HANOI, Vietnam — So many young children, hanging off locally made scooters, are flying past the monumental gray façade of St Joseph’s Cathedral in Hanoi that I can hardly cross the street to get to church. 

It’s 4:50 p.m. on my first day in Vietnam and I’m easily distracted. So I head to the nearby school that’s disgorging buoyant scooter traffic. 

Parents and grandparents are scooping up youngsters from a driveway bordering a big, cheerful kindergarten. There’s also a statute of Mary in the yard.

Not wanting to be stampeded, I take cover near Mary. A religious sister in a simple gray habit soon approaches me with a smile. Sister Tra belongs to Lovers of the Holy Cross, a religious order flourishing in Vietnam, founded in 1670 by a French priest. Across the country, there are some 4,500 members; 160 women religious live in a convent by the kindergarten. 

Sister Tra offers to show me the convent’s church using an interior entrance. As we entered a fan-cooled nave and my eyes adjusted to the dark, I see eight very old women scattered in pews, praying. 

Leaving the convent complex, I cross the street to the sprawling grounds of the cathedral. Again, a religious sister emerges to guide me, explaining that the beautiful singing we hear comes from a seminary chapel where young men are praying. Sister Teresa tells me the archdiocese has about 100 seminarians: Twenty new priests will be ordained this year. 

Then I cross a courtyard, wading through a crowd of 20-somethings posing for selfies in front of St. Joseph’s Cathedral, a survivor of multiple wars. 

Inside, I join scores of reverential visitors lost in prayer, lighting candles, admiring saints.

“Such devotion,” I marvel. “Am I really witnessing this vibrant Catholic faith in Hanoi, in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam?”

It would seem so. As of 2020, Vietnam, with nearly 7 million Catholics (7.4% of the total population), has the fifth-largest Catholic population in Asia. (Only the Philippines, India, China and Indonesia have more.) The Church is comprised of three archdioceses and 24 dioceses, with 2,228 parishes and 2,668 priests.  

 

Small, Active Diocese 

After my auspicious introduction in Hanoi, I travel 25 miles northeast to Bac Ninh, Vietnam’s smallest province, to see a Spanish-born Jesuit missionary whom I met earlier this year in Tokyo.

Father Ando Isamu, 89, arrived in Japan in 1958 and grew close to Vietnamese refugees, known as “boat people.” At least once a year, since 1990, he and lay supporters journey to Vietnam to provide financial assistance and encourage local projects. 

Although less than 2% of the people in Bac Ninh are Catholic, once again, I encounter a Church alive. A bustling complex unites cathedral, diocesan offices, the bishop’s house, a “Laity House” affiliated with the charity Caritas, and amble space for faithful wayfarers. 

One morning, the diocese courtyard is dominated by a giant tractor-trailer collecting sacks of supplies and food staples — donations from the Church destined for victims of Typhoon Yagi’s devastation. Priests and volunteers form a human chain to move bags from church steps to trailer. Smaller vans arrive to ferry donations all week. One wears a banner — “Gratitude Trip to the North” — as most flood damage was in the country’s North.

The cathedral guesthouse overlooks a big elementary school where hundreds of children play boisterously. A red-and-yellow national flag flies over the entrance but the layout looks like a former convent or church building — and it’s right next to Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral, built in 1892.

 

Moon Festival Procession

The neighboring school might not be Catholic, but the Church benefits from its proximity.

Celebration of Sept. 17’s Mid-Autumn Festival (Tết Trung Thu), marking a full moon, begins with a children’s Mass, engaging youngsters ages 3 to 14. The cathedral is full of families, enthusiastically reciting the liturgy, led by three young priests.

When Mass ends, older kids scramble into costumes or wheel neon bunnies and goldfish into place. Younger ones join a parade waving lanterns on sticks. Led by a cassocked priest, the festive procession marches into the diocese courtyard under a gate reading, “Wishing you all Peace” (Chúc anh chị em đi Bình an). Music, dancing and sparkers animate the gathering for the next hour, until little heads begin sinking onto adult shoulders. 

Father Isamu says such an event was unimaginable even 10 years ago. “Change has been dramatic, especially in the North, and it’s been very good for the Church,” he told me.

 

Faith Revival 

When Vietnam was partitioned in 1954 between North Vietnam, controlled by the Communist Party, and South Vietnam, supported by the U.S., some 800,000 Catholics left; they moved from North to South.

