https://international.la-croix.com/news/religious-freedom-in-vietnam-advances-slowly/4614?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_content=03-02-2017&utm_campaign=newsletter__crx_lci&PMID=3d4bff6e21bd8a4c42e60d5186400d8e
Religious freedom in Vietnam advances slowly A new Vietnamese law on belief and religion, ratified in November 2016, will come into force in January 2018. Local bishops hope it will allow all Christian groups to obtain legal status. Yves Kerihuel, My Tho February 3, 2017 Choir in Our Lady's Cathedral, Ho Chi Minh City. / T.M. Corcoran/Zuma-Rea In the reception room of the My Tho bishops’ palace, Pierre Nguyen Van Kham, Bishop of this diocese in southern Vietnam and Secretary General for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, selected his words carefully, in perfect French. “This law has both positive and negative aspects," he stated, referring to the law on belief and religion, adopted by Vietnam’s National Assembly on 18 November 2016. Following five successive versions, the implementing decrees are scheduled to come into effect in January 2018. “The law will mean that religious organizations now have legal status. This means they will no longer have to be registered by the government under the name of a physical person," enthused Bishop Kham. In effect, since the Communists took power – in 1954 in the north, in 1975 in the south – religious organizations that are not registered are considered illegal. As such it is impossible for them to rent land or to build (1). Kham continued: “Due to migration to the cities, areas where there were very few Christians up to the 2000s, are now in dire need of parishes and pastoral buildings." With the new law, the bishops hope to be able to build these facilities (2). No one knows exactly what the nine chapters and 68 articles of this new law contain. The handful of daily newspapers in Vietnam that have reported on the main points have done so in a general way, without taking a critical position. It is even more difficult for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference to ascertain how the law will be applied since the requests it has made in response to the 4th version of the law were not taken into account in the definitive version. “No one knows how this law will be applied," stated Father Jean Maïs, a priest with the Paris Foreign Missions (MEP). He lived in Vietnam for ten years and continues to closely follow Vietnamese news from the offices of the Églises d’Asie, the MEP’s journal. Having found the version of the law that was “voted in” on the Internet, he is now translating it into French. The decrees of the law are even more difficult to predict in light of the Vietnamese Communist Party seeming to toughen its tone over the past few weeks. “After Donald Trump’s election, it’s looking like the United States is turning away from its trade deals with Asia-Pacific countries and the requirements that go with them to do with human rights”, lamented Maïs. That certain international bodies have slackened their observation of the situation in Vietnam could explain several recent arrests. Notably that of Nguyên Van Oai, a young protestant from Vinh, who was held as a political prisoner from 2011 to 2015 and was arrested again on 19 January. “We want more freedom in order to better serve the Vietnamese people," insisted Bishop Kham. He reminds us that catholic communities who register with the government have to declare all their leaders and followers. “And even when we have duly registered, we have to be given permission by the local authorities for all of our activities," added the My Tho bishop. This isn’t a problem for liturgical activities. But for pastoral and social activities, it is always very complicated. “Basic information sharing about the Church’s social teachings is considered subversive," said Maïs. And Bishop Kham added: “Our only way to evangelize is to maintain our presence in a majority Buddhist community, to visit the sick, to help the poor… But we even have to do this discreetly.” He gave the example of a school for deaf-mute students in his diocese, which is run by the Sisters of Saint-Paul of Chartres: “The local government authorized the institution because it is useful for everyone, not just for Catholics.” The bishop continued: “Now that the government is realizing the extent of all the social work carried out by the Church over the last forty years, it is gradually moving towards greater religious freedom." Notes (1) Religious congregations get around this by renting land or buildings in the name of a layperson. (2) There is no land ownership in Vietnam; land belongs to the State. The Church only owns its buildings and is granted use of the land. Paradoxical figures of the Catholic Church in Vietnam The number of Catholics in Vietnam has stagnated over the last fifty years. According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam (CBCV), in 1960 there were 2.4 million Catholics in a population of 35.1 million, equal to 6.93%. In 2000, the number of Catholics was 5.2 million in a population of 77 million, equal to 6.75%. In 2014, the CBCV gave the figure of 6.6 million Catholics in a population of 95.2 million, which is 6.93%. Vocations abound, however. In 2014, there were 4,635 priests (secular and religious), to which 2,357 seminarians, 19,717 members of the clergy, and 50,448 lay catechists can be added. This is equal to a total of more than 77,000 people who are involved in preaching the word of the Gospel. In comparison, the number of conversions remains low. In 2014, 41,396 catechumen were baptised.
