Whenever a stranger discovers that I am a Catholic, their first question is always: “Do you have to go to church on Sunday?” The query reveals how ordinary Vietnamese imagine what being a Catholic involves.
The reflex assumption is that being Vietnamese and Catholic is anchored in attending Mass, participating in parochial organisations and having a religious identity on an ID card. A few mistakenly believe I am legally obliged to marry a fellow Catholic and that I have disavowed traditional culture. Catholics are associated with crowding into the cathedral in Saigon – as Ho Chi Minh City is still known to locals – with a rejection of the teachings of other religions, and collusion with foreign forces. They are “not really Vietnamese”.
22 July 2021, The Tablet
View from Saigon
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