In an open letter to various government's officials and to the Catholic Church leaders, Bishop F.X. Nguyen Van Sang of Thai Binh diocese, North Vietnam, has criticized Thai Binh government 's attempt to sabotage a pilgrimage he and other clergymen have been trying to organize for months at Thai Ha parish.
In his letter, bishop F.X. Nguyen Van Sang has reportedly been collaborating with the archbishop of Hanoi and the Redemptorists at Thai Ha to let Catholics from other diocese to come for the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Redemptorist Monastery in Hanoi on May 2, 2009. Together the bishops had asked and were granted the Holy See's approval for the celebration since the Lunar New Year festival. Upon receiving the blessing from the Vatican, he called on his flock and the faithful from neighboring Hung Yen province to join him and others in Hanoi for a celebration and obtaining an indulgence. However from the local police's harsh treatment toward those pilgrims in Thai Binh as (the faithful) were trying to leave their homes the night before the May 2 event, the bishop feels that his good intention for a totally religious event has been misinterpreted by the government as a call for a social gathering for the purpose of protesting against the government therefore various measures had been applied to block the pilgrims from making their trip to Hanoi possible.
He raised concerns about whether the (Vietnam ) government was going against their religious policy in this letter " As we're living in a country in which many have been so proud of their freedom and stability, where people can be successful in every fields, and at their liberty to organize events protected by the constitutions. The small-scaled pilgrimage of Thai Binh parishioners on the other hand has been publicly announced and all were asked to join us at their liberty "
The bishop has put in details the police's tactics to deter Catholics from leaving hometown, by setting up check points along highway 1A and highway 5, ordering passengers who identified themselves as Catholics to get off the vehicle while letting others go on with their trip. On the other hand, security personnel's from Tien Hai district, Vu Thu, Kien Xuong, Vu Thu...had come to people's homes to threaten them with consequences if they keep on "participating in a huge protest at the shrine of Lady of Perpetual Help at Thai Ha". For those who made it to Hanoi and were discovered by the police, if they insisted on going to the pilgrimage site, their driver would be ordered to unload them miles from Hanoi city, and the pilgrims -many of them women and children- would have to continue their journey on foot.
Describing on how much freedom the pilgrims enjoyed at the site, bishop F.X Sang wrote: "As the celebration nearing an end, many of those who I thought to be participants turned out to be undercover policemen started to emerge and harassed the "real" participants
Bishop F.X. Sang reasserts the legitimacy of this event from both secular and religious aspects. He calls for the government to halt all actions of harassing nature upon the pilgrims since "they were just simply responding to their shepherd's call to come for what they always look forward to: an indulgence being offered at the pilgrimage site"
On behalf of a dozen of clergymen from Thai Binh diocese who also signed their name at the bottom of the letter, bishop F.X. Sang urged the Thai Binh officials to educate their subordinates on how to respect people's right to practice religion since what they just did to his faithful during last incident "did not bring about any common good to the society and to the country, only creating a rift among the (Vietnamese) people as a whole, also between religious and non religious people" which he predicts will cause egregious harm to "the national unity and causing unnecessary pain among those who still believe in the state's policy on religion.
In his letter, bishop F.X. Nguyen Van Sang has reportedly been collaborating with the archbishop of Hanoi and the Redemptorists at Thai Ha to let Catholics from other diocese to come for the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Redemptorist Monastery in Hanoi on May 2, 2009. Together the bishops had asked and were granted the Holy See's approval for the celebration since the Lunar New Year festival. Upon receiving the blessing from the Vatican, he called on his flock and the faithful from neighboring Hung Yen province to join him and others in Hanoi for a celebration and obtaining an indulgence. However from the local police's harsh treatment toward those pilgrims in Thai Binh as (the faithful) were trying to leave their homes the night before the May 2 event, the bishop feels that his good intention for a totally religious event has been misinterpreted by the government as a call for a social gathering for the purpose of protesting against the government therefore various measures had been applied to block the pilgrims from making their trip to Hanoi possible. He raised concerns about whether the (Vietnam ) government was going against their religious policy in this letter " As we're living in a country in which many have been so proud of their freedom and stability, where people can be successful in every fields, and at their liberty to organize events protected by the constitutions. The small-scaled pilgrimage of Thai Binh parishioners on the other hand has been publicly announced and all were asked to join us at their liberty "
The bishop has put in details the police's tactics to deter Catholics from leaving hometown, by setting up check points along highway 1A and highway 5, ordering passengers who identified themselves as Catholics to get off the vehicle while letting others go on with their trip. On the other hand, security personnel's from Tien Hai district, Vu Thu, Kien Xuong, Vu Thu...had come to people's homes to threaten them with consequences if they keep on "participating in a huge protest at the shrine of Lady of Perpetual Help at Thai Ha". For those who made it to Hanoi and were discovered by the police, if they insisted on going to the pilgrimage site, their driver would be ordered to unload them miles from Hanoi city, and the pilgrims -many of them women and children- would have to continue their journey on foot.
Describing on how much freedom the pilgrims enjoyed at the site, bishop F.X Sang wrote: "As the celebration nearing an end, many of those who I thought to be participants turned out to be undercover policemen started to emerge and harassed the "real" participants
Bishop F.X. Sang reasserts the legitimacy of this event from both secular and religious aspects. He calls for the government to halt all actions of harassing nature upon the pilgrims since "they were just simply responding to their shepherd's call to come for what they always look forward to: an indulgence being offered at the pilgrimage site"
On behalf of a dozen of clergymen from Thai Binh diocese who also signed their name at the bottom of the letter, bishop F.X. Sang urged the Thai Binh officials to educate their subordinates on how to respect people's right to practice religion since what they just did to his faithful during last incident "did not bring about any common good to the society and to the country, only creating a rift among the (Vietnamese) people as a whole, also between religious and non religious people" which he predicts will cause egregious harm to "the national unity and causing unnecessary pain among those who still believe in the state's policy on religion.