemptorist priests and their associates, carrying a large cross, lead a procession to the site. There they pray, chant, and sing for hours in front of hundreds of crosses and icons of Our Mother of Perpetual Help which have been placed on the fences. Some Westerners also come to the site to show their solidarity with protestors.
Protests also erupted in Ha Dong, 40 km South of Hanoi, where Catholics have demonstrated every night to demand the return of a parish building seized illegally by the local government 30 years ago. The local government's only response has been to declare that the building was "given" to the government by a "parish leader" in 1977. In fact, the "parish leader" spoken of by the government was in effect a member of the communist party, whom the government itself had appointed as head of the parish council. One of his first decisions was to donate the property to the government.
Tension between Catholics and the government reached to its highest point on January 25th when Catholics entered the nunciature to aid a women being beaten by police as she went into the area to bring flowers to the statue of the Virgin present in the garden. Security personnel found her there and tried to grab hold of her. Without paying any attention to her explanation they began to beat her and kick her. There were at least 2 thousand Catholics there as witnesses. A commander of the security guards even shouted orders to his men to beat her to death. A lawyer, present at the scene, came to the woman’s rescue accusing the guards of breaking the law. But they turned on him dragging him off to an office inside. Seeing all of these happen, demonstrators had no other choice but to force the gate and clash with the security personnel.
The next day, the Peoples Committee of Hanoi released an ultimatum, threatening “extreme action” if demonstrations and the sit-in were not called off by 5pm January 27. In response, over 3 thousand Catholics gathered in the gardens of the Apostolic Nunciature to pray in open defiance of the city government ultimatum.
There was a turning point when Vatican Secretary of State Card Tarcisio Bertone wrote a letter to Archbishop Joseph Ngo. In his letter Cardinal Bertone said that Pope Benedict XVI is following events in Vietnam and that the Vatican has contacted the Vietnamese government to find a solution to the dispute between the archdiocese and city authorities about who owned or held usufructuary rights to the compound that once was home to the former Apostolic Delegation.
In the February 1 statement, Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi confirmed reports that the government of Vietnam had agreed to restore the nunciature in Hanoi after more than a month of public protests by Catholics. On the same day, the protesters agreed to remove a cross and tents from a one hectare (2.5-acre) piece of mostly-vacant land about a block from St. Joseph's Cathedral ending more than a month of protests in Hanoi aimed at pressing the Communist government for the return of Church land seized 50 years ago.
However, the vision of getting the former nunciature back in a near future seems to fade away. Public workers repainted the fence surrounding the site, strengthened the gates, and erected new panels with communist symbols and slogans reiterating that the building is state-owned. In addition, new security measures have been imposed. Security forces are ordered to intervene immediately if anyone stops by to pray in front of the nunciature. Also, no candles are allowed to put on the fence. These signals cast a cloud of suspicion on the willingness of the government to return the building.
More alarming, state-run media continue to attack Hanoi Catholics. This time it comes from the state-owned magazine “Catholics and People”. Its name and contents may suggest that it belongs to the Church. However, in fact, the “Committee for Solidarity of Vietnamese Catholics”, an organization within the communist party runs it.
In addition, in a letter sent to the prime minister on February 16th, the venerable Thich Trung Hau, a representative of an organization "approved" by the government in 1982, affirms that any arrangement for the former delegation building must have the agreement of his church as his is the true owner of the property. The idea of Buddhist ownership was raised by Le Quang Vinh, the former head of the committee for religious affairs. In his opinion, the area of Buddhist ownership would also include the cathedral of St. Joseph, the archbishop's residence, and the major seminary. The move clearly appears to be inspired by the government circles that are trying to renege on the promise made to the Catholics at the beginning of February, to put an end to forty days of peaceful protests that began last December, for the restitution of the former apostolic delegation.
With strong support from the government, the venerable Hau maintains that on the contested property there was once a pagoda called Bao Thien, built in 1054. It was only in 1883 that "the French colonists seized it and gave it to the bishop".
It must be added that in 2001, a state publication found that the pagoda of Bao Thien had been destroyed in 1426, and that it stood five kilometers to the north of the apostolic delegation.
