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03 tháng 10, 2008
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His Holiness, Pope John Paul II
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City, Italy
Telephone: 39-6-69-88-50-88
Date: August 20, 2002
HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
VATICAN, ROME
Your Holiness,
This letter was sent to you sometime in March 2000. Since then,
I haven' t heard from you. Your silent attitude makes me extremely
surprised. Moreover, recently you have apolozied to China for your
Church's crime against this country in the past while you did not do
the same to Vietnam. You know that your Church' s crime against
China is really very much insignificant if compared to what your
Church had done to Vietnam since the 16th century to the
year 1975.
For the above reasons, today, I am sending you this letter again to
remind you to do what you should do when you still have a chance.
Thank you very much for reading this letter and I am looking forward to
hearing from you. May God bless you.
Respectfully
Nguyen Manh Quang
A person from one of the nations victimized by
the Roman Catholic Church
7205 N. 25th Street
Tacoma, WA. 98406 U.S.A.
CC: All Nations, World Agencies and media organizations.
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City, Italy
Telephone: 39-6-69-88-50-88
Date: September 19, 1999 (*)
HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
VATICAN, ROME
Your Holiness,
Throughout the last decade, we were very optimistic about several
beautiful marks you have made in the history of the Roman Catholic
Church. In 1992 Your Holiness publicly acknowledged that the Roman
Catholic Church had been wrong in the case of Galileo Galilei (1),
and towards the end of 1994 Your Holiness called on Catholics to
adopt a penitential stance before entering the third millenium (2).
These noble acts of contrition gave people all over the world great
delight and the belief that they were only initial steps in Your
Holiness’s entire scheme to investigate all the sins committed in
the name of Christ by the Church during the past two milleniums. We
were very much delighted by the fact that up to 1998 Your Holiness
had made a total of ninety-four official apologies to various
nations victimized by the Church (3). Furthermore, in recent years
Your Holiness and a number of Catholic leaders have often advocated
campaigning for democratic and human rights for the poor peoples who
are writhing under dictatorial powers. Even much greater delight was
brought about by Your Holiness’s July 1999 assertion that:
(i).Heaven is not an abstraction nor a physical place amid the
clouds, but a living personal relationship with the Holy Trinity
(4).
(ii).Hell is not a punishment imposed extremely by God, but the
condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in
this life
(5).
On September 1st, 1999, Your Holiness made a public
apology “for all the misdeeds, injustices, and violations of
human rights committed by the Church in the past” (6). And most
recently, on Friday, December 17, 1999, when President Vaclav Havel
of Czecho-slovakia visited Rome, you apologized to the Czech people
for the Church’s burning of Father John Huss at the stake in 1415
(7).
This has filled us with overwhelming exultation and bolstered up
our confidence in the Church’s serious willingness to defend and
fight for democratic and human rights of the unfortunate people of
countries that are still under oppressive dictatorial rule. It has
also convinced us that your sincere repentance will impel the Church
to take into account the untold misery and suffering inflicted on
the Vietnamese nation for over a century as a consequence of the
Church’s imperialist policies and other sins.
Your Holiness, the wisdom of our ancestors lies in the saying “Weeds
cannot be effectively eradicated if they are not thoroughly
uprooted”. Your Holiness and the Church must have realized that
it was her imperialist policies and other concomitant wrong doings
that led to all the “historic sins committed by her children” in
victimized countries. Thus, mere apologies and penitence, are not
only futile but also utterly worthless. In order to fight
effectively for democratic and human rights for the unfortunate
peoples under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, the Church
must, first and foremost, make herself an exemplary democratic
institution. This may be done by democratizing all her political and
governmental machinery, and straightforwardly and unequivocally
denounce her long-standing bellicose imperialist policies. To these
ends, the Church must initiate a thorough revolution from the top
echelons within the Vatican down to the grass-roots units in remote
villages or communes in the countryside.
Your Holiness,
In order to implement the above-mentioned revolutionary
undertakings, we solemnly propose that Your Holiness (a) democratize
all the organs of the Church’s government structure, (b) abolish
whatever is undemocratic, backward, feudal and outdated, and (c)
delegate the Church’s representatives to the victimized countries to
negotiate compensation and seek forgiveness. The following is a
number of proposals in detail that we respectfully beseech Your
Holiness to consider and to implement as soon as possible for the
sake of the Church’s prestige.
