Catholic Church In Vietnam

Improved Essays
“Religion is the belief in spirits” or “religion is the belief in the supernatural” (Horton, 201). Catholicism is a religious organization to bring the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people, and helps people follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to attain a better life in heaven. It was great opportunity that I was taught Catholicism in a local church when I was about ten. At that time, I didn’t actually know what a religion is, why I had to go to church every Sunday, and how I can believe in the Catholicism teachings that seemed so abstract. Growing up along with the practices in the Catholic school for about six years and the religious direction from my family, I truly become a Catholic with the happiness and the pride …show more content…
The Catholic community in Vietnam is a part of the Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the Roman Curia. Vietnam is a country with the proportion of Catholics ranked fifth in Asia. The Catholicism has been spread into Vietnam since the sixteenth century preaching from European missionaries. In the first half of the twentieth century, Vietnamese Catholics developed a more present and powerful sense of religious community that stretched beyond parish, mission, or region (Keith, 147). Through many historical changes and development in religion forms, despite of the oppression and restrictions from the government, Catholicism has gained tremendous achievement and become widespread throughout Vietnam. Growing up with the Catholic faith, I was taught that I supposed to have the religious beliefs that my religion teaches in Catholic school. The way I was raised and my family’s religious practice also have influence on my religious beliefs. A belief system is the actual set of precepts from which you live your daily life, those that govern your thoughts, words, and actions (Xavier, 2010). When I was very young, about five or six …show more content…
Since I had an opportunity to get involved in the Catholic activities, lessons, and practices when I was so young, I used to have my own standard about goodness and badness based on the teaching of Bible. I used to think that only people who follow the words of the Lord were good, and that’s why good people were usually Catholics. Moreover, I was also taught by my grandparents that only Catholic couples can marry and live in happiness. I had obeyed that until I came to America; everything changed. I have a friend; he is a “good” Catholic as he always talked about himself. Since he went to church every Sunday, volunteered in a church group, and went to confession regularly, I thought “yeah, he is following what Jesus wants, devoting his lifetime to God.” However, during the time being around with him, I noticed something else. He ignored the homeless people in the parking lots, made up stories and lies about others, and told me to check every restroom every time I used because people usually forgot their phones in it. I couldn’t tell how I was shock when hearing those “dirty” words from a Catholic. Meanwhile, my other friend, who is a Buddhist, stopped to pick a bug on the ground and throw it back to the soil to prevent other people

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Many of the government officials were Catholics. Diem showed favoritism, being a “devout Catholic” himself. He only appointed people who share his religious beliefs. However, roughly 70% of the population was Buddhist, and many monks were angered and started protesting against his preference towards Catholics. In response, Diem started imprisoning thousands of Buddhist monks and sending them to prison camps, often sending them to their deaths.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Spanish Mass

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Spanish Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church 1. What happened during the services? I arrived at the church a few minutes prior to the service and I was greatly surprised by how well attended the service was. There were dozens of families in a spectrum of Sunday best and work-stained denim jeans and nearly every person wore a yellow and white vest with a red cross embroidered on the lapel. At the entrance there was a small dipping well and although there was no water in it at the moment, (most likely due to the sizeable crowd) people still placed their fingers in the dry well and crossed themselves before entering the chapel and before sitting, they would cross themselves again.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before starting this project I came across an article from Huffington Post called Beyond the Conservative/Liberal Catholic Divide, written by Matthew N. Schmalz. My first time reading this article I thought that Schmalz was just writing about the different stereotypes in the catholic religion and that it is possible to be a liberal catholic, which originally sparked my interest. As a liberal I never knew that we could even participate in the Catholic Church, due to my views on Gay Marriage and abortion. Little did I know that there was so much more than just another thing that liberals and conservatives con not come to similar terms on from a local Catholic Church. As a community Saint Thomas Aquinas University Parish practices forgiveness and acceptance for some more than others.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Religion can be considered to be the common human culture, there is a mysterious myth, it is the human spirit. The Faith is the highest embodiment of a talent human subjective response, it is the paradise of the human consciousness of the universe, the earth's history beyond the form of fate, it is of our human existence and the integrity of the relationship between the objective world, it is a kind of metaphysical…

