Religion

My two articles on Vietnamese Catholic refugees

Click here to read or download the first article–and here for the second article.

“Ultramontanism, Nationalism, and the Fall of Saigon: Historicizing the Vietnamese American Catholic Experience,” American Catholic Studies (Spring 2019): 1-36.
“The Resettlement of Vietnamese Refugee Religious, Priests, and Seminarians in the United States, 1975–1977,” U.S. Catholic Historian 37.3 (Summer 2019): 99-122.

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September 7, 2019 0

Marianism during decolonization in Indochina

052c151520fc512df251f5f460fe7da4 — Letter of Bishop Trịnh Như Khuê, dated June 19, 1951, inviting the clergy, religious, and laity to participate in the Legion of Mary. The full letter could be read at https://www.legiomariaevn.com/chi-tiet-tin-tuc/21/duc-phanxico-nghi-gi-ve-quy.html

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September 4, 2019 0

Five recent articles on the Vietnam Conflict

In order of discussion:

Balázs Szalontai, “The ‘Sole Legal Government of Vietnam’: The Bao Dai Factor and Soviet Attitudes toward Vietnam, 1947–1950,” Journal of Cold War Studies 20:3 (2018): 3–56.
Phi-Vân Nguyen, “A Secular State for a Religious Nation: The Republic of Vietnam and Religious Nationalism, 1946–1963,” Journal of Asian Studies 77:3 (2018): 741–771.
Olga Dror, “Education and Politics in Wartime: School Systems in North and South Vietnam, 1965–1975,” Journal of Cold War Studies 20: 3 (2018): 57–113.
John C. Schafer, “Ngô Kha, Vietnam’s Civil Wars, and the Need for Forgiveness.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 13:1 (2018): 1–41.
Duy Lap Nguyen, “Sovereignty, Surveillance, and Spectacle in South Vietnamese Spy Fiction,” positions: east asia cultures critique 26:1 (2018): 111–150.

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August 2, 2019 0

Catholic-Protestant relations in South Vietnam: competition to collaboration?

I am getting to the last volume of a Catholic periodical from South Vietnam, and it includes news items about a three-and-a-half-week training on translating the Bible. It was held during Mach 1974 in Dalat and at the Alliance Evangelical Center (Trung Tâm Tin Lành Alliance), commonly known as the Villa Alliance at the time.

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July 27, 2019 0

Lê Hoàng Phu’s 1972 dissertation on the Evangelical Church of Vietnam

After my last post, I went back to the dissertation by the Protestant minister Lê Hoàng Phu (1926-2003) on the history of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) up to 1965. Completed over four and a half decades ago, it is, at 560 pages, on the longer end of dissertations then and even now. Having browsed it before, I read it more slowly this time and found it an important work in several respects.

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July 22, 2019 0

There’s too little scholarship about Protestantism in South Vietnam!

VA064225 Prewitt Collection — This chapel in Nha Trang was probably designed for American Baptists at first, but it also drew Vietnamese through activities such as picnics and English classes. ~ pc Charles Prewitt Collection, Vietnam Archives, TTU

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July 20, 2019 0

Panel on Wilson Miscamble’s biography of Fr. Ted Hesburgh

This is a follow-up to my post on my dissertation advisor’s new book. Fr. Bill Miscamble told me that he expected his biography of Fr. Hesburgh won’t please many people, and now we have a good example in Kenneth Woodward’s review in Commonweal.

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June 2, 2019 0

The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima in South Vietnam

I wrote the last post about the beginning of Cursillo to South Vietnam, and this one is about the beginning of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima. Both occurred during the 1960s around the Americanization of the Vietnam War. Catholics in the Philippines were instrumental to the establishment of Cursillo in South Vietnam. When it comes to the Blue Army, however, it was the initiative of a Vietnamese then studying in the U.S., followed by eager assistance from the Americans, Australians, etc. and eager participation among Vietnamese Catholics.

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