While many still cling to the hope that the government would keep its promises, there are growing concerns within Catholic circles that unless they take some bolder approaches, things will go nowhere.
Since March 17th, the local government in Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon), Vietnam has faced analogue protests as that in Hanoi when hundreds of Sisters of Vincent Charity Order hold prayer vigils to protest a government plan to change their property into a night club and a hotel.
The property in question on Nguyen Thi Dieu has belonged to the Order since December 1959 after the French Red Cross transferred ownership to the sisters. The nuns opened a day care center that operated till 1975 when the communists came to power. Eventually the archdiocese of Saigon and the Order had to agree to let the local government use the facility as a school for kindergarteners.
Over the sisters’ protest the authorities took ownership of the building in 1997 by simple administrative fiat (75083/QD-UB), arguing that the property was in the state of absentee-landlord. Soon, the property was rented out in order to financially support local government and converted to a dancing club. In 2007, police raided the club and reported that the property was actually being run as a brothel. The club was shut down.
In the meantime the sisters continued to petition the authorities demanding that the building be returned since it had no socially relevant function, but their demand went nowhere.
In November 2007 ownership was transferred to the Bureau of Railroad System Management which expressed the intention of tearing it down to build a hotel with night club.
The archdiocese joined the sisters, calling on the authorities to reverse the decision. All they got was that the sign advertising the future night club was removed whilst demolition continued.
In the latest event, just a few days ago, Bishop Thomas Nguyen Van Tan of the Diocese of Vinh Long has protested Vietnamese authorities’ plans to demolish a monastery and build a hotel on land confiscated from a religious order in 1977.
The bishop recounted in a strongly-worded May 18 letter what he called “a day of disaster” for the Diocese of Vinh Long. On September 7, 1977, he wrote, “the local authorities mobilized its armed force to blockade and raid Holy Cross College… St. Paul monastery, and the Major Seminary.” Authorities arrested all who were in charge of the institutions, including Bishop Nguyen Van Tan himself.
Local authorities in the southern Vietnamese province of Vinh Long (about 85 miles southwest of Saigon) announced a project to build a new hotel on the land belonging to the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres.
Though the sisters have staged protests at the site and priests have voiced their opposition to the office of the Fatherland Front, the government has not responded to their concerns.
Instead, Bishop Nguyen Van Tan writes, “the government has summoned residents in the town to meetings in which they vow to take strong actions against those who dare to prevent the construction.”
The bishop said the pending destruction of the monastery is a “great suffering” both for the entire diocese and also for the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres, who have been in Vinh Long since 1871.
“We cannot consent with the decision imposed unjustly by those who have power in their hands, neither we can stay silent in the face of this outrage. Being silent means complicity and a compromise with injustice,” he wrote.
Among other things, Church property will be a main topic to be discussed in the 15th visit to Vietnam of a Vatican delegation scheduled in June, Monsignor Barnabe Nguyen Van Phuong, chief of Asian affairs of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, discloses in an interview with VietCatholic News Agency yesterday.
Vietnam has not had diplomatic relations with the Vatican since its communist government took power in 1975. The situation of the Church in Vietnam was improved due in good part to the persistent efforts of the Holy See to maintain an official dialogue with the authorities, including a more or less annual visit to Vietnam of a Vatican delegation.
The appointment of bishops remains one of the thorniest issues, with the officially atheist Communist government refusing to yield control and the Vatican loath to concede its traditional right to appoint church leaders. It results in the long delays in securing the appointment of bishops and diocesan administrators, and difficulties in the carrying out of the Church's normal activities. “This has always been a central point on the agenda in the bilateral meetings between the Vatican and the Vietnam government,” said Mons. Barnabe Nguyen.
The Vatican delegation will visit Our Lady of La Vang Shrine, the main religious Catholic shrine in Vietnam. Local government has promised to return all the land that surrounds the basilica seized by the government in 1975. The decision was announced last month. The area affected covers 21.18 hectares (out of a total of 23.66 hectares originally expropriated) around the basilica.