I. APROPOS OF THE
PAPACY AND THE RULING MACHINERY
l. For the democratization of all governing bodies of the
Vatican, elections need to be organized to select people for the
office of Cardinal, Archbishop, and Bishop, each for a term of
office that is restricted to a number of years. If necessary, a term
limit should be imposed on people holding these offices.
2. Abrogate all rituals that are inappropriate to a free and
democratic society, for example, the rituals of kings kissing
Cardinals’ feet, believers kissing missionaries’ shoes or sandals
and bishops’ rings.
3. Desist using language and terms that smack of haughtiness,
deception, contempt, insolence, self-righteousness, e.g. “cong
giao” (public religion), “ta giao” (evil religion), “di giao”
(heresy), “tro lai dao” (“returned to the Church” for converteds),
“Chua chon” (chosen by God), “lam sang danh Chua” (glorify
God/Christ’s name) for those who support the Church, “chong Chua”
(anti-Chirst) for those who are considered as against the Church,
etc., and feudal-sounding forms of address that degrade Christian
believers. Whatever position and office one holds, one has no right
to assume the position of and call themselves “cha” (father), and
address believers as “con” (Child/Children).
II.- APROPOS OF POLITICAL POLICIES AND AMORAL
STRATEGIES
FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF CHRITIANITY
1.- Solemnly decree the immediate
abolition of the “Church powers above State powers” doctrine.
2.- Solemnly decree the immediate
abrogation of the political doctrine based on St. Thomas Aquinas’s
(1225-1274) theological power theory, which claimed that rulers are
chosen by God and, therefore, they are not supposed to be toppled by
the people’s revolutionary uprisings even though they are corrupt
and tyrannical.
3.- Publicly condemn the Church’s decrees
of 1449 (which ordained the use of armed forces to invade
non-Christian territories and force the conquered peoples to convert
to Christianity), 1452 (which allowed the Church’s henchmen to
enslave the conquered nations), and 1493 (which divided the world
into two parts, one of which was then granted to Spain, the other to
Portugal). Issue a decree abrogating all the said decrees and
assuming responsibilities for all the consequences brought about by
them to the victims.
4.- Issue a decree unequivocally
condemning Pope Pius VII’s message of April 29, 1814 to the Bishop
of Troyes, and condemming Pope Gregory XVI’s (1830 – 1846)
proclamation - that “freedom of press is the most detrimental,
terrible and disgusting…”, and solemnly pledging to honor freedom of
thought, freedom of religion, freedom of press, etc. as do all
democratic states in North America and Western Europe.
5.-Solemnly decree the repeal of the
Church law whereby non-Christian people are required to go through
absolution rituals (e.g., to be baptized), prior to marrying their
Christian lovers.
III.- APROPOS OF WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE TO VIETNAM
A.-Publish an official document solemnly
acknowledging that the Church was wrong when embarking on acts that
violated the national security and sovereignty of Vietnam ever since
the first half of the 16th century. These wrong doings
consisted of:
1.- Espionage activities through which strategic
intelligence information was collected and sent back to the Vatican
and the French colonialists (8).
2.- Enticement of paupers, gangsters, and dissidents into
converting to Catholicism, in fact for the purpose of recruiting
them into rings of resident spies, who later provided inside support
to the Vatican-French allied expeditionary forces when they came to
invade Vietnam,
3.- Dispatch to Vietnam of professional spies under the
guise of missionaries to organize and run espionage activities.
