Viet Nam

Dear Attorney Minh,

As a faithful believer of the Vietnamese Catholic Church and a former parishioner of Thai Ha parish under the leadership of Father Joseph Nguyen Ngoc Hien, I am deeply touched and admire your brave action to raise your voice to support the struggle of Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly to demand the return of our Church’s properties and true religious freedom in Vietnam as well as your protest against the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the imprisonment of Father Ly.

In your heartfelt letter, you clearly pointed out the arrest and detention of Father Ly for many months and the eventually hasty 2-hour trial without defendant attorneys and direct witnesses and without complying to any basic litigation standards the Vietnamese Communist government has grossly insulted the leaders of the Vietnamese Catholic Church and has publicly challenged the conscience of over 8 millions Catholics in and outside Vietnam.

This fact has proved that the government and the Vietnamese Communist Party

have never taken in account the endless efforts of the Vietnamese Catholic Church as well as the Vatican Catholic Church during many past years to establish the constructive dialogue with the Vietnamese Communist government.

This is an obvious evidence that the Vietnamese Communist government has completely denied the dialogue even though the Vietnamese Catholic Church has been trying so hard to establish the constructive dialogue as indicated in the Shared Letter of the Vietnamese Bishops Council sending to the Vietnamese Catholics in September 2001. The fact that properties of the Vietnamese Catholic Church have been continuously and illegally confiscated during the past 50 years is an important issue that cannot be considered as the Church’s concession to the government. The Vietnamese Catholic Church’s properties are blood and bones of many millions of Catholics, which have been accumulated and inherited during many hundred years in the Vietnamese Catholic history. This issue was confirmed in a recent letter from Saigon’s ArchBishop Pham Minh Man.

Needless to mention to any remote incidents, at our Thai Ha parish in Hanoi the government has confiscated many real estate properties and many other properties and as of today these Church’s properties have not been returned.

The true nature of the defamation, the illegal imprisonment and the unconstitutional trial that the Vietnamese government had imposed on Father Ly are only small things that people can obviously recognize in front of a hidden strategic cruel policy to persecute the Catholic Church and other Churches since the Vietnamese Communist Party came to power.

The imprisonment of Father Nguyen Van Ly was the last drop of water to wipe out the last illusions that have been recently created when the government has loosened its control in a few areas for the Vietnamese Catholic Church.

We, the faithful believers of the Vietnamese Catholic Church need to strongly raise our voices to support the Vietnamese Bishops Council to demand the immediate returns of all Church’s properties and also demand true religious freedom in Vietnam. I would like to share your thoughts and absolutely extend my support to you in that endeavor.

May God, Jesus Christ, bless you and direct you in your path with lot of spikes and thorns ahead ! May Saint Mary at La Vang bless us all !

Anto^n Ba(`ng Ti’n (USA)

English version by Vie^.t Si~ Duy Ta^m