Following its annual meeting from October 6-10, 1997 in Hanoi, the Bishops Council of the Catholic Church in Vietnam sent a letter to newly selected Prime Minister Phan Van Khai asking the government to lessen a number of religious restrictions.

Similar letters have been sent by the Vietnamese Bishops Council to previous prime ministers, Pham Van Dong and Vo Van Kiet, without result. Vo Van Kiet even responded by instituting additional restrictions.

Across the country, despite the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, the Vietnamese Communist Party and its government continue their policy of systematic elimination of all organized religions. They either replace outright the whole leadership of a religious faith or run a parallel organization to dilute the authority of that faith's leaders. To date, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam has been banned and replaced by the state-sponsored Buddhist Church of Vietnam. The entire leadership of the Cao Dai Church (originated in Vietnam) has been replaced by a government-assigned Management Committee. The Vietnamese Catholic Church is placed in parallel with a state-run Patriotic Catholic Association.

Today, all Vietnamese Catholics in the southern part of the country are leaderless. After the death of Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh, the Vietnamese communist government has repeatedly rejected a Vatican-appointed replacement. Meanwhile, the training and ordaining of new clergy to fill position left opened by priests who have passed away continues to be severely restricted and Church facilities continue to be confiscated by the government. The protest in Dong Nai province in November is the most recent example.

Following is the translation of the October 11, 1997 letter sent by the Vietnamese Bishops Council to the new Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.

The Vietnamese Bishops Council
40, Nha Chung Street, Hanoi

Hanoi, October 11, 1997

To The Prime Minister Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Dear Sir:

All the bishops present at the annual meeting of the Vietnamese Bishops Council in Hanoi, October 6-10, 1997, respectfully send you the following sincere letter:

First, we congratulate your appointment by the 10th National Assembly to the Premiership of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and wish you the best to accomplish your assigned duty.

Furthermore, after knowing your views through your public speeches and interviews, we confidently convey to you the concerns of Vietnamese Catholics in regards to our frequently-confronted difficulties in religious activities. In fact, the former Prime Minister had also wanted to resolve these difficulties through many directives, but in a number of areas, especially in distant ones, lots of difficulties still remain or are just partly resolved.

I-1. First and foremost, we want to raise the issue regarding our bishops' and priests' traveling for religion purposes. In some areas, in order to carry out their duties within their dioceses or parishes, bishops and particularly priests still have to apply for permission which requires various forms and many different seals of approval.

2. The appointment and transferring of priests within a number of dioceses to meet the needs of parishioners are usually not approved promptly and easily, particularly when a priest is transferred from one province to another within the same diocese. In some localities, Catholics had to wait for many years and still could not receive the priest assigned by the Bishop's Office to their parish. It is hard for them to live their Catholic lives in normality.

3. Many young men and women, who want to enter the monastery to commit to the religious live and serve others, are still facing so many administrative difficulties that they have to settle for "underground monastery" and thus are not allowed to live out their lifelong aspiration.

4. In a number of places, not only [the request for] permission to repair and build churches to meet the needs of parishioners was met with apathy but also punishments were handed down for petty reasons of building half a meter or a meter more or less than the approved measurement.

5. And in the letter, numbered 32CV/TGCP and dated February 2, 1996, "The Prime Minister permits the Bishops Council to publish a quarterly religious magazine," but so far, the magazine has not been allowed to come out and thus caused questions among the public. Please, Mr. Prime Minister, help us resolve those remaining difficulties. And we also wish to have an easier time in publishing our religious books.

6. Also in the above letter, our Vietnamese Bishops Council still has not found any responses to our previous requests. We would like to repeat those concerns here and request for the Prime Minister's attention to these matters:

II-1. The two Principal Seminaries in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have to serve many dioceses with more parishioners than other seminaries. Their facilities and training staffs face many problems. We request the permission to open two more seminaries in Thai Binh and Xuan Loc to relieve this issue. If the establishment of these two new seminaries is not allowed, we plead that the two current Principal Seminaries in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city are allowed to set up some departments outside their facilities so that the training goals can be achieved.

2. From our wish to make the training at the Principal Seminaries more feasible and fruitful, once again, we request that our Principal Seminaries be allowed to accept new students annually, just like other universities (instead of once every two years as at the present time).

3. The government had agreed to let the Principal Seminaries organize the preparatory year [for students] but the facilities and the training staffs at those Principal Seminaries are not able to meet that need. Please let the Bishop's Offices organize these preparatory classes to relieve [the load on] the seminaries.

4. Particularly, in a number of dioceses in the North there are many young people that have studied for years and are eligible to become Catholic priests to serve areas that have not had priests for decades. Please let the Bishop's Offices help solve that remaining difficulty from the past by organizing [official] two-year supplementary classes for these students.

5. The government has expressed its great concern on education and the possibility of letting private individuals and organizations open private schools in cooperation with the government, our Catholics Church wants to participate and open schools (especially elementary classes in rural and poor areas).

6. Along with education, many religious orders of our Church also wish to be allowed to work with the government to serve in the public health and social areas, such as taking care of patients, the poor, and orphans. Currently, our participation is greatly restricted.

7. Finally, in regards to the Catholics Church's confiscated facilities and properties, we only ask that our churches in those areas have enough facilities to operate and therefore request that these churches be given back their needed facilities, especially when these facilities no longer serve the purposes as in the original agreement with the Church. Importantly, we request the government to consider returning to our Church the Papal Institute in Da Lat City for the above reasons as well as the fact that the facility belongs to the Vatican Holy See. Today, our Church is in need of this facility to serve all Catholics in Vietnam.

We sincerely thank you and wish you good health in order to serve successfully.

Signed [on behalf of ] the Vietnamese Bishops Council

Cardinal Paul Joseph Pham Dinh Tung
Chairman of the Vietnamese Bishops Council

Bishop Bartholomew Nguyen Son Lam
General Secretary of the Vietnamese Bishops Council