Over 2,000 people gathered on Friday night at Sacred Heart Church, Cabramatta, in Sydney's west for a prayer vigil in solidarity with Hanoi Catholics.
Catholics, Buddhists and representatives of other religious groups attended the vigil and called upon the Vietnamese government to put an end to the persecution against them, VietCatholic News reports.
Political representatives, including Senator David Clarke, Cabramatta Councillor Nhan Tran, NSW Legislative Assembly candidate Dai Le, and other members of various Sydney's organisations including Venerable Thich Phuoc Dat of The Vietnamese Buddhist Phuc Hue temple attended the event.
Local Vietnamese priests concelebrating in the Mass were joined by Polish Fr Krystof Chwalek and Fr Nguyen Van Hung, a Vietnamese priest from Taiwan.
In his sermon, Sydney Vietnamese Catholic chaplain, Fr Nguyen Khoa Toan said that politics is not in the Church's functionalities, yet we cannot stand aside from society."
"The joy and hope, sorrow and worry of the Vietnamese people are also the joy and hope, sorrow and worry of all Vietnamese Catholic faithful," he said.
In that spirit, Catholic in Sydney gathered to pray for their brothers and sisters in their homeland and to denounce human rights violations by the Vietnam government against its own people.
At the end of the Mass, protestors stood chanting and praying for hours before the statue of Mother of Divine Love.
Fr Paul Van Chi Chu, the coordinator of the prayer vigil, told VietCatholic News that "not only in Sydney, Vietnamese Catholics in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and other states held similar vigils to pray for the Church in Vietnam and to report to the Australian Community and the international Community about the critical situation concerning persecution against the Catholic clergy and faithful by the Vietnamese Communist government."
For the updated situation of Hanoi Archdiocese, "at this hour," he reported, "numerous Catholics are still being detained indefinitely in jail, the Archbishop of Hanoi and several leaders of the Redemptorist Congregation in Hanoi have been subjects of a governmental campaign of public defamation and humiliation."
In addition, "Church properties including buildings and religious items have been vandalised or ransacked in broad daylight, not to mention the priests and the pacifist demonstrators are being harassed daily by vicious thugs who would stop at nothing to terrorise and to insult this innocent victim under the government's instruction. The Catholic Church in Vietnam as a whole is now the subject of Vietnam government's persecution by definition," he insisted.
Catholics, Buddhists and representatives of other religious groups attended the vigil and called upon the Vietnamese government to put an end to the persecution against them, VietCatholic News reports. Political representatives, including Senator David Clarke, Cabramatta Councillor Nhan Tran, NSW Legislative Assembly candidate Dai Le, and other members of various Sydney's organisations including Venerable Thich Phuoc Dat of The Vietnamese Buddhist Phuc Hue temple attended the event.
Local Vietnamese priests concelebrating in the Mass were joined by Polish Fr Krystof Chwalek and Fr Nguyen Van Hung, a Vietnamese priest from Taiwan.
In his sermon, Sydney Vietnamese Catholic chaplain, Fr Nguyen Khoa Toan said that politics is not in the Church's functionalities, yet we cannot stand aside from society."
"The joy and hope, sorrow and worry of the Vietnamese people are also the joy and hope, sorrow and worry of all Vietnamese Catholic faithful," he said.
In that spirit, Catholic in Sydney gathered to pray for their brothers and sisters in their homeland and to denounce human rights violations by the Vietnam government against its own people.
At the end of the Mass, protestors stood chanting and praying for hours before the statue of Mother of Divine Love.
Fr Paul Van Chi Chu, the coordinator of the prayer vigil, told VietCatholic News that "not only in Sydney, Vietnamese Catholics in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and other states held similar vigils to pray for the Church in Vietnam and to report to the Australian Community and the international Community about the critical situation concerning persecution against the Catholic clergy and faithful by the Vietnamese Communist government."
For the updated situation of Hanoi Archdiocese, "at this hour," he reported, "numerous Catholics are still being detained indefinitely in jail, the Archbishop of Hanoi and several leaders of the Redemptorist Congregation in Hanoi have been subjects of a governmental campaign of public defamation and humiliation."
In addition, "Church properties including buildings and religious items have been vandalised or ransacked in broad daylight, not to mention the priests and the pacifist demonstrators are being harassed daily by vicious thugs who would stop at nothing to terrorise and to insult this innocent victim under the government's instruction. The Catholic Church in Vietnam as a whole is now the subject of Vietnam government's persecution by definition," he insisted.