In this Book
University of California Press
- Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: University of California Press
- Series: From Indochina to Vietnam: Revolution and War in a Global Perspective
summary
In this important new study, Charles Keith explores the complex position of the Catholic Church in modern Vietnamese history. By demonstrating how French colonial rule allowed for the transformation of Catholic missions in Vietnam into broad and powerful economic and institutional structures, Keith discovers the ways race defined ecclesiastical and cultural prestige and control of resources and institutional authority. This, along with colonial rule itself, created a culture of religious life in which relationships between Vietnamese Catholics and European missionaries were less equal and more fractious than ever before. However, the colonial era also brought unprecedented ties between Vietnam and the transnational institutions and culture of global Catholicism, as Vatican reforms to create an independent national Church helped Vietnamese Catholics to reimagine and redefine their relationships to both missionary Catholicism and to colonial rule itself. Much like the myriad revolutionary ideologies and struggles in the name of the Vietnamese nation, this revolution in Vietnamese Catholic life was ultimately ambiguous, even contradictory: it established the foundations for an independent national Church, but it also polarized the place of the new Church in post-colonial Vietnamese politics and society and produced deep divisions between Vietnamese Catholics themselves.
Table of Contents
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- List of Illustrations
- p. viii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xi
- Introduction
- pp. 1-17
- 2. A Colonial Church Divided
- pp. 55-87
- 3. The Birth of a National Church
- pp. 88-117
- 4. Vietnamese Catholic Tradition on Trial
- pp. 118-146
- 5. A National Church Experienced
- pp. 147-176
- 7. A National Church in Revolution and War
- pp. 208-241
- Epilogue. A National Church Divided
- pp. 242-248
- Bibliography
- pp. 289-304
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520953826
Related ISBN(s)
9780520272477
MARC Record
OCLC
811505145
Pages
333
Launched on MUSE
2014-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No