Amazing: At its height, the Catholic Church was the largest landholder in Vietnam

The statue is in Vung Tau and the Communists were initially going to destroy it after 1975, but fortunately did not.  It is magnificent and a must see when visiting the beach.  Spent my honeymoon there as well as visiting many other times.

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Saigon,1964 with the Republic of Vietnam flags flying.

I have lived in Vietnam for over 10 years, but had never heard that the Catholic church was the largest landholder at one time. As Robert Edward Lee said, you will learn something new everyday until the day you die. The land in front of the magnificent church in downtown Saigon (above) was named John F. Kennedy Square until the Communists changed it.  I plan on going back after Thanksgiving where I will travel to Long Xuyen to visit the Catholic church there (below) which seats 1,000  and make good on a promise I made 22 years ago.

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In some northern provinces, more than a quarter of the population was Catholic and the church wielded significant clout. After the communists came to power in 1954, an estimated 750,000 Catholics migrated south, ballooning the population. Under Diem, Catholics held officer positions at double the rate of the rest of the population, according to historian Anthony James Joes; after the migration, as many as one in seven Saigonese were Catholic.

That position of prominence came to a resounding close in April 1975, when the North Vietnamese gained control of South Vietnam. Traditional communism had little place for religion, less so for one associated alternatively with colonialism and anti-Viet Minh sentiments.

 Brutal crackdown
 
The results were brutal and immediate. One Jesuit official recalled to ucanews.com that half of the order's 12 priests were jailed.

"The new regime wasted no time in taking various measures against the Southern Catholic community," writes political scientist Nguyen Van Canh in Vietnam Under Communism: 1975-1982. "The new relationship between church and state in Vietnam requires the Catholic Church to endorse the party line even on ecclesiastical matters."

Arrests and harassment became common, work was scheduled so as to block people from attending Mass, and anti-Catholic raids were carried out on troublesome communities and churches, Nguyen recounts.

More @ UCA News 

Don't miss the the  second part

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