LOS ANGELES — Forty years ago, a transformation of the Catholic Church began in the western United States, as large numbers of Vietnamese refugees fleeing communism came to America.

Many were Catholic, and after suffering much in their escape from Vietnam, they brought a renewed fervor to the Church in America.

While vocations to the priesthood were in decline among the native population — between 1965 and 2000, the annual number of priestly ordinations in the U.S. dropped by more than 50% — many young Vietnamese answered the call. The faith was brought to the country by Dominican, Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century and spread through French colonization of what was then known as French Indochina.

A few generations ago, clergy on the West Coast had large Irish presence; today, many are Vietnamese.

Father Truc Nguyen is one such priest who left his homeland as a youth and built a new life in the United States. Father Nguyen is the pastor of Cathedral Chapel of St. Vibiana in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He was born in Samoi, Vietnam, and came to the U.S. at age 12 in 1975.

He is the seventh of 10 children; his father was a special forces officer in the South Vietnamese army. For more than a decade, his father battled the North Vietnamese forces and saw his three closest friends killed in combat. The family moved frequently between military bases. As the priest recalled, “We heard bombs exploding all the time. Almost every house we stayed in had a bunker.”

At age 5, Father Nguyen was living in Saigon when the North launched the Tet Offensive. He said, “It was the closest the war got to us. The communists infiltrated the city, and after the fighting, there were bodies of dead communist soldiers lying everywhere.”

 

A New Beginning

On May 29, 1975, the day before the South Vietnamese government’s surrender, the Nguyen family fled the country, crowded on the deck of a commercial ship with 900 other refugees “on a ship that probably had a capacity for about 100.”

For seven tense days, the captain made his way toward international waters, dodging North Vietnamese patrols and Thai pirates. Communist gunboats repeatedly fired on the ship, terrifying the young Nguyen and the passengers. Relief came when they encountered U.S. Navy ships, who offered to escort them. He said, “God rescued us and brought us to freedom.”

The family settled in Orange County, Calif., south of Los Angeles. Father Nguyen said, “We had to learn things all over again: a new language, a new culture and a new life.”

Young Truc initially pursued a career as an electrical engineer, but in his 30s, he answered the call to the priesthood. Vietnamese families are excited when they have a son who becomes a priest. He remarked, “It is an honor for the family. They jump for joy.”

He returned to Vietnam for a visit in 2009. Religious freedom is a mixed bag, he said, depending on what part of the country you visit. The faith remains vibrant, however, with as much as 20% of the population identifying as Catholic.

Not every patriotic Vietnamese refugee could stomach a trip back though, he noted, as “pictures of [communist leader] Ho Chi Minh are everywhere.”

 

Refugee Ministry

Father Joachim Hien is a retired diocesan priest of the Diocese of Spokane, Wash. He was born in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1946. The family was active in the Church there; his father, in fact, had been a seminarian who was imprisoned by the communists because of his faith.

“At that time, the communists would tell you they were going to release you, then take you to the jungle and shoot you in the back as you were walking away,” Father Hien said. “My father was warned and was able to escape.”

Father Hien went to a seminary in Da Lat, which was operated by French Jesuits. Other than some “minor skirmishes,” the war left “beautiful” Da Lat untouched, he said.

In 1974, he was ordained a priest. Because he was young and he had not yet been assigned a parish, he was sent overseas to aid the Vietnamese refugees who had begun streaming out of the country. He started ministering in Seattle, but he soon moved to Spokane.

“French was my second language, so I began giving my homilies in French and had a Canadian man translate them for me,” he recalled. “My first pastor told me to learn English, so I studied and picked it up on my own.”

He has made frequent trips back to Vietnam and said that while seminaries are “overflowing,” Catholics still aren’t allowed to open schools or operate hospitals. He is pleased to have befriended Servant of God Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who spent 13 years in communist prison camps. Father said, “He’s a saint. I believe he’ll be the first non-martyr Vietnamese Catholic canonized.”

 

The Freedom to Become a Priest

Father Quang Dong is a priest at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang in Las Vegas. He was born in 1960 and grew up on a military base in Saigon, as his father was a medic in the South Vietnamese army. He remarked, “Growing up during the war was very unpleasant. Bombs flew over our house every day.”

When Saigon fell in 1975, he saw North Vietnamese communist troops “come out of nowhere” and take control of the city. Chaos ensued. He recalled, “I thought our lives were doomed, that we had no future. Our country had collapsed. Everything was gone.”

Father Dong  joined a Salesian community at age 12. The communist government closed it. Priests were arrested, and celebration of the Mass was scarce. He noted that, today in Vietnam, there is a dearth of middle-aged priests: “No one was being ordained for 25 or 30 years. Today, Vietnamese priests are very young or very old.”

There was much physical hardship as well, and food was in short supply: “It was a struggle to survive.”

The Dong family decided its younger members should try to escape to the U.S. and begin again, even though, Father noted, “We couldn’t even pronounce ‘United States.’ We said ‘America’ or ‘USA.’” Quang and his siblings attempted escape multiple times.

Father Dong was finally successful in 1980, although Thai boats stopped his boat 22 times to rob the passengers. During one robbery, their engine was taken, and they floated seven days in the open ocean. The priest recalled, “I was so mad, I wanted to get even. But I’ve come to let my anger go and forgive them.”

The United Nations eventually came to their rescue, and Father Dong made his way to the San Francisco Bay area. He began his studies for the priesthood and was ordained for the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., in 1991. He has been at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang for three years.

He has since made multiple trips to Vietnam, but he is grateful for his new home in the United States: “Without the freedoms we enjoy here, I could not have continued my studies for the priesthood. It’s wonderful to be free to express your thoughts and to preach what is right.”

Register correspondent Jim Graves writes from Newport Beach, California.