Youth evangelisation is an urgent priority for the Church in Vietnam
Vietnam’s Catholic community is not growing. Young people and their testimony can help evangelise society. Youth need to interact with one another and share their experiences. Moving to the city comes with many difficulties.
Hanoi (AsiaNews) – Young Catholics in Vietnam are actively and enthusiastically taking part in pastoral work and social activities organised by parishes and dioceses. They represent a hope for the future of the Catholic Church and Vietnamese society. But more work is needed to make them steadfast in the faith.
"Missionary work is an urgent task in Vietnam, where tens of millions are denied spiritual values in favour of consumerism, and millions more are living below the poverty level. Some of them earn just a couple of dollars a day," said Fr Anton Nguyễn Ngọc Sơn, editor of the Directory of Vietnam Catholic Church, speaking to AsiaNews.
Vietnam has about 6.7 million Catholics, 7 per cent of a population of 95 million. The Church has 45 bishops, 5,386 priests, 4,854 seminarians and more than 500,000 members of Catholic associations. However, the Catholic community has not grown. In 2015, approximately 38,050 adults were baptised, as many of those who stopped practicing.
“It’s time for people educated in the Catholic faith to meet and love God,” said F Sơn. “At the same time we must show our faith in daily life. The faithful can announce and spread Christian values to others. If we do not love Jesus, we cannot proclaim his Gospel to people around us."
At the last Catholic Youth congress, whose theme was ‘God! What should we do?’, about 30,000 young people from the Archdiocese of Hanoi met in Vinh. The youth took part in the conference on confession and Eucharistic adoration in a moving and holy atmosphere. They interacted with one another and shared experiences of faith in small groups from various dioceses.
Some of the participants spoke to AsiaNews, expressing a “need for psychological counselling and pastoral spirituality". Many of them are far from home to study.
"Before going to university we lived in rural areas,” some said. “Moving to a big city to study or work brings major changes. We feel weird even in everyday life. We need spiritual encouragement and support. For this reason, we meet in small groups to help each other and carry out apostolic work together."
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17/06/2008
06/10/2020 16:04
