The Philadelphia Inquirer Opinion
Even under siege, the
spirit thrives
Vietnam will go only so far in tolerating religion.
By Richard Halloran
Despite efforts by the communist regime to suppress religion in Vietnam, people of all creeds are evidently ignoring their government and practicing their faiths as best they can.
In Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border, the adherents of the Cao Dai sect followed their bishops and priests into their ornate temple in a quiet and orderly fashion. They filled the cavernous temple, chanting their prayers at high noon between soaring pillars to face an altar behind which floated a huge green globe adorned with an all-seeing eye that warded off evil.
In Hanoi, a Roman Catholic church retained its cross atop the steeple but otherwise had no indications that it was in service. At five o'clock on a Sunday evening, however, the candlelit church was packed with 300 worshippers, men to the left, women to the right, singing the Mass in Vietnamese.
At a Catholic seminary in Ho Chi Minh City, some 60 young men study for the priesthood even though the government will allow only six to be ordained. The seminary will ordain the rest quietly and send them out to work in expanding parishes.
The open practice of religion in Vietnam stands in contrast to effective suppression in North Korea, where the communist regime has all but stamped out Buddhism and other religions in favor of the pervasive cult of "Juche,"' or self-reliance. Juche was formulated by Pyongyang's late leader, Kim Il Sung, to guide every aspect of North Korean life and, in the eyes of some researchers, it has taken on the mantle of religion. Vietnam's experience appears to be more like that of China, where the practice of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity is tolerated so long as the communist government does not feel threatened by religious influence.
Buddhism is by far the largest religion in Vietnam, with more than 50 percent of the people claiming to be adherents. Roman Catholicism, brought to Vietnam by French missionaries, comprises about 9 percent of the population. The Cao Dai sect is based in Buddhism but has strong elements of Christianity, Confucianism and Taoism, and it counts Sun Yat-Sen, the leader of China's 1911 revolution, and Victor Hugo, the French writer, among those it reveres; it claims about 3 percent of the Vietnamese. Others are Muslims, members of local religions or offshoots of Buddhism, Protestant Christians and animists.
Many Vietnamese religious groups have long been politically active. Buddhist leaders sought freedom from French colonialism, fought Japanese invaders, and opposed various South Vietnamese governments and their American allies during the long war against North Vietnam. The Cao Dai sect, founded in 1926, has been nationalistic from the start. In a 1993 proclamation, the Buddhists said: "After 50 years of devastating wars waged in the name of conflicting imported ideologies, the religious movements alone possess an unparalleled capacity to temper hatred and defuse conflict, and they have a vital role to play in the reconstruction of our country."
The communist regime, however, seeks to control the ruling hierarchies of all religions, forbids religious schools, and keeps a close eye on the religious activity of foreigners.
The Buddhists seem to receive most of the unwanted attention from the government, which has banned the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam in favor of the government-controlled Vietnam Buddhist Church.
According to Vietnamese expatriates in Paris, the government in Hanoi launched a raid on the prominent Linh Mu Pagoda in the ancient capital of Hue in Central Vietnam in November, arrested two leading monks, and turned over the temple to the Vietnam Buddhist Church. Similarly, the Long Tho Pagoda, a Zen meditation center in Dalat, was seized and destroyed in October. Many Buddhists leaders have either been imprisoned or are under house arrest.
The Vatican and Hanoi have long been at odds over the appointment of bishops. Several senior positions remain unfilled because the Vatican has nominated bishops that were not accepted by Hanoi. In the Cao Dai sect, the top position is empty because the sect does not want to expose its leaders to government persecution.
In a former church school in Saigon, the chatter of students and an occasional peal of laughter spilled into the churchyard next door even though the teachers were all government rather than church employees. Even so, religious education continues. A former teacher in a Cao Dai school in Tay Ninh said she was no longer allowed to teach even in a public school but was helping to instruct children after class. Catholics said they were doing the same thing. Foreigners have repeatedly been detained by Vietnamese authorities for what Hanoi says has been unlawful activity. A naturalized American woman of Vietnamese birth was detained in October for handing out pens marked with Christian crosses, an action termed ``illegal religious propaganda.'' Earlier, three visiting American evangelical missionaries were detained for singing hymns with Vietnamese Christians in a home in Ho Chi Minh City.
Even so, Vietnamese continue to pour into the pagoda, temples and churches. The Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh is filled four times a day, at 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and midnight. A Catholic church in Saigon has seven Masses every Sunday, most of them well-attended. Buddhist temples, which have fewer scheduled services, draw a steady stream of people on working days. "They come," said a clergyman, simply, "because they see that we, not the government, are for the people."