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Radio Veritas remains a lifeline to rural Vietnamese Catholics

Updated: April 17, 2009 11:30 AM GMT
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Catholics in Vietnam say broadcasts from the Philippines-based radio station of the Asian bishops help them practice their faith in remote areas and evangelize others.

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A nun shows Paul Ho Y Duoc how to use a radio

Radio Veritas Asia, the only continental Catholic short-wave station in the world, celebrated 40 years of broadcasting this month. It aired its first regular programs on April 11, 1969. “We rarely fail to listen to the station’s daily programs, which are very useful to our faith life,” says John Sung Bla Gienh, an ethnic Hmong Catholic in northern Vietnam. Gienh started to listen to the Vietnamese service in 1975 and has tuned in to the Radio Veritas Hmong language programs since they began in 1996. The 65-year-old lay leader finds the presentations of Church news and documents, homilies, prayers and Sunday Mass particularly useful. “I have used all these to teach catechism to local people for many decades when we had no resident priest,” he said in a recent interview. His Phinh Ho parish, with 3,000 Hmong Catholics, is in Yen Bai province, 270 kilometers northwest of Ha Noi. Gienh said his and three other parishes in the area, with a total of 7,000 Catholics, had no resident priest for 40 years. “The station’s services were the only spiritual food for local Catholics," the father of 12 recalled. "Believers gathered around their radios in homes to listen to Sunday Mass, and some people listened to the programs even when they worked in the fields.” A resident priest has served in the area since 2003. The region is home to many ethnic groups. According to Gienh, Hmong people from the neighboring border provinces of Lai Chau, Lao Cai and Son La also learned of Church activities through the radio. Besides teaching catechism classes in his home, Gienh took catechumens and Catholics to meet priests and receive sacraments in other places. However, restrictions imposed by local authorities forced many villagers to stop practicing their faith openly. Many believers felt threatened, and in some cases officials confiscated their land and animals. As the situation eased in recent years, many people converted to Christianity, joining groups that send evangelizers to tribal villages. But the local Catholic Church lacks such workers, Gienh said. Radio Veritas programs also have attracted listeners among other tribal groups besides the Hmong. In a Van Kieu village, Paul Ho Y Duoc, 35, used to listen to the programs in another Catholic villager’s home on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. He had no radio of his own. Recently, however, during Holy Week, he received a radio from a benefactor, and a visiting nun showed him how to use it. Four Lovers of the Holy Cross nuns based in Hue, central Vietnam, had gone to Mo O village to bring food and other assistance for the villagers. “I am very happy to have a radio," Duoc said. "I will invite other villagers to my home to listen to Radio Veritas.” Catholics in his village used to gather at one home to say prayers, sing hymns and listen to the Mass the station aired on Sundays. Since 2002, a priest has provided pastoral services at villagers´ houses every other weekend. Radio Veritas is run by the Federation of Asian Bishops´ Conferences. Its Vietnamese program is broadcast four times a day, including news about the Church around the world, prayers, youth programs, Bible studies and Sunday Masses.
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