Vietnamese Authorities have Stopped a Priest from Leaving the Country for “National Security” Reasons.
Newsroom (31/10/2022 8:15 PM, Gaudium Press) Catholic priest Truong Hoang Vu was prevented from leaving Vietnam last October 24. The priest was about to catch a flight that would take him to Manila, in the Philippines, and then to the United States. He was stopped from traveling by authorities at the Tan Son Nhat airport in the capital Ho Chi Minh City.
The authorities explain that the 45-year-old priest is temporarily banned from leaving the country for “reasons of social order and national security.”
Defender of Human Rights and Religious Freedom
Father Truong Hoang Vu is a Redemptorist and works in the Can Gio parish. He is responsible for the Grateful Season program, a program supported by the United States. Thet help about 6,000 former Vietnam War combatants who suffer from material, physical and psychological hardship.
Father Vu is not the first Redemptorist priest to be banned from leaving Vietnam. Last month, Father Paul Le Xuan Loc was also barred from traveling to the Philippines for “national security” reasons.
In all, six Redemptorist priests have been banned from leaving Vietnam. They are known for fighting against social injustice, religious intolerance, and illegal land grabbing.
Government Message?
Father Le Ngoc Thanh, also a Redemptorist, believes that the ban imposed on Father Vu is a veiled message from the government to the country’s Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.
In the coming weeks the Redemptorists are due to elect new members of the Congregation’s national conference in Vietnam. Father Le Ngoc Thanh suggests that the government wants more moderate and less active members, according to RFA.
The NGO Open Doors, which measures the level of persecution of Christians in the world, shows that Vietnam ranks 19th. There, Christians are tolerated by the government as long as they are discreet, and all those who go against the government are persecuted. (FM)
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Compiled by Florence MacDonald
