Whither Vietnamese Catholic Communities in America? Catholic Youth and the Clash of Faith and Culture (Part 2)

Whither Vietnamese Catholic Communities in America? Catholic Youth and the Clash of Faith and Culture (Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

Part 2

Interviewee: Rev. Liêm Trần (Houston, TX)

12 June 2020

Anna Nguyen

These interviews were conducted via Zoom and are published with only light editing for clarity. They are intended to supplement my initial research and provide a better understanding of different perspectives in regards to the sustainability of Vietnamese-American Catholicism. 

Rev. Liêm Trần is a parochial vicar at the Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Houston, Texas. After taking his first vows in Vietnam, he immigrated to America to pursue opportunities for further education and completed his priestly ordination in Canada. Rev. Trần served as a vicar provincial for his order in Calgary, Canada, for eight years and has worked with congregations in Canada and the United States (most notably the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam parish in Arlington, Virginia).

Anna Nguyen: Can you tell me about some of the parishes you’ve worked with in the past? How would you describe this congregation?

Rev. Liêm Trần: Well, my first assignment after my ordination in 1993 was as a parochial vicar for an English speaking parish in Canada. That was a very unique church in Canada and across the USA too because it is one building under one roof with two congregations: one Catholic and one Lutheran. So it’s kind of an ecumenical community. We have different chapels for different Catholic masses and Lutheran Sunday worship. For the Catholics, we have daily and Sunday masses, and it is very unique because there’s one office shared by two congregations. My experience with that church is very positive because we have been working together as a team of brothers and sisters in Christ.  

After that I was put in another parish for English speaking people too. There were not a lot of young people in that parish. I really enjoyed that and although they don’t have a lot of activities, they have rich programs for the poor and homeless. Two times a year they have a program called “Inn From The Cold”, where they would feed and shelter the homeless and the poor for just one evening. They cook for them and let them sleep in the hall, things like that. I was there for two years and then the order elected me to do work for the order.

AN: How would you describe the congregation at these parishes?

LT: When I worked for the Canadian parish, we had what we called the ecumenical center. [The Catholics are] very different, and have a lot of youth activity there. We have got a youth group where we have ball games and then Bible studies. We share the Bible and also eat meals together once a week. And for the other group, with the Lutherans, we shared everything so we had staff meetings once a month. But we function differently as a different congregation.

Comparing that experience to the Vietnamese parish with the English speaking congregation, there are a lot of small groups in the latter. Every parish that I have been involved with that has a Vietnamese congregation has a lot of activity; we have youth groups and they are very active in the Vietnamese Catholic Church. The Vietnamese Catholic Church was born from the Vietnamese from Vietnam, though, and they have a youth group called Eucharistic Youth Group. A lot of children from six years old up until high school come to serve the children and they learn catechism and the Vietnamese language. So every weekend, it’s very, very busy.

This church here, Our Lady of Lourdes, has almost 700 children, from different classes and groups. A lot of young people. For the older group, we have all kinds of groups that you can think of for all the people. They love to gather together and they just pray. And for the middle-aged group, they visit each others’ families often. Every week, they rotate hosting responsibilities and they meet at someone’s home to pray and sometimes have meals together. Once a while, every family in that group has some kind of special day like a birthday or an anniversary of death, where they gather to pray for their intention. And of course, every Sunday, because we have four Sundays in a month, they take turns to serve our different masses.

They gather together and have meetings at the church once every week. They meet in the church and there’s a lot of activities outside a religious setting, like they’re in charge of feeding the poor. So they take turns to do it, and it’s kind of a fundraising for the church.

LT: And every semester, they have a retreat for the group where they celebrate the group’s feast day or saint’s day and things like that. So a lot of activities and they meet every week.

AN: I get that you have a lot of experience with younger generations. Can you elaborate more about that? Is it because of a strong youth presence in the parish, or is it mainly because of these programs?

LT: The youth programs at these churches are very active, and participate in things beyond their local church. They also join activities within the diocese as well as other churches in Arlington, Virginia. They also join the program called “WorkCamp” organized by the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. It is very large. Usually about 800 kids to 1000 kids. Every year, the diocese would look into the area in the diocese boundaries and find an area within their standard. Then they would ask any parish would like to participate to train their kids and send them together with adult volunteers. Every summer, Our Holy Martyrs of Vietnam church in Arlington would send about 20 to 30 kids, and for every five kids there’s a chaperone who would drive them and teach them how to use tools like hammers and saws and things like that. They go to different groups, and are mixed from the other parishes. Each group would be in charge of, let’s say, building a fence for this on this home, fixing the windows, fixing the roof and things like that. Sometimes they make the handrails for the handicapped. They provide this service to the local area and usually they stay in the gym of high school for one week.

So in the morning they have mass, and then after mass and they go out and do their things, and they’re going back for a shower and for dinner and every evening they have adoration prayers and evening prayers. It’s very wonderful because they not only provide services for the poor, but they also advocate for themselves in the faith. And it really strengthened their practice of the faith in their lives, because a lot of kids came back and they changed. It changed the way they look at society, the way they live their lives and the way that they practice their faith.

