Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 5—August 5, 1971
*Vietvi4m
‘TERRORISM N. VIETNAM POUCT
Bishop Claims Public
Misinformed On War
IN SOUTH VIETNAM
Catholics Said
Divided On War
By A1 Antczak
LOS ANGELES (NC) —
An American missionary
bishop who has spent the past
25 years in Thailand said here
he doesn’t think the public is
being properly informed
about the Vietnam war.
Redemptorist Bishop
Clarence Duhart wondered
aloud, for example, whether
people believe most atrocities
are committed by the
co m m u n i sts or the
Americans.
“If Lt. Calley was guilty,
there is no justification for
what he did,” Bishop Duhart
stated. Furthermore, if what
Calley did had the
endorsement of his superior
officers, they should be
punished too, the bishop said.
“But I don’t think anyone
is saying that the Calley
situation was a result of U.S.
policy.
“But terrorism is a matter
of policy of the North
Vietnam regime.”
Thousands of Vietnamese
political leaders have been
killed because they would not
cooperate with the North
Vietnamese government, the
bishop claimed.
“The Hue massacre was
reported one day and then
buried in footnotes,” he
continued, whereas the Calley
case has been on the front
pages for months.
“I don’t think the picture
is being properly given and I
think the conclusions which
come from it are wrong,” he
said.
Bishop Duhart was visiting
Los Angeles as part of an
archdiocesan “missionary
cooperative plan” where
bishops serving in foreign
countries preach at various
local parishes seeking funds
for their work.
A special project in Bishop
Duhart’s diocese of Udothani,
Thailand, is an “infantorium”
which provides homes for
needy Thai babies.
The bishop said he doesn’t
have much confidence in the
conclusions drawn by
Americans who spend a week
or two in Vietnam and who,
through interpreters, gather a
superficial knowledge of what
is going on there.
Bishop Duhart himself has
Vatican Says
Probe Seeks
6 Clarification’
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
The Vatican views its present
examination of Father Hans
Kung’s books on infallibility
and the Church ‘not so much
as an attack but as a
necessary part of the constant
dialectic that is aimed at
clarifying issues.”
A statement from the
Doctrinal Congregation,
which is dealing with the
controversial theologian’s
books at Pope Paul Vi’s
express request, said that
such a view should be
prompted by “a sense of fair
play and of respect toward
the community of the
faithful.”
Fr. Kung, professor of
dogma at the University of
Tuebingen in Germany,
announced July 21 that the
orthodoxy of his book on
infallibility had come under
investigation. He said his
earlier work on the Church
“has for some time now been
the object of a similar
doctrinal investigation.”
not spent much time in
Vietnam, but there are large
numbers of Vietnamese
refugees in Udonthani. The
refugees came while the
French were still in
Indochina. And they came in
such numbers that Bishop
Duhart felt an obligation to
learn their language.
Catholic refugees near
Udonthani are in sufficient
numbers generally to defy
Hanoi, the bishop said, but
not all of them get away with
it.
The communist infiltrate
the refugee communities, he
claimed, exacting reprisals on
those who dare defy Hanoi’s
wishes. Anti-communist
refugees “are labeled traitors
and it is made difficult for
them to live within their own
communities. And there are
physical reprisals, too,” the
Redemptorist Bishop stated.
Where they are able to do
so, the communists organize
towns along party lines.
“They take taxes in a town
where I am and send the
money to Hanoi. They
operate a government within
a government.
Catholics in the refugee
community are often fearful
of visits from the Legion of
Mary because of the
consequences should word of
it get around, he said.
Bishop Duhart told of an
instance of an elderly woman
who was dying and who
wanted to be received into
the Church. The bishop
offered to go and instruct
her, but was urged to stay
away. She was instructed
instead by lay catechists. The
bishop later visited her at
night, found her well
prepared and gave her the
sacraments just before she
died.
“I wonder how many
people really know what it
means to be completely
controlled,” the bishop
observed. “They don’t dare
turn on a radio except for the
broadcasts from Hanoi.”
Bishop Duhart is anything
but optimistic about current
U.S. troop withdrawal plans.
