Uploaded on: 06/24/2007
‘Boat people’ brought Mary icons and deep faith
By Christina Capecchi
The Catholic Spirit
Youth at St. Columba in St. Paul offer flowers to Mary in May. Father Tâm Do is pictured in the back row, just right of the center.
Father Tâm Do remembers his stay in a Vietnamese prison camp clearly.
“Twelve years, seven months and 14 days,” he said. “I counted because in Vietnam, we say, ‘One day in prison is like 1,000 days outside.’”
But the retired priest, now 77, recalls his arrival at St. Columba of St. Paul just as clearly.
“I came here at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 17, 1995,” Father Do said. “They laugh that I remember that.”
His brown eyes light up behind his bifocals. It’s a rainy June afternoon and he’s wearing a navy blue skullcap and a Champion sweatshirt.
Today, the Vietnamese presence in the Twin Cities is powerful. About 25,000 Vietnamese people live in the metro area, and 5,500 of them are Catholic, estimates Father Minh Vu, pastor of St. Adalbert in St. Paul.
Father Vu is one of many “boat people,” the Vietnamese who immigrated to America via boat in order to escape religious persecution. They came in droves in 1975, when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam, and they continued in steady increments throughout the 1980s.
All the boat people could carry with them was their Catholicism.
“They left everything but their icons of Our Lady,” Father Do said, “and she rescued them.”
Vietnamese Catholics have a special devotion to Our Lady of Lavang, the Vietnamese city where Mary appeared 200 years ago to console persecuted Christians.
“Even now the government forbids people to go [to the Lavang shrine], but every year, people go,” Father Do said.
That perseverance characterizes Vietnamese Catholics, he said. “They are very vivid, very lively. Their faith is very alive.”
It’s evident when they gather in Missouri each year for Marian Days — honoring the Feast of the Assumption and numbering at least 50,000.
“The American bishops said that the Vietnamese Catholics bring God to the streets,” Father Do said. “We have these processions and we take God to the people on the corner.”
But the Vietnamese faith is strong year round.
“Father Dan [Conlin, pastor of St. Columba], he was amazed that every Sunday they go to church — even the young people, from the small to the old,” Father Do said.
Their devotion is evident to the other St. Columba parishioners, he added, especially when they worship together at the Easter Vigil service.
“It’s marvelous. The Americans said, ‘We like to see Vietnamese with us and hear the beautiful Vietnamese music.’
They smile when they hear our chants.”
Vietnamese Catholics have brought a number of rich traditions to the area, including their annual celebration of the lunar new year.
“The date changes every year,” Father Do explained. “Like Easter.”
Vietnamese Catholics also seem to be entering the religious life in greater number, according to Father Vu. He credits their strong family ties and parental encouragement of priesthood.
The immigrants bring an appreciation of America, too.
“I tell my Catholics at the pulpit, ‘You fled Vietnam and came here to practice your religion, so trust in God and worship him in gratitude for your freedom,” Father Do said.
He exhorts his parishioners to pray for their native country, where there are currently five cardinals. He believes Catholicism will grow in Vietnam — and he prays fervently for the conversion of communists.
The communists incarcerated Father Do from 1975 to 1988 on the charge of being a priest. Yet as painful as his memories of prison camp are, he harbors no ill will for his captors.
“Pray for those who persecute you,” Father Do said. “Now my daily prayer is, ‘Lord, accept my long years in jail and make the communists convert to Catholicism that we might one day be in heaven together,’”
He paused and smiled.
“That’s my revenge.”