A video showing a priest in his clerical cassock staging a protest at a police detention centre has gone viral. On June 19, Father Joseph Nguyễn Duy Tân, pastor of Thọ Hòa parish in Đồng Nai province, came to the police detention centre of Biên Hòa, 30km North of Sàigòn, to demand the immediate release Read more
Gangsters have attacked a group of nuns as they protested against the construction of a house on their former land. The St Paul de Chartres sisters in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, tried to stop workers getting onto the site. Witnesses say gangsters working for the builders beat one nun unconscious. They say building workers had moved Read more
Vietnamese filled a stadium in Hanoi last week for a Christian evangelistic event. The Communist government, which controls religions, gave permission for the rally. Over 10,000 people went to it. U.S. evangelist preacher Reverend Franklin Graham said the government only gave permission for the event in the week leading up to it.
Labor Day, September 4, 1967, in the United States was just like so many other Labor Days before: the last day before the start of school, a federal holiday, banks and stores closed, and people preparing to join friends and family for backyard barbeques. But some 8,000 miles away in South Vietnam it marked the Read more
Gangs of youths are terrorising Catholics in north-east Vietnam and the police are turning a blind eye. Wearing red T-shirts with yellow stars and waving national flags, the gangs have been attacking Catholics and their property since the beginning of June. “The primary motivation behind the incidents is to pressurise local Catholics and the deanery Read more
A Catholic environmental activist has been arrested and his supporters beaten by police in Vietnam. Police attacked protesters who were demanding an explanation for the detention of environmentalist Hoang Duc Binh earlier this month, said a priest at the scene. He said the police told the crowd Binh had been moved to another facility. The Read more
Imprisoned for 13 years by Vietnam’s communist leaders and then exiled until he died in 2002, the Venerable Cardinal Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan lived a life of heroic virtue Pope Francis has ruled. Francis declared Francois Xavier “Venerable” last Thursday. Francois Xavier’s story of imprisonment, much of which was spent in solitary confinement, has Read more
Church aid agencies are playing their part to support people in Vietnam whose livelihoods have been devastated by industrial marine pollution. On April 6, dead fish began washing ashore along 200 kilometres of the coastal provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue. Nearly three months later, authorities announced that toxic Read more
Just before a visit from President Obama, Vietnam released a political dissident priest who had spent much of the last two decades in jail or house arrest. Catholic Church officials announced that Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly was released from jail on Friday morning, AFP reported. President Obama started a three-day visit to Vietnam on Read more
Pope Francis has appointed a former refugee, who fled war-torn Vietnam by boat in 1979, to lead the Australian diocese of Parramatta. Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen, 54, begins his new role after serving as a Conventual Franciscan since 1989 and as auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne since 2011. Parramatta, in western Sydney, is one of Read more