Some people think that the death of the Catholic Church is inevitable. They've thought this throughout history-- during the Roman persecutions, during the Arian persecution, during the Muslim invasions, during the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of Marxism, Communism and Secularism and now in the post-modern age.
What the critics of the Church fail to realize is that often the Church revives herself. And if one geographic area is lost, the Church gains another.
Vietnam is just one example.
People sacrifice to become Catholics in some parts of the world. But they join the Church for the love of Christ. Here, people won't even go to Church every Sunday, even when it's a convenient five minute walk.
Although the government has exalted economic outcomes in these areas, for Catholics – often discriminated against – there is only poverty. Most of them live on less than a dollar a day, employed in fields or in the production of bricks.
Many families do not even have enough to feed their children, who survive by begging on the streets of big cities. Since 1979, the local government has strictly monitored the community, taking bibles and holy books and having leaders followed.
The small parish hall of Gia An was built in 1992 by Fr Francis Xavier Dinh Tan, who was appointed by the then-bishop of Phan Theit, Mgr Nicholas Huynh Van Nghi. The path leading to the small building has eroded so much with time that elderly people and children no longer dare to travel along it to attend Mass.
So on Saturday, the parish priest goes to the homes of such parishioners to celebrate Mass there. The new bishop of Phan Theit, Mgr Paul Nguyen Thanh Hoan, has given the go-ahead for the construction of a new church but the community needs to raise at least 130,000 US dollars. The community has already raised 10,000.
It just might be that in the future, the centre of Catholicism will be Korea (which already has a huge Catholic population), China, Vietnam and other South Asian countries.
