VIETNAM - VATICAN - Vietnamese regime uses Pope’s discourses to divide Church and arrest faithful [AN]

[Catholic_Press]

**The words of Benedict XVI to the bishops used to criticize the Vietnamese bishops, priests and faithful who have sunk the Church in "spiritual corruption”. Allegations also against priests who “planned” to overthrow the regime. Arrests of bloggers and dissidents. **

Hanoi (AsiaNews) - A young Catholic catechumen, author of a blog, was arrested on August 27. Local sources tell AsiaNews that the police are preparing a new series of arrests of people who dare to criticize the distorted way in which the regimes’ newspapers have presented Benedict XVI’s address to the Vietnamese bishops during their recent ad Limina visit (See Daily Bulletin Holy See Press Office 27.06.2009).

Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Khai, a Redemptorist priest from Hanoi, confirmed to AsiaNews, “the arrest of Bui Thanh Hieu, a young catechumen of the diocese, who was studying to be baptized.” "His arrest - added a nun - will not be the last. Many Catholic bloggers have criticized the ‘shameful distortion’ with which the state media presented the speech of Pope Benedict XVI to the *Ad Limina *bishops. All of them risk arrest. "

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[JimG]

It is truly a diabolical ploy for the Vietnam government to use a few sentences from the Pope’s address to try to actually justify its persecution of the Church in Vietnam.

Not many in the west are paying attention to what is happening to the Catholic Church in Vietnam under the repressive communist regime. But what is happening there, could also happen here.