Our lady of Vietnam : a "miracle"
Even though most people would have to stand, the Rev. Peter Long gathered about 300 newly arrived Vietnamese each evening in the tiny chapel.
They wore donated clothes and the despair of homesickness. But during Mass, the Vietnamese Catholics tried to forget that they had fled their war-torn country, left behind loved ones and were housed temporarily in barracks at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania.
Long, 62, who had escaped Vietnam in a fishing boat carrying just a small suitcase filled with vestments and books, prayed with the congregants. Keep believing in God, he told them. Faith will help you make a new life, he said.
Now, 25 years later, Long is preparing to dedicate a spacious $5.5 million building for his growing Vietnamese parish in Silver Spring. Cardinal James A. Hickey, spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, will preside over the blessing of Our Lady of Vietnam Roman Catholic Church on Nov. 4, and the congregation plans to move in by the end of December.
The yellow concrete structure has a curved, red, pagoda-style roof and is the first Roman Catholic church in the United States built in a Vietnamese design, according to Vietnamese Catholic officials.
To the congregation of 670 families, the 20,000-square-foot church on New Hampshire Avenue represents how far they have come since their flight from Vietnam and how they have blended their cultural heritage with their Catholic faith.
"This is a miracle," Long said.
In 1975, the year that Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, "the community was very small," he said. "The conditions in this country were very difficult for us at first. . . . I think God loves the Vietnamese people. This church was a dream, and now it's a reality."
Soon after Long left the Pennsylvania refugee camp, he began serving about 120 Vietnamese Catholic families in the Washington area. Like many immigrant congregations, the Vietnamese rented space from another church and worshiped in the afternoons.
Long, whose devout Catholic family sent him to a seminary when he was 10, had served two parishes in Vietnam. He yearned for his Vietnamese American congregation to have its own building and identity.
In 1987, Long bought a ranch house in Silver Spring and conducted baptisms, weddings and Sunday services from his living room. Six years later, the fast-growing congregation built a one-story church on the four-acre property and later razed the ranch house.
That church became the basement in which the congregation now meets while the new structure rises above them.
The Washington region, home to the largest Vietnamese population on the East Coast with 50,000 people, has two Vietnamese Catholic parishes: Our Lady of Vietnam and Holy Martyrs of Vietnam in Arlington, serving about 1,200 families.About 375,000 of the Vietnamese immigrants in the United States--roughly one-third--are Catholic, according to Monsignor Dominic Luong, who leads a parish in New Orleans and is national consultant for the Vietnamese apostolate.
By contrast, Vietnam is an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, with Catholics making up less than 10 percent of the population. Fearful of persecution, Catholics were the majority of those who fled communist Vietnam after 1975.
As Vietnamese Catholic congregations have grown, many parishes have bought and renovated aging churches. Others have built new churches but without the architectural flourishes that would distinguish them from others in America.
But Long and his parish wanted Vietnamese culture ingrained in their new building, even though it would cost more. Seven years ago, they began raising money to add two floors atop the 1993 sanctuary.
Long said that as the immigrants adapt to America, they don't want to forget their culture. "God is first, but our culture is important, too," he said.
The Roman Catholic Church has long supported inclusion of cultural heritage, said Michael Foley, a political science professor at Catholic University who studies religion and immigrants. In recent years, much of the church's growth in the United States resulted from immigrant groups, he said.
"Without distorting the Christian message, elements of culture should be incorporated," Foley said. "Immigrant congregations often have a liveliness and enthusiasm about them that can be infectious."
At Our Lady of Vietnam, Mass is subdued and traditional. The Vietnamese flavor isn't apparent until after the service.>
On a recent Sunday, the church parking lot buzzed with activity. Parishioners, including some women wearing traditional silk tunics and trousers, looked for their friends. Parents talked to their kids about Vietnamese language classes that afternoon.
A large crowd clamored around three market stands. There, three families were selling rice desserts, pork sandwiches, pickled vegetables, fresh produce and frozen seafood.
The vendors also offered bags of nacho chips. But they definitely weren't the bestsellers.
"Try this," said Kim Chi Pham, 46, thrusting sticky-rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves at a customer. "They're very good this week."
"I want to help the Vietnamese community," Dang said. "I never believed this could happen. We didn't have any money. We had nothing. God gave us this."
Sara Nguyen, 35, came to United States at age 10 and now lives a "mixed life," a blend of American and Vietnamese culture. As the youth group leader and a mother of four, she sees this generation of Vietnamese Americans assimilating even more, with no memories of the harsh journey from Vietnam.
Nguyen, who grew up collecting records by the Carpenters as well as Vietnamese pop music, said that she sometimes has trouble understanding a Vietnamese-language Mass and that her children can barely speak Vietnamese.To keep young people interested in the church's message, Nguyen helps to arrange a bilingual service every month. "I want them to remember that they're Vietnamese, too," said Nguyen, a Silver Spring Realtor. "You can take the best from each culture."
On a recent morning, Long walked the grounds of the new church and discussed its cultural blend.Because Vietnamese honor simplicity and amiability, the lines of the roofs are gentle curves, rather than the sharp lines of Chinese structures. The 12 roof points are for the 12 apostles. The building's three tiers symbolize the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. They also stand for the values of Vietnamese philosophy: happiness, benevolence and longevity.
A small golden egg on the roof represents the one that, according to folklore, cracked open and gave birth to the 100 clans of the Vietnamese nation. A cross crowns the top."Look at that," Long said, smiling wide. "This is the concept of heritage I will send to the future, to the children."
By Phuong Ly - The Washington Post - October 19, 2000.
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