austraLasia 1274
Vietnam: the youth ministry situation
HO CHI MINH CITY: 6th October 2005 -- While running these brief series on the life of the Church in Vietnam, it may be of interest to take a likewise brief look at the youth ministry scene there. As these overviews are indeed brief, and summary, they obviously cannot deal with matters in great detail, but be assured they are very much up-to-date, from reliable sources in situ.
From a positive perspective, Vietnamese youth (in Vietnam) still respond to, live within the moral tradition of their family upbringing, and here we are speaking especially of Catholic youngsters. In society, generally speaking, Vietnamese youth live still within traditional economic structures; they are hard-working, diligent and eager to grow. Vietnamese families are still somewhere at the mid-point between being large and being 'nuclear'. The larger families are in the countryside, whereas the smaller ones are more likely to be found in the urban areas. Overall, Vietnam's socialist government restricts the negative influence of Western lifestyles insofar as it controls access to movies, Internet games. It could be said that young people from the countryside are still naive by comparison with their Western counterparts - a naivety that can be viewed positively.
That being said, it is not all rosy. In large cities, there is the evident phenomena of growing numbers of young people attracted to consumerist, individualistic lifestyles. And just as evident are numbers who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, or who engage in promiscuous lifestyles. Again, in the city, and in line with government policy regarding planned parenthood, clinics offer free services to pregnant women. The number of young adolescent females attending this clinics is alarming.
Inequality of development between city and countryside is now much more noticeable. Large numbers of young villagers flock to the cities in search of employment, to support their families back in the village. In this sense they become uprooted, family bonds weaken, and they are 'adrift'. Many foreign companies offer jobs to young women, girls, usually in textile and clothing manufacturing. This very high resultant disproportion between male and female in the workplace (2% and 98% respectively) gives rise to a number of social evils. Freedom from family, supervision, and the attraction of loose lifestyles has meant increasing numbers of children born out of wedlock, cohabitation and the like. Add to that an education inspired by non or worse anti-religious sentiments, and children coming out of elementary and junior high schools have already gained some 'proficiency' in cheating, manipulation, self-calculation and so on.
Interesting, in the light of the above to look at the Church's response. The parish works well in the traditional setting where new lifestyle trends have not yet disturbed the pattern. But in the big cities, those traditional structures do not seem to be enough to protect the young. Parish choirs, catechist groups, youth leadership groups attract just a few. Workers, students, migrant youngsters seem unfamiliar with these structures. If uprooted youngsters are still coming to Mass, then Church attendance appears to be all the Church offers - but their attendance is more due to family tradition than to personal conviction nourished by catechesis, so (like many other parts of the world, one has to add!) they stand at the back or just outside, chatting. And that's 'going to Mass'. For the Church's part, a sense of being 'missionary' amongst Vietnam's 7-8% young Catholic population seems largely non-existent.
A final comment: general collaboration with those working for the young would appear to be more an individual thing than a planned, communal collaborative venture, even and maybe especially with government.
VOCABULARY
in situ: Latin, for in the place, on the spot
insofar as: expression meaning to the extent that. Another version is inasmuch as..
_____________
Vietnam: the youth ministry situation
HO CHI MINH CITY: 6th October 2005 -- While running these brief series on the life of the Church in Vietnam, it may be of interest to take a likewise brief look at the youth ministry scene there. As these overviews are indeed brief, and summary, they obviously cannot deal with matters in great detail, but be assured they are very much up-to-date, from reliable sources in situ.
From a positive perspective, Vietnamese youth (in Vietnam) still respond to, live within the moral tradition of their family upbringing, and here we are speaking especially of Catholic youngsters. In society, generally speaking, Vietnamese youth live still within traditional economic structures; they are hard-working, diligent and eager to grow. Vietnamese families are still somewhere at the mid-point between being large and being 'nuclear'. The larger families are in the countryside, whereas the smaller ones are more likely to be found in the urban areas. Overall, Vietnam's socialist government restricts the negative influence of Western lifestyles insofar as it controls access to movies, Internet games. It could be said that young people from the countryside are still naive by comparison with their Western counterparts - a naivety that can be viewed positively.
That being said, it is not all rosy. In large cities, there is the evident phenomena of growing numbers of young people attracted to consumerist, individualistic lifestyles. And just as evident are numbers who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, or who engage in promiscuous lifestyles. Again, in the city, and in line with government policy regarding planned parenthood, clinics offer free services to pregnant women. The number of young adolescent females attending this clinics is alarming.
Inequality of development between city and countryside is now much more noticeable. Large numbers of young villagers flock to the cities in search of employment, to support their families back in the village. In this sense they become uprooted, family bonds weaken, and they are 'adrift'. Many foreign companies offer jobs to young women, girls, usually in textile and clothing manufacturing. This very high resultant disproportion between male and female in the workplace (2% and 98% respectively) gives rise to a number of social evils. Freedom from family, supervision, and the attraction of loose lifestyles has meant increasing numbers of children born out of wedlock, cohabitation and the like. Add to that an education inspired by non or worse anti-religious sentiments, and children coming out of elementary and junior high schools have already gained some 'proficiency' in cheating, manipulation, self-calculation and so on.
Interesting, in the light of the above to look at the Church's response. The parish works well in the traditional setting where new lifestyle trends have not yet disturbed the pattern. But in the big cities, those traditional structures do not seem to be enough to protect the young. Parish choirs, catechist groups, youth leadership groups attract just a few. Workers, students, migrant youngsters seem unfamiliar with these structures. If uprooted youngsters are still coming to Mass, then Church attendance appears to be all the Church offers - but their attendance is more due to family tradition than to personal conviction nourished by catechesis, so (like many other parts of the world, one has to add!) they stand at the back or just outside, chatting. And that's 'going to Mass'. For the Church's part, a sense of being 'missionary' amongst Vietnam's 7-8% young Catholic population seems largely non-existent.
A final comment: general collaboration with those working for the young would appear to be more an individual thing than a planned, communal collaborative venture, even and maybe especially with government.
VOCABULARY
in situ: Latin, for in the place, on the spot
insofar as: expression meaning to the extent that. Another version is inasmuch as..
_____________
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