“It’s like a poker play, but
there’s no bluffing,” he said.
“They don’t tell us anything.
We tell them everything.
PARIS (NC) — Catholics in
South Vietnam, long regarded
as staunch supporters of
resistance to communism, are
now divided in their attitudes
toward the war, a Catholic
former member of the South
Vietnamese National
Assembly said in a French
Catholic magazine,
Informations Catholiques
Internationales.
Nguyen Van Can, the
former assembly member, has
also been a philosophy
professor and is now the
director of a Vietnamese
study group set up in Paris.
He said that in South
Vietnam today there are
Catholics who absolutely
reject war in any
circumstances, even a
defensive war; there are those
who accept the idea of a
defensive war.
Among those absolutely
opposed to war, he said, are a
group of young intellectuals
and some professors at Saigon
University, including
Professors Nguyen Van Trung
and Ly Chanh Trung, as well-
as Father Nguyen Ngoc Lan.
The group published Song
Dao (To Live Religion).
AT CATHOLIC PEACE GROUP MEET
North Viet Priests
Give Their Views
By Ernest Ostro
PARIS (NC) — A picture
of a flourishing Catholic
Church in North Vietnam,
not one of a “Church of
Silence,” emerged at a
meeting of Catholic peace
groups in Paris last May.
Two North Vietnamese
priests came from Hanoi for
the International Assembly of
Christians in Solidarity with
the Vietnamese, Laotian and
Cambodian People, to report
on the state of the Church
under the North Vietnamese
regime. The two priests are
Fathers Ho Thanh Bien and
Nguyen The Vinh.
The assembly and the
priests were all solidly against
U.S. involvement in
Indochina and for immediate
U.S. 'withdrawal. They
supported virtually without
reservation the positions of
the Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese delegations to the
Paris peace talks.
Here is the view of the
Catholic Church in North
Vietnam that emerged from
the priests’ reports:
After the Geneva Accords
of 1954, 700,000 of the 1.5
million Catholics living in
North Vietnam moved to the
South, where they received
favored treatment under the
Catholic regime of the late
President Ngo Dinh Diem,
himself a Catholic. Most of
the Catholics who left the
North had lived in
a 11-Catholic villages. They
followed their local clergy to
the South in self-contained
groups, fearing massacres and
persecution if they remained.
However, the 800,000
Catholics remaining in the
North were not massacred.
They are still free to practice
their religion without
harassment under the
constitution of the
Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (DRV), the priests
said. Christmas is a national
holiday, as is the anniversary
of the birth of Buddha.
The only serious
interference with Catholicism
in North Vietnam has come
from destruction of churches
by U.S. bombing, they noted.
Father Bien reported that
475 churches have been
seriously damaged or
destroyed by U.S. action, and
many Catholics, including
Bishop Tran Dinh Nhien of
Vinh, have been killed.
The number of Catholics in
North Vietnam has now
grown to about 1.2 million,
divided into 10 dioceses
governed, until Bishop Nhien
was killed in 1968, by 13
bishops. Of the 318 priests
who stayed, several have died
either of old age or during air
raids. At present the
recruiting of priests is the
most worrisome problem,
because old priests are dying
without being replaced. All
the seminaries were evacuated
except those in Vinh, which
functioned almost normally
until they were destroyed by
American bombs in 1968, the
priests said.
But material destruction
has only strengthened the
resolve of North Vietnamese
Catholics, they added.
“Living in a state of war,”
said Father Bien, “all the
DRV Catholics developed a
Firmer solidarity with our
compatriots, and while
preserving our lives and the
spiritual life of the Church,
we organized prayers and
Masses with the greatest care
and fought against the
offensives of the invaders’ jets
and warships, and we carried
out all these things with
efficiency . . ..Everywhere
Catholics were calm and
courageous.
“Rice and sweet potatoes
grow over the places which
still bear the marks of
bombardments; even the
churches have trenches of
communication, and as the
churches were damaged,
prayers and Masses take place
in underground
shelters . .. .As the U.S.
government has invaded our
country, destroyed our
people and religion, then our
duty to Fight them and save
our country means also saving
our religion.”
