The Catholic Church in Vietnam:An E

The Catholic Church in Vietnam:
An Example of Contextualization
KimSon Nguyen*
Abstract
Contextualization of the Church has been an endless problem, not only
for being relevant but also to be indigenous in its form, style, language etc.
This was a problem more so for the Church which found its way out of colonial
patronization and support in the modern times.
The Catholic Church in Vietnam is a case in point as it moved with the
times to be not only national but also independent to be contextual in history.
Key words: Contextualization, Inculturation, Colonialism.
Beginning as a religious mission in the seventeenth century, the Catholic
Church of Vietnam became one of the main religious organizations in the
twentieth century. In its journey towards becoming a national institution,
the Catholic Church of Vietnam was able to contextualize its Christian faith
relevantly to the culture in terms of theological approaches, art works, and
rituals. It would seem that the Church’s identification with the social, political,
cultural and religious life of Vietnam over these centuries and, developing
a contextualized theology, constantly revolutionized and created a unique
Vietnamese Catholicism as it is today. 1 Thus, what the Jesuits had done in
contextualization, particularly in Vietnam, and generally in Asia in the previous
centuries, became a foundational premise for a better picture of holistic
contextualization for the Vietnamese Catholic Church in the twentieth century.
Mr. KimSon Nguyen is a Ph.D. student in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological
Seminary, Pasadena, California.
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Asia Journal of Theology
Catholicism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Vietnam:
Alexander de Rhodes’ Contextualized Process
Like other Jesuit missionaries in Asia in the eighteenth century, Alexander
de Rhodes focused on contextualization, requiring careful engagement with
aspects of the indigenous cultures in an attempt to convey the Gospel in cultural
forms familiar to ordinary peopleAJust as Ricci’s efforts made Christianity
meaningful in a Chinese context, so too, did Alexander de Rhodes greatly impact
the development of Christianity in Vietnam. Within his first year of working in
the Kingdom of Tonkin (the northern area of Vietnam today), Rhodes attempted
to accommodate the cult of ancestors as one of inculturation. In contrast to
his colleagues, Ricci in China and Roberto di Nobili in India, or even Xavier in
Japan, de Rhodes did not adopt the costumes of mandarins or the upper class
or the local feudal lords (daimyos). Rather, he adapted his personal lifestyle
to the local way of life.3
Rhodes saw that the urgent task needing to be done was to translate
Christian theological terms into the Vietnamese language of the people to
whom the Gospel was being preached.4 Unlike Ricci in China, who sought to
establish a bridge between the concept of God as a personal being and the
concept of a supreme entity in the “original”5 Confucianism, Rhodes struggled
to connect God’s name with culture in the process of translating Christian
text into the vernacular, both in pure Vietnamese6 (or chit nho) and in SinoVietnamese7
(or chit nom). Indeed, the process of “translating the message”
required being both careful in engagement with aspects of the indigenous
cultures and using relevant approaches to convey the Gospel in cultural forms
familiar to ordinary people.8 Rhodes and other Jesuits finally chose chit nom,
which was more widely used among the common people, permitting “a more
extensive communication with the Vietnamese.”9 This accommodation kept
the nascent Vietnamese Christian church rooted in the native culture rather
than in the foreign culture of which Chinese characters were a potent symbol
and instrument of expansion.10 However, while learning the language, Rhodes
realized that there was no adequate word in the common Vietnamese (chit
nom) to describe God's name or the concept of God, such as dao, dang, Phat,
or But though he knew the Vietnamese people were no less religious than the
Athenians that Paul encountered at Athens (Acts 17).11 It meant there was
an “explicit recognition of the presence of God among those who had not yet
accepted the Gospel.”12 Another word that described God in Vietnamese was
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The Catholic Church in Vietnam:
Ong Trdi [Mr. Heaven literally].13 However, Rhodes hesitated to use this word
because he was afraid that “it might suggest that the material heaven is divine,
which he believed to be a common misconception among the Chinese and the
Vietnamese.”14 Indeed, Rhodes explained in Cathechimus that “heaven” is not
divine but created (pages 12-16). He finally decided to coin a new expression
“dice Chua trdi ddt” [the honorable Lord of heaven and earth].15
Rhodes’ approach in translating the word for God is extremely instructive
and holds important implications for contextualization today. He did not have
