US embassy cable - 03HANOI1556

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 001556 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV AND DRL/IRF 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, KIRF, PGOV, VM, RELFREE, HUMANR 
SUBJECT:  TRAINING CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN NORTHERN VIETNAM 
 
REF:  A.  Hanoi 073   B.  HO CHI MINH 468 
 
1.  (U)  SUMMARY.  Hanoi's Catholic seminary offers training 
to over 200 would-be priests over a seven year period. 
Local Committees on Religious Affairs screen out some 
candidates, allegedly on grounds of "personal conduct." 
Virtually all graduates become priests; a small percentage 
is able to continue religious training overseas.  No foreign 
professors are allowed.  The Church seeks to open another 
seminary in the north, in Thai Binh province, but remains 
hampered by a long-standing impasse on opening a seventh 
seminary, in southern Dong Nai province. END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (U)  The spacious grounds of the downtown Hanoi Catholic 
Cathedral house one of Vietnam's six Catholic seminaries to 
train the next generation of priests.  Occupying both a 
century-old building constructed as a seminary during the 
French colonial era and a more recent adjacent structure, 
the seminary (now on summer recess) provides a six-year 
training program for priests from 8 northern dioceses.  New 
students are admitted every other year; entrance tests for 
the new cycle beginning in 2004 will be given in September 
2003. 
 
3.  (U)  212 students are currently enrolled in the 
seminary, although no more than about 170 are in Hanoi 
during the school year, given the requirement for a 9-12 
month work practicum after the six years of classroom 
training.  (Students are also expected to intern at their 
home churches during the summer holidays.)  The Hanoi 
seminary is second in size only to the Ho Chi Minh City 
seminary. 
 
4.  (SBU)  According to Ngo Quang Kiet, concurrently Hanoi 
Seminary Director, Hanoi Apostolic Administrator, and Bishop 
of Lang Son (ref a), numbers of students have increased 
substantially from 1978, when the seminary re-opened after 
an 18 year gap in training.  Only nine students were in the 
first class, he recalled, but the 2002 class has 55 would-be 
priests.  He admitted that the local Committees on Religious 
Affairs have an important role in the screening process; for 
the 2002 class, various Committees (apparently at the 
provincial level) screened out 15 individuals, mostly for 
"personal conduct" issues.  He stressed that family 
background or "political" stances were not/not a factor. 
 
5.  (U)  Would-be students must first be recommended by 
local priests, and then pass a standard day-long test, 
mostly dealing with religious knowledge and expertise in 
either English or French.  Virtually all students have 
completed a four year undergraduate university degree 
program; 2/3 of them typically have majored in foreign 
language (with the bulk of them having studied English 
rather than French).  The usual maximum age for entry is 30. 
After the recommendations and successful tests comes the 
scrutiny by the local Committees on Religious Affairs, which 
also assess the students for suitability upon graduation, 
according to Bishop Kiet. 
 
6.  (SBU)  About ninety percent of all graduates become 
priests (and virtually all return to their home diocese), 
but Bishop Kiet declined to describe whether the other 10 
percent fail academically or are ruled out by local 
authorities.  No more than 5 percent of the graduates are 
able to gain scholarships for foreign study, mostly in the 
Philippines, Italy, and France.  None from the north have 
gone to the U.S. for study, due to a lack of available 
scholarships, but Bishop Kiet confirmed that some U.S. 
scholarships exist for seminary graduates in the south. 
Essentially all students come from Catholic families, he 
noted; he could not recall any case of a convert entering 
the seminary.  Nor could he recall any student ever having 
been a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam.  Unlike 
universities and other secondary and tertiary schools in 
Vietnam, there is no chapter of the Ho Chi Minh Youth 
Federation at the seminary, he added. 
 
7.  (U)  23 religious teachers conduct the classes, all of 
which are mandatory, including one new course on bioethics 
as well as standard classes on church law, music, and 
psychology.  There are no courses yet offered on management. 
(Computers are available for common use, and there is 
optional training on computer use.)  Only three professor- 
priests are resident here, however; Bishop Kiet said that 
the other 20 rotate among the various other Catholic 
seminaries, giving a month's course here, a month's course 
there.  A cadre from the Ministry of Education also conducts 
a four-year required course on "civil education."  Bishop 
Kiet admitted that Ho Chi Minh thought and Marxist/Leninist 
ideology are a component of this course, but stressed "only 
a little."  Most of the course is devoted to Vietnamese 
culture and law, he claimed. 
 
8.  (SBU)  No foreign professors teach at the seminary, 
Bishop Kiet confirmed.  He said that the Church had 
requested permission from the Government Committee on 
Religious Affairs "about ten years" ago to bring in a 
foreign professor, but this was denied.  The Church has not 
asked a second time, he claimed, while expressing a hope 
that a foreign professor would be allowed within this 
decade. 
 
9.  (SBU)  Bishop Kiet recalled that, during the French era, 
there were several other Catholic seminaries serving the 
north, such as in Hatay and Ha Nam provinces.  The Church 
has requested permission from the Government Committee on 
Religious Affairs for another northern seminary, to be 
located in Thai Binh (where there is a suitable site 
available, he noted), but Committee officials have indicated 
that no additional seminary could be considered until the 
long-standing impasse over opening the seventh Catholic 
seminary (in southern Dong Nai province, where many of the 
northern Catholics resettled in 1954) was resolved.  Bishop 
Kiet expressed frank puzzlement about the exact nature of 
the problem in Dong Nai, admitting that the Government 
Committee on Religious Affairs had clearly approved its 
establishment "in principle" several years ago. 
 
10.  (SBU)  Bishop Kiet assessed that the biggest change at 
the Seminary over the past two decades had been a higher 
quality of students and the greater international exposure 
of the student body.  He expressed a hope for continued 
expansion of the student body here, as well as the opening 
of the seminary in Thai Binh soon, in order to meet the 
chronic shortage of priests. 
 
11.  (SBU)  Comment:  Catholics in Vietnam have arguably 
easier relations with the GVN than their Protestant 
colleagues, but face the same kind of official scrutiny and 
oversight even the Buddhists encounter as they seek to train 
clergy.  Apart from the civic education, the GVN appears to 
leave the Catholics pretty much to their own devices in 
undertaking their curriculum.  Resources appear to be modest 
and the facilities basic (if once beautiful) in Hanoi.  The 
dedication of the leaders of the northern seminary is 
unmistakable, as was their apparent discomfort in describing 
their relations with the various Committees on Religious 
Affairs -- even in the absence of any GVN minders. 
BURGHARDT