The attitude of the North
Vietnamese government
toward Catholicism has been
formed by the historic role of
the Church in Vietnam, the
priests said. The Church was a
vehicle for colonizing, First
for the French and later for
the Americans, through
which a small minority was
detached from the main body
of Vietnamese society to rule
the country in line with
Western interests. The
Church, and especially the
Church hierarchy, beneFited
materially from a privileged
position under the French,
and some Catholic clergy
claiming to be nationalists
sided with the French in
denouncing the Viet Minh as
“atheistic communists.”
Thus at the end of the war
of liberation from France the
Catholic Church in North
Vietnam was not only a
religious institution, but the
strongest center of political
opposition to the new regime,
the priests said. The policy of
the DRV government has
been to insist strongly on the
distinction between religious
and political activity -
protecting and respecting the
religious role of the Church
while banning any
interference by it in the
socialist evolution of the
country, they added.
The leaders of the DRV
have expressed the view that
religious believers of any faith
are first of all persons
concerned with morality and
social justice, they said.
A ccordingly, said Xuan
Thuy, chief of the delegation
of the DRV to the Paris talks
on r Vietnam, many North
Vietnamese Catholics who
were originally opposed to
the socialist regime have
come to recognize that
socialism has raised the moral
standards of the country by
removing the causes of such
social ills as theft and
prostitution and by
improving the position of
women in the home and in
society.
Those who accept the idea
of a defensive war, Can said,
are much more numerous and
maintain that North Vietnam
started the present war. “But
even these Catholics,” he
said, “are not pro-war. They
are in reality obliged and even
condemned to defend
themselves.
“Most of them, moreover,
are refugees from North
Vietnam who experienced the
communist regime and are
hanuted by the fear of seeing
it set up in the South. They
wonder, with anguish, where
they could go if communism
were implanted in South
Vietnam also. Peace, for
them, could not be
submission to a political
regime they regard as
enslavement.
“But it is not only refugees
from the North who accept
the notion of a defensive war.
Some among whom they live
share their views, and,
furthermore, the operations
of the North Vietnamese and
the Vietcong have made
many Catholics understand
the attitude of the refugees.”
The holders of the two
d ifferent attitudes toward
war do not understand each
other, Can said. “The
majority group considers the
‘paciFists’ as irresponsible or
even as persons overcome by
North Vietnam. In short, as
traitors to their
co-religionists. On the other
hand, the small group
opposed to all war sees the
majority of Catholics as
holding an outmoded
position, incompatible with
the necessary evolution of
things,” he said.
Can went on to say that as
the war continues “a growing
number of Catholics
understand that a military
victory for either side has
become impossible. An
indeFinite pursuit of armed
conflict would signify the
disappearance of Vietnam.
Both reason and charity
therefore require the
cessation of hostilities. From
that realization, like it or not,
comes the necessity of
.admitting a future
coexistence with the
communists.”
Many Catholics, Can said,
understand this necessity and
are preparing to accept it, but
the question remains: What
form is the coexistence to
take?
Some Catholics, Can said,
consider it acceptable to have
the communists participate in
a democratic South Vietnam
as a political party submitting
to the will of the people. But
many others, he said, still do
not accept this idea.
The bishops of South
Vietnam are keeping quiet,
taking the attitude that
temporal matters are not
their concern, Can said. He
said they have taken this
position because priests and
laity in areas controlled by
the North Vietnamese and
Vietcong would be subject to
reprisals if the bishops took a
stand against the Vietcong,
and, if they consented to
coexistence with the
communists, many Catholics
would accuse them of
inconsistency, and regard
them as “false shepherds.”
Accepting the notion of
coexistence, Can said, would
also complicate the bishops’
relations with the present
government of South
Vietnam, which is resolved to
continue the war, and has
refused, in all public
statements, to admit
coexistence with the
communists, even as a
political party in a
democratic system.