a resource for translation but attempted to find a “dynamic equivalent”16 in
Vietnamese for God. In devising linguistic equivalents he derived his inspiration
as far as possible from biblical terminologies and expression, in this case Paul’s
“ouranou kaiges kuriod' (Acts 17:24). And last, though perhaps unintentionally,
Rhodes invoked one of the fundamental principles of Vietnamese philosophy,
which may be termed cosmotheandric or the anthropocosmic,17 according to
which heaven (the divine), earth (the cosmos), and humanity [trdi, ddt, ngicdi]
must always be viewed in strict unity with one another.18
Counterproductive to their success, Rhodes and other Jesuits encountered
the rites controversy, viewed as a form of syncretism by certain factions within
the church hierarchy, as one of the spiritual conflicts that spilled over from
China.19 However, they avoided the severity of the controversy by observing
how the people practiced their rites on a daily basis, particularly the ancestor
worship, rather than analyzing the rites from the texts, as Ricci attempted in
China. Unlike Ricci, Rhodes opposed the practice of ancestor worship because
it was considered religious and therefore superstitious. His observation of how
the Vietnamese people worshipped Confucius and celebrated funerals and
death anniversaries was derived not from an analysis of the text, but from the
daily practices of the Vietnamese. Leopold Cadiere (1869-1955), a missionary
to Vietnam, agreed with Rhodes on the basis of over fifty years of living with
and observing the Vietnamese: “Such a theory [that the veneration of ancestors
is not religious] is in total contradiction with what can be seen every single day
in Vietnam... [because] the ancestors continue to be part of the family and
the cult rendered them is clearly religious.”20 In contrast, Ricci could defend
the legitimacy of ancestor veneration (from the “original” Confucianism) on
the ground that it was “political and civic in nature” and not religious only by
appealing to texts and perhaps the practice of the elite.21 Furthermore, while
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Asia Journal of Theology
Ricci’s T’ien-chu Shi-iwas dialogue, de Rhode's Cathechismus was continuous
exposition.22
Besides Alexander de Rhode’s effort, another important Jesuit, Geronimo
Maiorica, contributed to the effort of translating the Gospel message, into chu
nom.23 His work reflected his belief that textual diffusion could help build a betteradministered
and more orthodox church in Tonkin in the lives and ministries of
the local clergy and elite in the seventeenth-century Vietnamese Catholic life.24
Shaping a Contextualized Theology of the Twentieth-Century
Independent National Church of Vietnam
The Catholic Church in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
Vietnam faced an old challenge but made a new beginning. Local people and
their rulers and kings were always skeptical about Christianity because of its
ties with foreign missions from the European imperialists. Nevertheless, to
survive in the colonial context, the Catholic Church in Vietnam had to construct
its own theology. Now, the Church had to demonstrate its role and responsibility
in the social and political changes of the twentieth century as being a part of
Vietnam.25 For the Vietnamese Catholic Church, the process of self-theologizing
required the Church to turn away anything that it perceived did not belong, and
to restore what was needed so that the Church would appear to be in alliance
with the Vietnamese culture. This process can be seen in at least three areas.
First, decolonizing foreign imperialism showed patriotism to a national
identity. By voluntarily relating to Vietnamese society and identifying itself with
the marginalized and the oppressed, the Church responded to the needs of
its people. The Church realized that it must identify itself with its country and
people, viewing French colonialism as a “people-eating system” [chi do thuc
dan] . 26 Regardless of whether Vietnamese Christianity was given certain favors
by the French colonial authorities or the French mission, the Church could not
ignore the colonial repression being exacted on its people in the country.27
In the process of identifying with the country culturally and politically, several
Catholic priests took dangerous positions related to various political agendas
of anti-colonialism, anti-communism, and pro-communism. Many Catholic
intellectuals had been in conflict with both the colonial government and the
missionaries. Though many of them had been labeled with the “patriotic priests”
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The Catholic Church in Vietnam:
[nhung linh muc yeu nude] in the post-colonial communist historiography, such
as Ba vj linh muc yeu nude cua giao phdn Vinh [Three Patriotic Priests of Vinh
Diocese], their activities had become a threat to the colonial government, as well
as challenging the domination of the missionaries, they should not be called the
betrayers or compromised priests as the anti-communist trend labeled them.28
Second, the Church shaped i