Between 1954 and 1989, one priest and one bishop served Bac Ninh Diocese, because the Communist Party closed seminaries and so many Catholics had disappeared. But in 1989, the government reopened the Hanoi seminary and began relaxing its attitude toward the Church. 

Today, the diocese has 150 priests, more than 300 women religious, 40 religious men and 10 ordinations each year, according to Father Nguyen Thanh, a diocesan priest who exclaims, “And we could use another 100 priests to serve — we have that much need!” 

Father Thanh said there is growth in every sector of the Church. According to Vietnam’s Bishops’ Conference, 2023 statistics show there were 165,111 baptisms, 274 newly ordained priests and a total of 6,856,563 Catholics.

 

Church-Filled City: Saigon

From Hanoi, I flew to Ho Chi Minh City, named after the late communist leader but known until 1975 as Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam. Most people still call the place Saigon. It’s the country’s biggest city, with about 9.5 million citizens. The Church hasn’t made much effort to make the change: Its website is called the Archdiocese of Saigon. And the city’s most famous church announces its name in Vietnamese, English and French: Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon. 

Catholicism shows its face across the city. Divine Mercy images appear in random places, for example: on street food carts, in coffee-shop menus and swinging from rearview mirrors in Grab (the popular ride-hailing app) cars. I admired one driver’s Last Supper diorama, pasted to the dashboard, as we pulled up to the archdiocese’s pastoral center. “You can get one in their gift shop,” he helpfully observed. More Catholic bookstores are in Saigon than in Washington, D.C.  

Nothing lets you take the Church’s temperature like attending Mass at various parishes, at various times of day. In a week, I visited some 12 churches — a soul-filling feast of beauty and piety.

At 6 a.m. one weekday, I visited Church of the Mother of Perpetual Help (or Ky Dong Church, after the street), a Redemptorist parish. The nave was full of people perhaps because a funeral was underway. As the shiny white casket was carried down the central aisle, I was startled to see an elaborate full-color rendering of the Last Supper etched on its side.

As this church was next door to my hotel, I visited often and noticed that, all day, cars and scooters pulled up to light incense and pray briefly at an outdoor shrine marked in neon, “Ave Maria.” Eventually, a priest explained that most visitors are Buddhists happy to pray there because its layout allows “drive-through” devotion.

At a 5:30 p.m. Wednesday Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral, undergoing renovation, I worshipped with some 60 others, whose average age was notable — most were young adults. I chatted with Phuong (“just call me Venus”), age 18, who grew up in Dalat, in central Vietnam, with Catholic parents and grandparents. She’s in Saigon attending university and attends Mass three times a week. 

“I love Jesus,” she explained simply.

I witnessed a splendid adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Dominic’s Church on a Friday evening after 5:30 p.m. Mass. The gray-green church, built like a many-roofed pagoda, was packed with people of all ages, including many schoolchildren. The choir of some 20 singers included string instruments. Despite asking numerous participants whether it was a special day of some sort for the parish, it seemed to be a standard Friday practice.  

 

Eucharistic Youth Movement

The Archdiocese of Saigon’s pastoral center feels like a buzzing campus — and it is. 

Dorms and classrooms for St. Joseph Seminary (closed from 1975 to 1986) dominate part of the grounds. Church offices, a guest house and classes for laity occupy another part. There’s a koi pond with big, speckled goldfish and a large white statue of Pope St. John Paul II with two children standing in front of a charming white chapel under repair. 

Father Francis Xavier Bao Loc, rector of the center, explained to the Register that education is an important national priority and a priority for the Church. The classes create long-term bonds with students. This semester, more than 1,100 laypeople, mostly ages 20-29, attend classes Monday through Saturday evening on subjects ranging from Bible studies to foreign languages to sacred music. Each morning, about 175 women religious attend classes. 

I asked Jesuit Father Joseph Dao Nguyen Vu, chief of staff at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, how he explains the marvelous participation of young adults.

“We have strong parish programs and religious education for children K-12. But we also have roles for young leaders, who help teach the younger students,” explained the priest.

“The Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement has been a successful way for young adults to continue with the Church. In other countries, after confirmation, youth have too little engagement,” he continued.

Father Vu added, “Even in Vietnamese Catholic communities in the U.S., you will find this movement — and it energizes our Church!”  

 

This is the first in a series of three articles from Vietnam.