The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1958-04-04
Faith in Vietnam:
Missions May Literally
SAGE The Whole World
BY Erik Won KuehneIt-L eddihn

1t is a tremendous experience in a Catholics
Life to see, at long last, the missions and the mission
aries about whom he has heard so much-eSpecially
in his childhood-and which, for the most of us,
remain part of a ~dreamworld.
Religious educators consider it very wholesome
to interest the little ones in the missions because
this fires their imagination. The pedagogical value of
the drives for the missions lies in a little sacrifice,
in a training for concerted action, in collecting TIM
foil, stamps, and pennies.
Adults occasionally continue this habit formed at
a tender age; at least there is Mission Sunday when
one has to make a little extra effort at the collection:
On the other hand ones attention is held by all
the important aspects of Catholic Action right at
home. And thus the missions, becoming merely part
of childhood memories, fade to all practical purposes
into oblivion.
All this is terrible thing to write and | am sure
that 1t does not apply to all OF us. Yet, by and large,
l feel that it is correct in depicting a frightening and
shameful situation.
Our missions are. not a marginal affair of the
Church. After visiting and studying their field, especi-
ally here in Asia, | can only say one thing: the prob
lem of our missions, of their success Or failure, is
not merely a question of the spiritual welfare of in
dividuals; it involves the future of this entire world
our doing or undoing, the civilized survival of man.
kind.
In times bygone it ~mattered, though it was not
crucially important, whether this or that nation or
race had the true faith. Salvation outside of the
Church may be difficult, but it is not impossible.
Today the world is rapidly integrating; today
distances no longer matter; today wars and revolu-
tons mean huge and devastating massacres; today
the mOnentOuS question is LnlS. VIII mdHk1Hu De ILL.
fled under the common denomlnator OF the hammer
and Sickle-Or of the Cross?
The answer hes with Catholics, not solely with
the Church as a hierarchic and ecclesiastic organ
ization, but with each Catholic who, spiritually and
materially, must bring sacrifices for the missions. This
immense responsibility rests squarely on our should
ers and not on those of the other scattered, divided,
and frequently. confused Christian faiths who often
work ~tragically at cross purposes.
| have just visited crucified Vietnam, an lndo-
Chinese nation cut in half like Korea or Germany.
Here the missions have achieved a great deal. Be-
tween one fifth and one fourth of the nation is Catho-
lie. &
The head of the state is a devout Catholic and
the brother of a bishop. Saigon, the capital, gives the
impression of a Catholic city with numerous church
steeples. Yet, at night IN the streets one still sees
people who sleep out there not for comfort but be-
cause they have no place to lay their weary heads.
American Catholics, through the channels of the
National Catholic Welfare Conference, have done a
magnificent work of aid and reconstruction. They
have reSettled thousands of farmers, they have help
ed in the cities. But the special tragedy of Vletnam
lies in the fact that most of its, Catholics lived in the
now Communist dominated North. Half of them, head
ed by a now captive bishop, decided to stay and to
hold out. The other half fled south to free Vietnan,
preferring material to spiritual suffering. q
Had the Christian West-Ffance, Germany, Amer
lea, Spain, Austria, Ireland-put all their energies
into the Missions, who knows whether the Commune
lists in the North could have prevailed. Sometimes
it can be lacking presence OF a missionary Tor his
lack of a car or motor boat which may prevent one
conversion of just one key man who might have fol-
lowed Rome rather than Moscow
l was profoundly impressed by the Vietnamese
Catholics. Never anywhere-not even in the Basque
country-have I seen such devotion at Mass, such
masses of Communicates.
/ talked to a score of Vietnamese priests who
tell me of a continuous flood of conversions as well
as of unspeakable suffering.
And while / collected data and impressions, while
watching the misery and the heroism of the Vietnam-
csc Catholics-a frail, almost childlike looking people
Il remembered sadly our own Catholics in the West,
living so frequently their materialistic and egotlstlc
lives without caring for the millions of their breth-
rem in other parts of the world, nor, curiously enough,
even for their own future which so easily may lie
in Asia.
q IT. I-Ts T- To~ &