    • 74 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Religion has been around since ancient times. Religion usually consisted of regular rituals, spirit led practices, myths, and fables based on a belief in higher supernatural entities and/or an entity who created and continued to maintain the world and help give structure to the life of humans. In today's world, everyone has their own life experiences but not everyone's life experiences includes religion. Some people have grown up practicing religion and/or may have started practing religion later on in their life. While others may have never indulged in religious practices.…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lemoore, California. The 559, the 93245, the small rural town located in the central region of the San Joaquin Valley. A place that will melt flip flops to the ground in the summer, yet it will have people gathering around a fire in the winter with their hands wrapped tightly around a steaming cup of cocoa. Not much goes on in this town and it is not quite what someone would call a vacation destination, but there is indeed something special about this town. This special characteristic is the way religion connects and creates a family out of the majority of people who live in this town.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In what ways has the term "religion" been defined? Religion has been defined as a particular response to dimensions of life considered sacred, as shaped by institutional traditions. What are some of the different perspectives available for understand religion? There are three different perspectives for understanding religion; materialist, functional and faith. Materialist perspective states that humans invented religion.…

    • 196 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Personal Religious Beliefs

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Personal religious beliefs can be defined as the constitutional protection which is against compulsory immunizations. Accordingly, it can be defined as the reality of the mythological, supernatural or spiritual aspects of a religion. According to, (Gibson, & Randall, 1988), religious belief is distinct from the religious practices with some believer’s not practicing religion as some practitioners not believing religion. There are several forms of religious belief as acknowledged by, (Josephson, & Peteet, 2004), including; universalism which can be explained as the situation where by individuals believes that religion cannot be separated from other aspects of life. Orthodoxy is another form of religious belief which closely follows the edicts,…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    From the time we are born, we are impacted by our family’s thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. However, I believe that there comes a time in every individual’s life when they are faced with the obligation to decide whether or not they wish to continue living under the belief system they were so casually brought up with.…

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Paper 2 Religion in Modern Music Religion plays a distinct role in modern music. The song created in two thousand twelve, “Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)” by Chris Tomlin is an example of religious ideas being expressed in a secular song. In this specific song and associated music video, Christian religious views of people in our culture are reflected. Through Jeffrey Mahan’s concepts of religion, media, and culture, religious ideas and concepts are demonstrated in this modern music video.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Roman Catholic Church has been a second home for me and the community has become family. I grew up learning and building a love for the morality, compassion, teachings, discipline, support and safety that comes with being a part of the Catholic community and attending Catholic school. The Catholic traditions that I have experienced throughout my life have shaped the way I experience God now. “Scripture and Tradition are mutually related: Tradition gave birth to the Scriptures and is always necessary in order to interpret the Scriptures; the Scriptures, in turn, are the text that definitively expresses the Apostolic Tradition” (Ontario Catholic Secondary Curriculum…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is what defines someone. If someone is extremely religious, then that is their identity and what they believe in. Religion is the belief of a superhuman power that has control over everything. James McBride, an african-american writer, has a white mother who found a new life in a new religion. It is very common for religion to shape one’s identity and what they do.…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, this is not to say that the concept of the paranormal is a new one. Paranormal experiences have been documented since human beings began keeping records. The interpretation of a paranormal experience is largely influenced by an individual’s religion. Religion is a concept that does not have one simple definition. Over the years, religions have and will continue to change and develop as more is explored.…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church states “the sacraments make the Church, since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons. The Church also offers models of holiness which include saints and those in our…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Religion Reflection Paper

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages

    I decided for my paper that I would touch on a couple different topics that I can relate to as far as religion. The first topic I plan on speaking on is my definition of religion and what I have come to realize. I also plan on speaking about the different beliefs and practices that I have either been a part of or witnessed. By the end of this paper you will be able to see the change of a young me in opposed to me now with a mind of my own. Growing up as a child I believed religion was just going to church every Sunday with my grandparents.…

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays