THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON VIETNAM

...the torture of political prisoners, etc...

...good they were, to meet the total problem of a society which the liberation forces were contesting...

...These are exceptional attitudes in the history of the Church...

...Those who did speak were marginal groups...

...should they be so closely connected with foreign armed forces and the foreign cultural presence as some of them were in Indochina...

...The Vatican, especially the Holy Father, can play a very significant role in this connection...

...added to these the pres-ence of the American advisors and soldiers...

...These were branded Communists by the strong right-wing section of the Church including some of the foreign missionaries...

...This is true charity according to our Lord...

...The teaching and attitude of Pope John XXIII towards the European Communistic rulers and regimes can be a source of inspiration to all of us, including the bishops and the Pope...

...Indochina with its religious traditions thus faces the task of humanizing Communism, The experience of Indochina can also teach the uni-versal Church, specially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, that a new type of Christian living is called for, in which values of social justice, more than mere religious ritual, are honored...

...the large-scale and indiscriminate bombing of North and South Vietnam...

...Already the Christians of North Vietnam have learnt to work together to build socialism...

...In fact the Church establishment was very much dependent on foreign personnel and funds...

...Today more than ever, we must reinforce our national unity, our love for one another, and we must serve our people, help and assist them, and share with them food and clothing...

...The problem of the Christians is whether they can wholeheartedly cooperate in building up a new so-cialistic Vietnam under the leadership of a Marxist gov-ernment...

...In all these instances they had little support from the out-side Churches, except for a non-conciliatory attitude lead-ing even to martyrdom...

...How many more lives must be sacrificed before the Christians in the affluent coun-tries understand the demands of the ten command-ments and beatitudes in our world of vulgar affluence and abject misery-and the latter causally linked to the former...

...Further, we have just learnt that the 200 bishops and priests have met revolutionary rulers of South Vietnam and that the latter have assured the Catholics that complete freedom of faith is the new Government's policy...

...Ir it not time to rediscover the deep radicality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and try to live it in practice before we are compelled to do so by the revolutionary tide of half-starved Asia...

...Gradual-ly more and more people became alienated from this pattern of values...

...In China the situation led to a sort of schism when the local Christians appointed bishops with the approval of the State without the blessing of Rome...

...Arch-bishop Binh of Saigon, however, took a conciliatory position towards them due to his kindly pastoral concern for all...

...It should not be neces-sary for the Church now to wait for 50 years as in the case of Russia, 25 years China, 15 for Cuba, to see that new ways of Christian living can flourish in socialistic societies...

...or at least that the peoples of these countries can find a more just way of living under these regimes than in the past...

...It has had a pronounced fear of Communism...

...The two million Catholics in South Vietnam are pro-portionately many more, being about 10 percent, than they were in China...

...Perhaps these are signs of a new approach of a deeper reconciliation...

...Even the more democratic societies of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and the socialistic democracies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are enmeshed in deep troubles...

...These Christians will probably go through the same problem which has been faced by Christians in this cen-tury in the USSR since 1917, in Eastern Europe after 1949, in China after 1949, in North Korea in the 1950s, North Vietnam from 1954 and Cuba in the 1960s...

...Should not the central authority of the Church be happy to encourage such self-reliance even in the choice of new bishops, instead of helping bring about situations of impasse as in China...

...What meaning did the elitist schools run by Christian missions with great dedication have for the formation of youth within the situation of inequality and injustice...

...For many churchmen the evils of capitalism are minor compared to the danger of Com-munism...

...The leadership of the Church is also indigenous...

...We must also be ready to generate a new type of priest and bishop who in socialistic societies would have to share in the task of economic productivity like the rest of the com-munity instead of depending financially on the faithful...

...Let us erase the faults, sus-picions and the feelings of hate...

...In the midst of our joy and exuberance, it is now time to make ourselves ready to collaborate with all men of good will in order to reconstruct our native country which endured so much suf-fering and death...

...Thus another segment of the Church is likely to be cut off from direct links with its in-stitutional headquarters at the Vatican, from sources of financial assistance and the flow of personnel from older Churches...

...It is a pity that even in the 1960s and early 70s Christian reflection in Vietnam and elsewhere was not as a whole sufficiently aware of the problems of South Vietnam and Cambodia and was not vocal about them...

...In this delicate situation the way in which the Viet-namese Christians may react to the regime and vice-versa can also depend to a great extent on the attitudes and reactions of Christians all over the world, especially in the western countries...

...It is a warning to all religious that the ex-cruciating conditions in which the majority live under exploitation will sooner or later lead to radical revo-lutionary options by them...

...This problem has so far not been resolved in the socialistic countries...

