Catholicism, Roman—Vietnam | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Although an estimated 80 percent of Vietnam's population practice Buddhism to some extent, there are an estimated 3 million Roman Catholics in Vietnam, approximately 3.75 percent of the nation's population. Catholicism first reached Vietnam in the sixteenth century with the arrival of Portuguese missionaries. By the early seventeenth century, Catholic priests from Portugal and France had established several missions in Vietnam. In 1624 there were an estimated twenty one Jesuits in the nation. At first the Portuguese priests were dominant in numbers and in influence. In fact, the Vietnamese referred to Catholicism as the "Portuguese religion," and they tended to view all Europeans as Portuguese.

Despite the early predominance of Portuguese Jesuits, the most influential missionary in Vietnam in the seventeenth century was Father Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), a Frenchman. De Rhodes, born in Avignon, possessed an unusual gift for learning and for understanding languages, and his major contribution to Vietnamese history was the development of quoc ngu, the romanized script of the Vietnamese language. This process of alphabetizing the Vietnamese vernacular had been undertaken earlier by a Portuguese missionary, but de Rhodes pursued the work further, believing that the development of quoc ngu would help the spread of Catholicism in Vietnam. Quoc ngu is now the official writing system of Vietnam. De Rhodes also codified the Vietnamese language and produced a number of written works, including the famous Dictionarium Annamiticum and a Vietnamese language catechism. In addition, de Rhodes wrote several memoirs and a history of Tonkin.

While in Vietnam, on and off between 1627 and 1645, de Rhodes did not limit himself to academic pursuits. He is said to have trained Vietnamese catechists and to have baptized an estimated nine thousand Vietnamese.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, missionaries continued to attempt to spread Catholicism throughout Vietnam. Several Catholic orders, such as the Jesuits and the Dominicans, were present. In addition, there were also orders of Catholic nuns who established convents in various parts of the country. At times, the missionaries were tolerated by the Vietnamese government, but more often than not they were persecuted. Some missionaries, Alexandre de Rhodes among them, were simply expelled from Vietnam; others were executed. These persecutions were more pronounced during the eighteenth century, and they tended to follow the political climate in Vietnam. Persecution of Catholics tended to occur when the Vietnamese government needed to consolidate its power or assert its authority. At such times, Catholicism's doctrine was the principal problem. The facts that Catholicism is monotheistic and that its claims to spirituality are exclusive brought it into conflict with the traditional, Confucian order of things in Vietnam. In spite of this, by the early nineteenth century, there were hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Catholic converts.

Following the creation of the Société des Missions Etrangères (the Society of Foreign Missions) in 1664, French missionaries became the most active and the most numerous in Vietnam. The Société's principal aim was the spread of Catholicism in Asia, and it received not only the support of the papacy, but also of the French monarchy. Often dependent on merchant ships to transport them to Vietnam, French missionaries developed close ties with French merchants. As a result, in the eyes of many Vietnamese officials, there was little difference between French missionaries and French merchants. French interests in missionary activity in Vietnam followed the political situation in France itself—waning during the French Revolution, but waxing again on the eve of French consolidation of power in Vietnam in 1885 when Emperor Ham Nghi was forced to flee the capital. By the time France had colonized Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the late nineteenth century, there were an estimated 2 million Vietnamese Catholic converts. In fact, repression of Catholic missionaries and Catholic converts provided a rationale for bringing French troops in to Vietnam to protect them.

Despite the strong anticlerical sentiments of many French administrators, French colonial authorities were not averse to missionary activity since it was hoped that Catholicism would foster Vietnamese acceptance of the French colonial government. In addition, some Catholic missions in Vietnam served a useful purpose in the eyes of the French administration, since many offered Catholic schooling to Vietnamese children at little, if any, cost to the French colonial government. French colonial administrators appreciated these schools both for their cost efficiency and for the fact that they helped inculcate Vietnamese children with French cultural and social values. Among the most famous of these schools was the Collège d'Adran, founded in 1861. There were also a number of girls' schools established by orders such as the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres.

Because of their close ties with the French administration, Vietnamese Catholics tended to dominate in the fields of business and education. Vietnamese Catholics were more likely to hold civil-service positions within the colonial administration, and their higher levels of education meant that they were also more likely to become professionals. As a result, Vietnamese Catholics tended to be wealthier than their non-Catholic compatriots. In spite of the fact that the majority of Vietnamese Catholics, particularly in the northern area of the country, were peasants, the influence of the educated Catholics was significant.

During the Franco–Viet Minh War (1946–1954), many Vietnamese Catholics favored independence from France, but most were wary of the Viet Minh leadership's Marxist leanings. As a result, they supported, in 1949, the institution of the Bao Dai government, which the French supported. FollowingFrance's defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva accords of 1954 that established a demilitarized zone at the seventeenth parallel, an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 Vietnamese Catholics from northern Vietnam made their way to the south of the country in order to support the government of Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963), himself a Catholic. This influx of Vietnamese Catholics in southern Vietnam raised their numbers from approximately 450,000 to 1.1 million. This Catholic community in the south became the backbone of Ngo Dinh Diem's government. They were to become a formidable presence thanks to Diem's patronage. Diem's government gave key positions in the military and in the government to Vietnamese Catholics. Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc, was archbishop of Hue.

The favored position of the Vietnamese Catholic minority in southern Vietnam created conflict with the majority Buddhist population. Buddhist protests resulted in severe repression of Buddhist monks and communities during the Ngo Dinh Diem government. The tension and the repression of Buddhists subsided somewhat following the assassination of Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who headed South Vietnam's police and security forces, in 1963 and during Nguyen Van Thieu's government (1965–1975).

Following the end of the war with the United States and reunification of Vietnam in 1975, a considerable number of Vietnamese Catholics left Vietnam for fear of reprisals and persecution for having supported the Ngo Dinh Diem government and the government of South Vietnam. Many have made their way to the United States and to France. In Vietnam today, Catholicism is protected by the Vietnamese constitution. In spite of such safeguards, Catholicism has been monitored closely by the Vietnamese government and Catholic activities have been significantly curtailed. There are presently an estimated 3 million Catholics in Vietnam.

Micheline R. Lessard

Héduy, Philippe. (1998) Histoire de l'Indochine (History of Indochina). Paris: Albin Michel.

Hertz, Solange, trans. (1966) Rhodes of Vietnam: In China and Other Kingdoms of the Orient. Westminster, MD: Newman.

Phan, Peter. (1998) "Alexandre de Rhodes' Mission in Vietnam: Catechesis and Inculturation." Vietnamologica 3: 3–32.

Tuck, Patrick. (1987) French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857–1914. Liverpool, U.K.: Liverpool University Press.

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