La Vang
In another project, the village of La Vang in Quảng Trị Province near the border with North Vietnam, was the scene of a female apparition in the late 19th century. Buddhists claimed that the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (also known as Kuanyin; Vietnamese: "Quan Âm") performed the miracle. Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Thục, was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Huế and the foremost religious figure in South Vietnam's nepotistic regime. Thục declared that the apparition was the Virgin Mary, and ordered that a cathedral be built in place of the makeshift Buddhist pagoda that occupied the site. Thơ made notable financial donations to the project for political reasons.