According to Mons. Barnabe Nguyen, the central point of this visit will be in Hanoi where daily prayer protests are still ongoing. On December 18th last year, a rally was held drawing thousands Catholics to the street after Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi released a pastoral letter telling his congregation that the government planned to convert the nunciature within the premises of his palace, seized illegally by the government since 1959, into an entertainment and commercial center. The daily demonstrations quickly grew into major events when more and more Catholics gathered day and night praying in front of the building. Every day, priests and Catholic followers lit candles, placed flowers and sang at the iron fence. These events have attracted attentions of international Catholic and secular media, and through them of the international community.
Hanoi Catholics prayer protests pose great threats to Vietnam government. This is the first time it has to deal with the protests – bolder than ever - from Catholics as a religious community. Also, these protests occurred just a few months after Vietnam created a watershed, especially for the US, through a wave of harassments, arrests and criminal charges against human rights and democracy advocates engaged in peaceful and perfectly legal activities. Vietnam had been put back on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) since May 2007. Apparently, it did not want to suffer more economic measures from US and other Western countries.
Protests soon reached to Thai Ha, a parish in Hanoi, where land owned by the Redemptorists was seized by the Communist government. The local authorities mobilized its armed force to back new construction works on the Church land. In response, after each Mass in the morning and evening, Redemptorist priests and their associates, carrying a large cross, lead a procession to the site. There they pray, chant, and sing for hours in front of hundreds of crosses and icons of Our Mother of Perpetual Help which have been placed on the fences. Some Westerners also come to the site to show their solidarity with protestors.
Protests also erupted in Ha Dong, 40 km South of Hanoi, where Catholics have demonstrated every night to demand the return of a parish building seized illegally by the local government 30 years ago. The local government's only response has been to declare that the building was "given" to the government by a "parish leader" in 1977. In fact, the "parish leader" spoken of by the government was in effect a member of the communist party, whom the government itself had appointed as head of the parish council. One of his first decisions was to donate the property to the government.
Tension between Catholics and the government reached to its highest point on January 25th when Catholics entered the nunciature to aid a women being beaten by police as she went into the area to bring flowers to the statue of the Virgin present in the garden. Security personnel found her there and tried to grab hold of her. Without paying any attention to her explanation they began to beat her and kick her. There were at least 2 thousand Catholics there as witnesses. A commander of the security guards even shouted orders to his men to beat her to death. A lawyer, present at the scene, came to the woman’s rescue accusing the guards of breaking the law. But they turned on him dragging him off to an office inside. Seeing all of these happen, demonstrators had no other choice but to force the gate and clash with the security personnel.
The next day, the Peoples Committee of Hanoi released an ultimatum, threatening “extreme action” if demonstrations and the sit-in were not called off by 5pm January 27. In response, over 3 thousand Catholics gathered in the gardens of the Apostolic Nunciature to pray in open defiance of the city government ultimatum.
There was a turning point when Vatican Secretary of State Card Tarcisio Bertone wrote a letter to Archbishop Joseph Ngo. In his letter Cardinal Bertone said that Pope Benedict XVI is following events in Vietnam and that the Vatican has contacted the Vietnamese government to find a solution to the dispute between the archdiocese and city authorities about who owned or held usufructuary rights to the compound that once was home to the former Apostolic Delegation.
In the February 1 statement, Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi confirmed reports that the government of Vietnam had agreed to restore the nunciature in Hanoi after more than a month of public protests by Catholics. On the same day, the protesters agreed to remove a cross and tents from a one hectare (2.5-acre) piece of mostly-vacant land about a block from St. Joseph's Cathedral ending more than a month of protests in Hanoi aimed at pressing the Communist government for the return of Church land seized 50 years ago.
However, the vision of getting the former nunciature back in a near future seems to fade away. Public workers repainted the fence surrounding the site, strengthened the gates, and erected new panels with communist symbols and slogans reiterating that the building is state-owned. In addition, new security measures have been imposed. Security forces are ordered to intervene immediately if anyone stops by to pray in front of the nunciature. Also, no candles are allowed to put on the fence. These signals cast a cloud of suspicion on the willingness of the government to return the building.