...We shall do that under the lead-ership of the Provisional Revolutionary Govern-ment in order to bring to all our compatriots free-dom, wealth and happiness...

...We might mention in this connection the whole neo-colonial ap-proach to development: foreign investment being wel-comed, safeguarded and guaranteed by the State...

...This is one of the greatest challenges to the Holy Father, who has proclaimed 1975 the Holy Year of reconciliation...

...The revo-lutionary changes are likely to continue in the Asian countries-in some places like Indochina by a com-plete overthrow of governments, in others as in West Asia by use of economic weapons for obtaining con-trol over their national resources...

...May we have the grace to understand this call of our time, and thereby help fellow Christians in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Macao, Portugal, Mozam-bique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau as they go through their agonizing reappraisals in the coming months...

...the banning of strikes...

...I give you all my love' (John 15,12...

...It is to be hoped that Rome will not push the local Churches to a point of uncompromise against change and that the government would not urge them to schism in order to be more national...

...There are about 2,000 Vietnamese priests and 5,000 Vietnamese religious...

...Archbishop Phillipe Nguyen Kim Dien of Hue wrote a pastoral on 1st April 1975, a few days after the liberation of Hue, in which he thanked God for the final achievement of peace and urged Christians to cooperate in the rebuilding of the nation under the leadership of the P.R.G...

...The Church in Indochina has not been adequately critical of the evils of western colonialism and neo-colo-nialism...

...The Government in Hanoi permitted an archbishop to represent North Vietnam in the Synod of Bishops last October in Rome...

...vast inequalities in wealth, income and power...

...Pro-found changes are now taking place in Mozambique, An-gola, Guinea-Bissau and Portugal...

...There could be a clash in their minds as to what they consider the national good and their under-standing of the Christian faith...

...On the other hand it is to be hoped that these local Churches would have sufficient theological and spiritual stamina to participate in the building of a just society without falling victim to the temptation of being coopted by the regime...

...The rapid change in these countries in March and April this year has placed the Christians in Indochina in a situation somewhat similar to what happened in China in 1949...

...We must similarly question the theology of the Churches which formed a clergy, religious and laity in large measure incapable of reading the signs of the times and being not in sympathy with the anguish of the masses...

...large-scale provision for "Rest and Recreation...

...New forms of worship and learning of religion have to be thought of...

...By doing that, we only repeat what governments in the whole world are trying to do in a more and more efficient way...

...Even if Christians were opposed to the immorality of public life, how strongly did they contest it...

...and the new regime has not created the image of being intolerant...

...The country's rulers have been Catholics...

...Yet we see the paradox of an explicit or implicit alliance between the Churches and this model of development and, military activity...

...The challenge to Christian theology and to Asian re-ligions is to understand these forces, to participate in the necessary struggle and to create the inner ethos for the rebuilding of our societies in a manner that human beings are respected and social injustices greatly reduced, if not largely eliminated...

...If their ap-proaches are not more radical and egalitarian, here too the masses will rise up in frustration and desperation against socio-economic systems which condemn them to hunger, malnutrition, ignorance and powerlessness...

...The present right-wing dic-tatorships of rulers like Suharto in Indonesia, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Park Chung Hee in South Korea, Chiang Chung-Kuo in Taiwan, cannot stem this tide of revolutionary upsurge for long, for their solu-tions are not geared to long-term remedies of the ills of these countries...

...In order to understand these situations and relate to them creatively we have to revaluate our own theology-both speculative and practical...

...In fact some of those who most strongly opposed the young Vietnamese Catholic pacifists were foreign missionaries who were strongly backed by money and had a sincere though ques-tionable conviction of their mission to save Vietnam from Communism...

...Very often even within the countries, the leadership of the Churches was not quite ready to cooperate with the new regimes, particularly in the initial stages...

...The Christians, while helping to build socialism, can contribute to the furthering of human freedom by their witness to the ultimate values of truth, love, justice and sharing...

...corrupt militarism, the divorce of the rulers from the people...

...IDOC Bulletin No...

...During the past 20 years, in spite of the advance of the Viet Cong, the Church in South Vietnam substantially maintained its anti-Communist posture...

...corruption...

...Here a long struggle is before mankind as the modern methods of thought control and even physical torture are being used rather widely by governments of both the socialistic and the capitalistic blocs...

...The issue that is posed to us today is whether the entire Christian world can face this situation in a more enlightened manner without giving up the essentials of the faith and the safeguarding of human rights in diffi-cult circumstances...

...For those who are still within the free enterprise societies the liberation of Vietnam can also be a call to a rethinking of their own attitudes as Christians towards the capitalistic pattern of development, based on profit maximization and generally leading to vast inequalities between the haves and have-nots...