These spies later returned to Europe and even went to Paris in order
to campaign for French troops to be sent to invade Vietnam. This
campaign consisted of:
a.- Alexandre de Rhodes, a priest who campaigned
with King Louis XIV in Paris in the 1650’s,
b.- Pigneau de Behaine, a bishop who took Prince
Canh, aged 4, to Paris in the mid-1780’s for a campaign with King
Louis XVI for reinforcements to help Nguyen Anh fight Tay Son,
c.- Pellerin, a bishop, Legrand de Liraye, a
priest, and Huc, a priest, who came to Paris in the 1850’s to
persuade Queen Eugenie and Napoleon III to send troops to invade
Vietnam,
d.- Urging and aiding Bishop Pigneau de Behaine
in his blatant interference in Vietnam’s internal affairs,
particularly the procurement of French military aid to help Nguyen
Anh in his fight for the throne against Tay Son, paving the way for
the subsequent invasion of Vietnam by the French,
e.- Complicity with the French in scheming for
the re-establishment of French occupation and colonization of
Vietnam by appointing Thierry d’Argenlieu, a Catholic priest, High
Commissioner/Governor of Indochina in August 1945 for the purpose of
seeking inside support and collaboration from the Vietnamese
Catholics.
f.- Complicity with French General De Lattre de
Tassigny in instructing the Council of Bishops of Indochina. This
council consisted of 14 Archbishops and Bishops: John Dooley
(chairman), Jean Baptiste Chabatier (of Pnom Penh), Ngo Dinh Thuc
(of Vinh Long), Jean Cassigne (Sanh, of Saigon), Marcel Piquet (Loi,
of Qui Nhon), Jean Marie Maze (Kim, of Hung Hoa), Anselme Tadde Tu
(i.e. Le Huu Tu, of Phat Diem), Pierre Marie Chi (i.e. Pham Ngoc
Chi, of Bui Chu), Jean Baptiste Urrita (Thi, of Hue), Dominique
Hoang van Doan (of Bac Ninh), Joseph Marie Trinh Nhu Khue (of
Hanoi), Fr. Felice Perez (Hien, of Hai Phong), Fr. Bernard Illomera
(Yen, of Thai Binh), Paul Renaud (Ai, of Kontum). It was held from
Nov. 5 to Nov. 10, 1951 to agree on and issue a statement ordering
all the Catholics in Indochina to oppose the Viet Minh Front-led
Resistance against the imperialist-colonialist Vatican-French
Alliance.
B.- Issue an official statement
unequivocally condemning the following works:
1.- “Day Four” chapter (on the Church’s teachings) of the
work “Catechism in Eight Days” (because of its libelous and
defamatory content against the gods of the traditional Vietnamese
religious beliefs),
2.- The biblical book “The Daily Lessons from the Bible”
published by the Saigon diocese in 1971 and endorsed by Archbishop
Nguyen van Binh on March 19, 1971. This book refers the Vietnamese
people as “the barbarians”. This book contains several extremely
uncivilized and belligerent language, such as “completely destroy
the religion of the Buddha god” (pha tan dao but than). We implore
Your Holiness to ban the two books.
C.- Issue an official statement
acknowledging the Church’s fault in inducing Vietnamese Catholics
“not to acknowledge the power and law of the Vietnam State”, and in
teaching them that “the Pope in Rome is their only and supreme king”
and therefore “they have to subject themselves to the Vatican only”
(9). Such teachings effectively destabilized the then
Vietnam society, thus enabling the Vatican-French Alliance to ‘fish
in the troubled waters’ - to conquer Vietnam easily and establish
colonial rule.
D.- Issue an official statement solemnly
acknowledging two serious mistakes committed by the Church under
Pope Pius XII’s (1939-1958). One was in asking the American
government to help rescue Vatican-French allied troops under siege
at the Dien Bien Phu fortified outpost since early 1954 by using
atomic bombs to break the siege (fortunately, the American
government refused). The other was in campaigning with the American
government for assistance in putting Ngo Dinh Diem into power in the
Republic of (South) Vietnam, who served as an instrument for the
Vatican to carry on her scheme to Catholicize South Vietnam.
E.- Issue an official statement solemnly
acknowledging that during the 1862 - April 30, 1975 period the
Church has collected an enormous amount of wealth from the
Vietnamese nation, as presented in the book “Thuc Chat cua Giao Hoi
La Ma” (The True Nature of The Roman Catholic Church).
F.- Issue an official statement solemnly
asking the Vietnamese people pardon for the above-mentioned sins,
and acknowledging that those wrong doings have plunged them in
incessant, catastrophic misery and suffering, whose long-lasting
effects have lingered on to-date like deep and painful wounds
impossible to heal.
