The faith is strong in Vietnam. This was the message of local Vietnamese bishops, who described the life and the particular needs of the Catholic Church in their country during a recent interview with international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The six bishops, on their return from their ad Limina visit to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, spoke to ACN last Thursday while visiting the charity’s central headquarters in Königstein near Frankfurt, Germany. The bishops, from various different regions in Vietnam, were united in speaking of the strong faith of their Catholic countrymen.
Bishop Pierre Nguyên Van Nhon of the Diocese of Dalat, who is also chairman of the Vietnamese bishops’ conference, stressed to ACN among other things the importance of church buildings for the Catholic Church in Vietnam. Without these, he said, not only could there be no proper pastoral and spiritual work. He went on to say that, in fact, the entire social life and involvement of the parishes revolved around the local church building. He added that many parishes remain without a church of their own.
Bishop Paul Bui Van Doc of the Diocese of My Tho, who is also chairman of the faith commission of the Vietnamese bishops’ conference, described the work of evangelization as one of the priorities for the Church. He said that it was particularly helpful for religious sisters to be made mobile by equipping them with small motorcycles, so that they could gain easier access to the faithful. This is an area where ACN has already been helping for many years.
Bishop Joseph Dang Duc Ngan of the Diocese of Lang Son addressed the question of evangelization and spoke in particular of the need for solid and ongoing formation for priests, religious and laity. Bishop Paul Marie Cao Dinh Thuyen of Vinh also spoke of the good experience his diocese has had with the use of volunteer catechists – 6,000 at present – who were trained by the priests and religious sisters when they visited the villages. His diocese now has over half a million Catholic faithful.
Bishop Thomas Nguyen Van Tan of Vinh Long described the particular importance he attaches to strengthening families and encouraging the parents to send their children to catechism classes and to Holy Mass, since children and young people were the generation most severely affected by the changes in society. He explained that many young people were now leaving the villages and migrating to the towns in search of work, and in the cities many of them were then losing their roots and their inner stability and falling into “bad ways.” In order to counter this it was essential to lay solid foundations, he said.
His words were endorsed by Bishop Cosma Hoang Van Dat, SJ, of the Diocese of Bac Ninh, who declared that his diocese, too, has had good experiences of pastoral work with children, to the extent that many children were now happy to tell their families and friends about the life of Jesus.
All the bishops agreed that the number of vocations in Vietnam continues to remain high.
Vietnam, one of the countries of South-East Asia that is still under communist rule, is and remains one of the foremost priorities for ACN in Asia. As a Catholic pastoral charity which supports pastoral projects in some 138 countries around the world, ACN gave over $1.56 million in aid for pastoral projects of the Catholic Church in Vietnam and its approximately 6 million faithful.