...Because of his love for us, our Lord died for our deliverance...

...Up to the final stages of the war a large section of Catholics in-cluding the leadership was in favor of the now-defeated governments...

...Likewise, what was the adequacy of social services of a person-to-person nature, however necessary and...

...This however is not something new, for it is a continuation of the posi-tion the Churches have taken in spite of the Russian and Chinese revolutions...

...One of the first actions of the new regime was the cleaning up of the streets of Saigon which were infested with night clubs, that sprang up as a concomitant of this pattern of sect development...

...Then what should impede us to prove our love for him and our love for our fellow man...

...low wages paid to workers especially under emergency regu-lations...

...In the light of what has happened in Indochina, we have to ask ourselves what meaning there was in the type of mission activities which were carried out earlier...

...The main raison d'Stre of the Catholic refugees was their conviction of the incom-patibility of Christianity with the Marxist regime of the North plus their fear that their lives were insecure under that regime...

...It is a sad reflection on the human limita-tions of socialism itself...

...The world crisis is likely to lead to an increase in the tempo of change...

...On the other hand the public authorities may also be skeptical about their loy-alty to the new regime since they were among the most intransigent combatants against the North...

...Revolution is a regular phenomenon in out times...

...This requires preparedness to rethink the mission of the Church within socialistic societies and even see a providential role in these local Churches being left to look after their own affairs in every sense...

...Will not this give more chance for the faith to be incarnated in their countries...

...The situation also implies a chance for the Church in our countries to be truly Christian and genuinely Asian...

...How long will it take for Christians to learn this lesson of the history of our century...

...In this situation the Christian communities have to be prepared to learn from the historical situation in which they are placed...

...They have suf-fered together under the heavy bombardment by the Americans...

...But now they are not so welcome in other countries where to a considerable extent opinion seems to be that the Vietnamese should settle their own affairs...

...Its ideological orientation, too, was right-wing...

...Fortunately there are indications that the Church leadership in South Vietnam is giving a helpful direc-tion to the people...

...This phenomenon of expanding socialization of life is likely to be one of the main features of the world in the next ten years...

...This, however, will require a radical rethinking of the concept of the Church and of its mission in a revolutionary world...

...let us avoid oc-casions to create fear again in the people...

...In the late nineteen-sixties there were a few Catholics, priests and lay people, who proposed a more concilia-tory attitude for ending the war...

...The whole Christian world can learn much from a deep reflection on these events and orientations.n these events and orientations...

...Marxism itself has changed con-siderably in its attitude towards religion since 1917 and 1949...

...We should further ask what is the role of foreign missionaries within such revolutionary situations...

...A most difficult problem for the peoples of these coun-tries will be the working out of genuine areas of human freedom and authentic living, given the social-istic trend towards totalitarianism and conformism...

...What relevance did the presentation of the word of God in preaching and in catechesis have to the exploitation of the people-both by the local elite and the foreign powers...

...The laity will have to be much more self-reliant and responsible for their religious and moral lives...

...We must be generous and forgive all the er-rors of the past...

...Why should it be that Marxists are almost the sole force who take these is-sues of justice so seriously as to combat injustice radi-cally...

...If we Christians outside of Viet-nam, do not consider the establishment of the PRG government of Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as tragedies, but rather see in them poten-tial signs of liberation, then the reaction of the Christians and of the governments of Vietnam and Cambodia will be greatly helped in their task of mutual understanding...

...The whole Christian-world has to try to understand the positive values of the new way of life that is likely to be established in these countries...

...forces from Cambodia and Vietnam along with the establishment of the PRG in Saigon and the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh has completely altered the position of the Church in these countries...

...We not only give what is superfluous to us, but share with them, with our people, what we have for our own need...

...30-31-April-May 1975-page 3) On April 19, 1975, Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh of Saigon wrote in a similar vein and called on Catho-lics "not to evacuate or to arm themselves, but to eagerly contribute their modest efforts to national re-conciliation...

...About one hundred and eighty thousand Vietnamese refugees fled the country and we may pre-sume that many of them were Christians...

...All these considerations taken together really amount to the need for the Church to be reborn of the Gospel -to go back to Jesus Christ beyond the type of theologies, life styles, molds of authority which have been evolved to suit feudalistic and capitalistic societies...

...The influx of 700,000 to 800,000 refugees from the North after the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and Ho Chi Minh had established the independent regime of North Vietnam, made the Church of South Vietnam even more conservative...

...Can we see a positive meaning in this self-reliance enforced on the local native church which now has to take the initiative for finding solutions to its own problems without relying on an outside au-thority...

...This is my commandment: love one another...