MERCY CARGO - Msgr. Andrew P. Landi of Catholic Relief Services (left) discusses mercy cargo
for East Pakistani refugees with Dave Brubeck, noted jazz composer and pianist, who represented
Americans for Children’s Relief, during loading of 30 tons of shelter materials, baby foods and
medicines at JFK International Airport, New York City, July 19. Cargo valued at $220,000 was
being flown to Calcutta on a special, jointly chartered plane by the American Catholic overseas aid
agency and Americans for Children’s Relief. ACR is conducting a nationwide campaign to raise
funds to support the work of Church relief agencies among the six million East Pakistani refugees
who have fled their homeland into India. (NC PHOTO)
PAX ROMAN A MEETING
Archbishop Camara Asks
Rich Countries To Change
By Ann Gregory
FRIBOURG, Switzerland
(NC) — “Changing political,
economic and social
structures in poor countries
call for change in the
countries of abundance,” said
Archbishop Helder Camara of
Olinda and Recife, Brazil, in a
plea for peaceful revolution.
Such a revolution, he said,
should begin with moral
pressure to liberate
education.
The Brazilian archbishop
received an honorary
doctorate from Switzerland’s
Catholic University of
Fribourg, where he addressed,
the 50th anniversary
ceremonies of Pax Romana,
the international movement
of Catholic students and
intellectuals.
Archbishop Camara spared
no one in his analysis of the
need for change. “Those in
power remain obstinately
fearful of the people.
Everyone mistrusts
everyone,” he said.
Dictatorships of the left
and right show a strange
resemblance, the archbishop
said, and oppression also
exists in the democracies,
subtle though it may be.
Where are the freedoms of
domocracy, he asked.
As for the “free” press, he
said, “its freedom stops
where the interests of
business intervene.”
Religion, said Archbishop
Camara, “is used to maintain
a stable situation. If the
Church poses problems in
terms of justice, she is invited
to silence.”
And the universities--“they
belong to governments which
have interests ....”
“Only the rich and the
powerful are, in appearance,
free,” he said. But the
archbishop maintained that,
behind this facade of
apparent freedom, “they are
really the slaves of their own
egoism.”
The archbishop deplored
the dictatorships’ view that
liberating education is
‘‘subversion and
communism.” In the
democracies, on the other
hand, he said, there are
pressures and compromises. A
truly liberating education is
“to progressive, too daring, in
too much of a hurry” for
them.
There is a way out,
however, Archbishop Camara
said, because “that education
has an ally: a liberating moral
pressure. That is, a pressure
capable of peacefully
attaining the overthrow of
the structures of slavery.”
To those who ask why he
wants to change the
structures of the developed
countries, structures which
have brought them
prosperity, Archbishop
Camara replied that the price
they have paid is too high.
“Why not attain the same
thing without using
neo-colonialism? For the
effects of this colonialism, for
the Third World, are
terrible.”
In order for education to
liberate man, education must
be liberated by moral
pressure, he said.
“This growing moral
pressure is everywhere about
to burst out. The Abrahamic
minorities exist already. And
they are marked by the sign
of God.”
Archbishop Camara calls
them“ Abrahamic” because,
like the Old Testament
patriarch Abraham, they are
“called upon to hope against
all hope.”
The archbishop’s preaching
of peaceful revolution was
warmly received in Fribourg
where it was proposed that he
be made a candidate for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
The Swiss government,
however, warned Archbishop
Camara that he had violated a
decree prohibiting foreigners
from publicly speaking on
domestic Swiss policies.
If the controversial
archbishop continues to
criticize Switzerland, they
warned, he could be subject
to prosecution.
During a speech in Zurich,
Archbishop Camara had
called on the Swiss to modify
their economic, cultural, and
social structures.
He specifically criticized
the Swiss banks for holding
the currency of rich people
from poor countries.
“Do you know that money
is the sweat and the tears and
the blood of masses of people
in underdeveloped countries
who have been reduced to
subhuman living conditions
by your respectable and
honorable clients?” he asked
bankers.
|| - - * * ■
I
Know Your
Faith
The ‘KNOW YOUR FAITH’ SERIES is on a short
vacation. The 1971-72 SERIES is scheduled to begin
with the issue of September 23.