G.- Issue an official statement repealing
the Church’s 6-19-1988 decree, which sanctified 117 Vietnamese and
European persons, and acknowledging that the sanctification of these
people was a grave mistake. We beg Your Holiness to affirm that
these fanatic criminals were so stupefied that they committed high
crimes against their fatherland. Thus, the withdrawal of the decree
will appease the anger of the majority of the Vietnamese people at
the Church.
H.- Set up a commission to consider and
negotiate with the Vietnamese government the return of all
properties (including cultural and religious institutions) and the
compensation for the damage caused by all the Church’s activities in
Vietnam since the first missionary sent to Vietnam in 1533. To
guarantee impartiality, this commission should be constituted of
progressive intellectuals, who are knowledgeable about Vietnam
affairs but not closely associated with the pre-1954 colonial rule
and the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. The study of this committee should
also include a compensation of the property and money taken away by
the French missionaries and the Diem government (Eighteen billion
dollars, mentioned in the book “Our Own Worst Enemy” by William J.
Lederer, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1968, p. 165).
Your Holiness,
There have been fanatical Vietnamese Catholics
who hold that “Even if in fact there were wrongs done to the
Vietnamese people, they were only the work of individual Catholics
or Catholic missionaries, not the Church. And as the Church had
nothing to do with those wrongs, there is no need for her to
apologize to anybody.” We believe that Your Holiness are keenly
aware of the Church history, and that, more than anybody else, Your
Holiness are aware of Your Holiness’s as well as the Church’s
responsibility for the catastrophic sufferings inflicted on
victimized countries by “her children”. It must have been very clear
to Your Holiness that all the wrong doings, even though committed by
fanatical, over-zealous Catholics, are as much the Church’s as Your
Holiness’s own responsibilities because they were perpetrated along
the line of the Vatican’s 1449 and 1452 directives and decrees. As a
result, Your Holiness have resolutely and courageously admitted to
the Church’s past misdeeds and publicly apologized to the victims
regardless of possible impediment and objection from the
conservative camp within the Vatican. It is common knowledge that
the problem with fanatical fundamentalists, is that they are unable
to understand thoroughly the history and past deeds of their
Church.. Under these circumstances, how can fanatical Christian
fundamentalists grasp the lofty significance of Your Holiness’s
repeated acknowledgements of the Church’s past misdeeds and
apologies to the victims?
Your Holiness,
Your have courageously overcome
innumerable difficulties and obstacles, particularly Your Holiness’s
own pride, to acknowledge the Church past wrongs and apologize to
the victims. Your Holiness have done what your predecessors were
unable to do. No wonder Your Holiness have been acclaimed as the
greatest Pope in the Church history. Unfortunately, in reality what
Your Holiness have accomplished so far have been “mere utterances”.
We believe in the saying “Actions speak louder than words” and trust
that Your Holiness do, too. The countries that were victimized by
the Church have been looking forward to concrete actions from Your
Holiness and the Church to alleviate the victims’ resentment and
animosity against her. Without the follow-up actions, people of the
world cannot help doubting the Church and the following questions
will inevitably be raised:
1.-
How can the Church fight for freedom and democracy for people of the
world while the Vatican adopts a absolute sacerdotal monarchy with
rituals that smack of feudalism, and use forms of address and
language that are extremely impertinent, uncivilized and degrading?
2.-
How can the Church fight for human rights or ask that human rights
be honored while it is the Church that violates the human rights of
those belonging to other religions? This is evidenced by the fact
that the Church forces non-Christian people to renounce their own
religion and be converted to Catholicism before they can get married
to their Christian lovers.
3.-
How can the Church honor freedom of thought and freedom of the press
while the Church has not publicly and solemnly denounced Pope
Gregory XVI’s (1831-1846) condemnation of freedom of the press as
“the most detrimental and disgusting”?
4.- How can the Church honor freedom of religion
when she still condones the use “The Catechism in Eight Days” of
Alexander de Rhode’s book, and the “The Daily Lessons from the
Bible” by Saigon diocese as mentioned above?
5.-
How can the Church fight for justice for all when she still
maintains a high-handed attitude and refuses to negotiate with the
authorities of countries victimized by the Church (among which,
Vietnam) to reach an agreement on compensations for the damage done?