More alarming, state-run media continue to attack Hanoi Catholics. This time it comes from the state-owned magazine “Catholics and People”. Its name and contents may suggest that it belongs to the Church. However, in fact, the “Committee for Solidarity of Vietnamese Catholics”, an organization within the communist party runs it.
In addition, in a letter sent to the prime minister on February 16th, the venerable Thich Trung Hau, a representative of an organization "approved" by the government in 1982, affirms that any arrangement for the former delegation building must have the agreement of his church as his is the true owner of the property. The idea of Buddhist ownership was raised by Le Quang Vinh, the former head of the committee for religious affairs. In his opinion, the area of Buddhist ownership would also include the cathedral of St. Joseph, the archbishop's residence, and the major seminary. The move clearly appears to be inspired by the government circles that are trying to renege on the promise made to the Catholics at the beginning of February, to put an end to forty days of peaceful protests that began last December, for the restitution of the former apostolic delegation.
With strong support from the government, the venerable Hau maintains that on the contested property there was once a pagoda called Bao Thien, built in 1054. It was only in 1883 that "the French colonists seized it and gave it to the bishop".
It must be added that in 2001, a state publication found that the pagoda of Bao Thien had been destroyed in 1426, and that it stood five kilometers to the north of the apostolic delegation.
While many still cling to the hope that the government would keep its promises, there are growing concerns within Catholic circles that unless they take some bolder approaches, things will go nowhere.
Since March 17th, the local government in Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon), Vietnam has faced analogue protests as that in Hanoi when hundreds of Sisters of Vincent Charity Order hold prayer vigils to protest a government plan to change their property into a night club and a hotel.
The property in question on Nguyen Thi Dieu has belonged to the Order since December 1959 after the French Red Cross transferred ownership to the sisters. The nuns opened a day care center that operated till 1975 when the communists came to power. Eventually the archdiocese of Saigon and the Order had to agree to let the local government use the facility as a school for kindergarteners.
Over the sisters’ protest the authorities took ownership of the building in 1997 by simple administrative fiat (75083/QD-UB), arguing that the property was in the state of absentee-landlord. Soon, the property was rented out in order to financially support local government and converted to a dancing club. In 2007, police raided the club and reported that the property was actually being run as a brothel. The club was shut down.
In the meantime the sisters continued to petition the authorities demanding that the building be returned since it had no socially relevant function, but their demand went nowhere.
In November 2007 ownership was transferred to the Bureau of Railroad System Management which expressed the intention of tearing it down to build a hotel with night club.
The archdiocese joined the sisters, calling on the authorities to reverse the decision. All they got was that the sign advertising the future night club was removed whilst demolition continued.
In the latest event, just a few days ago, Bishop Thomas Nguyen Van Tan of the Diocese of Vinh Long has protested Vietnamese authorities’ plans to demolish a monastery and build a hotel on land confiscated from a religious order in 1977.
The bishop recounted in a strongly-worded May 18 letter what he called “a day of disaster” for the Diocese of Vinh Long. On September 7, 1977, he wrote, “the local authorities mobilized its armed force to blockade and raid Holy Cross College… St. Paul monastery, and the Major Seminary.” Authorities arrested all who were in charge of the institutions, including Bishop Nguyen Van Tan himself.
Local authorities in the southern Vietnamese province of Vinh Long (about 85 miles southwest of Saigon) announced a project to build a new hotel on the land belonging to the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres.
Though the sisters have staged protests at the site and priests have voiced their opposition to the office of the Fatherland Front, the government has not responded to their concerns.
Instead, Bishop Nguyen Van Tan writes, “the government has summoned residents in the town to meetings in which they vow to take strong actions against those who dare to prevent the construction.”
The bishop said the pending destruction of the monastery is a “great suffering” both for the entire diocese and also for the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres, who have been in Vinh Long since 1871.
“We cannot consent with the decision imposed unjustly by those who have power in their hands, neither we can stay silent in the face of this outrage. Being silent means complicity and a compromise with injustice,” he wrote.