FAITH IS FLOURISHING IN A

But Red bid for power threatens all parishes in Vietnam
'THE news these days from Vietnam, key country in South-east Asia, is usually confined to the fighting in the guerrilla war between French and native troops against the Communist bid for power.
But a priest-journalist has a different kind of story to tell below.
By Fr. Patrick O'Connor, Society of St, Columba FLYING over theNorth
Vietnam plains, you see more Catholic churches than you ever dreamt you'd find in any country in the Far East.
From hundreds. of shrubbery-enclosed villages, the spires and towers of large churches rise high above the green carpet of rice-fields. They testify to the number and quality of Vietnamese Catholics.
In normal conditions, the missions could make incalculable progress. The people are gently and friendly. Their lives are simple and frugal. They cherish family loyalties. Buddhism is only an old feeble tradition among them. No non-Christian religion is deeply entrenched here.
RED THREAT• The Communist war, however, not only hinders progress but also threatens the life of. every ,parish in Vietnam.
In Vietnam, one in every 13 persons—some say one in every 10—is a Catholic. This is the highest proportion of any country on the East Asia mainland. Catholics here number about 1,600.000. maybe more, in a population of more than 20,000,000.
One in every four persons in PhatDiem province is a Catholic: one in every five in the Bui-Chu province.
Catholics here are fervent as well as numerous. They fill the churches not only on Sundays but sometimes on weekdays, too. They crowd the altar rails for Holy Communion. You never find any church at any hour on a week-day without at least a few people praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
The proportion of men in church is always high.
On my first Sunday in Hanoi, I went to the cathedral during the 8.30 Mass. There was standing room only, and not much of that. The church holds about 900, and there had been three Masses already, beginning at 5.15 a.m. And Hanoi has five other parish churches.
On weekdays, for Mass and evening devotions, the congregations arc as large as you may see in the oldest Catholic countries, and much larger than in some.
MANY HEROES
Walking along the street, a priest Is frequently saluted. especially by children, who run out to say: "Lay Cha " ("I salute the Father ").
Vietnamese Catholics have proved their mettle by suffering and dying for the Faith. " An innumerable phalanx of heroes have borne witness to Christ with their blood" in Vietnam, the Holy Father declared last year.
More than 70 Vietnamese martyrs have been beatified, of whom 26 are priests. The cause of beatification for some 1.300 others has been begun. The number of Catholics killed for the Faith iri Vietnam is said to reach 100,000— most of them in the successive waves of persecution during the 19th century.
You see the grandchildren and great grandchildren of martyrs among the Catholics thronging the churches and toiling in the ricefields here today. Sonic descendants of the persecutors are Catholics now. One is a priest.
Many Vietnamese boys become priests, and a great number of the girls become nuns.
Six of the 15 vicariates have Vietnamese Bishops, and Vietnamese priests number around I,500—about four times the number of foreign priests here. There are at least 4,000 native nuns, the majority Amantes de la Croix, " Lovers of the Cross."
HEROINES
This community of little heroines
has been teaching and serving the Church, often in great poverty and danger. for nearly 300 vears in Vietnam. Composed of Vietnamese only, it was founded in 1667, soon after the first seeds of Christianity were sown in the land. It is well represented among the Vietnamese martyrs.
There are six Carmelite convents in the country, and one of Poor Clares, each with Vietnamese as well as foreign sisters.
In two of the three Cistercian monasteries — as austere as any Trappist abbey—all the monks arc Vietnamese.
The principal foreign missionary priests arc members of the Paris Foreign Missions and the Dominicans. Ten of their Predecessors, martyred in the last century, have been beatified.