Your Holiness,
A proverb has taught us that a single instance
of failure to keep his words is enough to cause a person to lose his
entire creditability. Our experience with Mr. Ngo Dinh Diem, a
protégé of the Church, has rendered us very sensitive to and wary of
words. As President of the Republic of Vietnam, Mr. Ngo Dinh Diem
has gone back on his words and betrayed Emperor Bao Dai, his
American supporters, his old friends, the Buddhists, the opposition,
and the people of South Vietnam as many as 13 times. Furthermore, as
Your Holiness must be well aware of, in the past the Church
delegated missionaries to Africa, America and Asia to claim freedom
of religion and the right to disseminate Christianity. In the
meanwhile, the Church outlawed this freedom in areas under her
control in Western and Southern Europe. As a result, the Church
became notorious with her Inquisition sending over 11 million
followers of other religion to their death.
Your Holiness,
“Repentance must accompany Penance”. We
sincerely and urgently beg Your Holiness to consider the above
aspirations and materialize your honest repentances by actions to
relieve the anger and hatred nurtured by the people of the countries
victimized by the Church through her past wrongs that Your Holiness
have acknowledged and apologized for. This type os actions will
prevent people’s remittance of former President Nguyen van Thieu’s
statement: “Don’t believe what they say, watch carefully what they
do instead”. Only by such actions can the Church save her prestige.
May God bless you.
Respectfully yours,
Nguyen Manh Quang
A person from one of the nations victimized by
the Roman Catholic Church
7205 N. 25th Street
Tacoma, WA. 98406
U.S.A.
CC: All Nations and World Agencies.
NOTES
(1) “Giao Hoi Cong Giao Da Nhin Nhan Sai
Lam Trong Vu An Galileo”. Chinh Nghia Weekly, No. 146, Nov. 7, 1992.
(2) Paula Butturini, “Pope Wants Catholic
Church To Confess Its Sins”. Houston Chronicle, Tuesday, Nov. 15,
1994.
(3) Chu Van Trinh & Tuong Minh, “Roi Mat
Na” (Fallen Mask ). Tavares, Florida: Ban Tu Thu Tu Luc, 1998, back
cover page.
(4) Hoc Hoi Giesu Kito Phuc Sinh. Tuyen
Cao 8, Article 1, page 2.
(5) Jude Webber. “No Fire or Brimstone,
But Hell’s Real, Pope Says.” Houston Chronicle, July 29, 1999, p.
26A.
(6) “Duc Giao Hoang Jean-Paul II: Giao
Hoi Cong Giao Se xin Loi ve Qua Khu”. Nguoi Viet Tay Bac, No. 807,
Sept. 7, 1999.
(7) “Pope John Paul II apologized…” The
News Tribune (Tacoma), Saturday, December 18, 1999. This is an
excerpt from the article: “Pope John Paul II apologized Friday for
the “cruel” execution of Jan Hus, a Czech religious reformer who was
burned at the stake in 1415. The apology was timed for the visit
from the Czech president, Vaclav Havel, who donated the Christmas
tree outside St. Peter’s that is to be lighted today.”
(8) Avro Manhattan, “Vietnam, Why Did We
Go?” Chino, CA: Chick Publication, 1984, p. 139.
(9) Nguyen Xuan Tho, “Buoc Mo Dau Cua Su
Thiet Lap He Thong Thuoc Dia Phap O Vietnam (1858-1897). Published
by the author, 1995, p. 17.
(*) January 10, 2000:
Translated from Vietnamese version and updated the latest apology of
the Pope.
See Vietnamese version
Những lá thư ngỏ
Gửi Quý vị Tu sĩ Ca-tô và giáo dân người Việt (Nguyễn Mạnh Quang)
Letter To Pope John Paul II (Nguyễn Mạnh Quang)
Thư Cám Ơn (Charlie Nguyễn)
Thư Ngỏ gửi Cám Ơn TGM (Trần Chung Ngọc)
Thư Ngỏ Gửi Giáo Hoàng John Paul II (Nguyễn Mạnh Quang)
Thư Ngỏ Gửi TGM Ngô Quang Kiệt (Nguyễn Mạnh Quang)