Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Hanoi (Agenzia Fides) – 2010 will be a Jubilee Year for the Church in Vietnam, as is read in a statement sent to Agenzia Fides from the Bishops' Conference. The Church in Vietnam will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the hierarchy and the 300th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity to Vietnam.
Among the initiatives that will be taking place in the Jubilee Year is a National Congress that will be held in Hue October 7-10, 2010. The Congress, which will gather together all members of the Catholic Church in Vietnam, will be an occasion to reflect on the life and mission of the Church in Vietnam, which in recent months has experienced some difficulties in relationship to the local civil authorities.
During the Jubilee Year, they will also remember the great missionaries who made an important contribution to the evangelization of the country, such as Fr. Cardiere, of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) and the Jesuit, Fr. Alessandro De Rhodes.
As Sister Elisabeth Tran Thi Quynh Giao of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary explains, in preparing for this Year, the Bishops' Conference of Vietnam and the organizational committee have sent the parishes of the various religious congregations and the associations an invitation to the faithful to prepare for this historic event by recalling their history, especially in the following time periods: The First Missions (1553-1659); the Apostolic Vicariate (1659-1960); and the Dioceses (1960-2010).
The religious congregations will be able to offer a whole vision of their past activity, showing the positive results in the area of the missions, in spite of the difficulties they experience in their actions and pastoral strategies in the future. All this material will be collected in a book, with the goal of presenting the various religious congregations and their mission, to procure official information for those who wish to know more about these congregations and promote religious and priestly vocations. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 14/9/2009)