A lot of kids went through one session and they wanted to continue on. So they keep coming back. But of course, we cannot take the older ones. So we have to pick and choose, and that program is very popular in the parish here.

AN: That was my follow up question. Even though these programs seem incredible, are they popular among the youth? It seems like they are.

LT: It’s a very wonderful program. Since they stay there for the whole week there’s a lot of activities in terms of spirituality and sacraments and making new friends. They would invite priests from different parishes to come and help them out and listen to confessions so it’s all very moving and touching. So it is everything: spiritual, sacramental, social, and helping the poor. It is a wonderful program. 

AN: Is it just this one parish that’s involved in the program or do you get other parishes involved too?

LT: No, the other parishes too. Quite a few parishes, might be 70-80 depending on the year. But a lot of parishes join in the program, so that’s why there are a lot of kids there.

AN: Do you tend to see that parishes with a stronger Vietnamese congregations have stronger programs? Or does it depend on the priest there to encourage these programs to proliferate?

LT: I think it mainly depends on who is leading the church and the congregation at large. They really listen to the pastor. According to my experience, if the congregation is very supportive by providing financial support or prayer ,or if every parish had a fundraising day or week to raise funds for the activities in the news, then different groups could join in right away. But, of course, to have such a program, I think the pastor plays a very important role. If he doesn’t give the green light for that program, it will never start.

AN: Do you have any opportunities to participate in these programs?

LT: Not like a chaperone, but I came and visited them. And I stayed with them for the whole afternoon until I had to go. 

AN: How do you think we as parishioners or you, as a priest, can help sustain these programs to make them last?

LT: Because this program requires a lot of energy, time and sacrifice from the perspective of the leaders, they need to spend a lot of time preparing content, reaching out, and letting the kids know there’s a program running and how good it is. Also finding chaperones is very difficult because you need to find a chaperone who, of course, is still working. That person needs to take one week off to be with the kids and show them how to do things too. So, a lot of sacrifices and time and energy are put into that. Not only that, but each kid the parish sends to the program needs to pay a $500 fee for the whole week. They need to raise their own funds. So it costs a lot of money too. But in terms of education, it’s worth it, because they learn a lot of lessons. They learn from experience, and also they acquire some skills to do things in the future from sales to service.

AN: What are the typical age ranges for students who participate? 

LT: Only high school students.

AN: And so with these programs, are a lot of the leaders volunteers?.

LT: Yes.

AN: Interesting. Okay, so I think this is a good segue to transition to my next question for you. What are some challenges you have faced as a Vietnamese priest in America? 

LT: For me, first of all, the language barrier is the most difficult thing. When I was here in Canada and in the USA, people did not understand me when I’m speaking. But I was lucky that I had one professor helping me out with how to master and use the language properly. So that’s the first thing, the language barrier. The culture also played a role in that because I came here when I was already older. So I did not know the culture here, especially with the young people. I did not understand their thinking, their background, their music or their literature and things from school. I don’t really understand the culture of the young people here, so it’s really difficult for me to reach out to them. However, I do have some background from Vietnam. In my experience from Vietnam, I was under the communist regime for many years, from 1975 to 1987. I grew up in a farming area and did missionary work over there too. So when I share that background with the young people, it opens their eyes to the different cultures and different backgrounds. That for me is my advantage. I might not be familiar with them, but when I share my experiences they know more, and when they know more, they get to know my culture and then that makes it easier for me to talk about spiritual things and be a model for them. They really appreciate that, and also I learned from them too. I learned a lot from them in terms of their openness. They are very frank, and if they don’t like things, they can say it. Of course they say it politely, but then they have the opportunity to say things. 

But for the Vietnamese faithful here in the USA, the older generation still keeps the practice they had when they were in Vietnam. The local church building is very dear to them. So, they love to go to church and when they start knowing each other it gets easier for them to communicate and to share. They also join different small groups so that they can get involved more into the activities of the church.

At the church that I am with and also at the other church, I noticed that the middle aged group is very active. They have the opportunity to take leadership roles in the parish councils, financial councils and things like that because they have expertise in this field. So we do really need them. And for the younger people, of course, as I mentioned earlier, we have a different group for them and try to keep the Vietnamese language so that we don’t lose the Vietnamese culture.

AN: Yeah, thank you. It’s interesting how you talk about the middle aged demographic being super strong in your parish from your experiences thus far. Would you say that finding ways to incorporate their professions into the church is something that keeps them there?

LT: Yeah, I think that it’s nice that way but you also need to have leaders of the parish council that are prepared to step up to take the leadership role. And in that case, we cannot just sit there and expect them to come. We have to go and find them. If we just approach them, talk to them and guide them in, that kind of invitation will be very effective. With the two parishes that I have been in so far, the middle aged parishioners (45-50, early 50s) are very active and are taking leadership roles in the parish.

So because we have that kind of edge, they can reach out to the older folks and be a model for the younger generations. This is wonderful because they can speak Vietnamese and they also can speak English, which is why that’s a bonus.

AN: Yeah, that’s definitely an advantage. Do you think that the younger generations will continue that trend as they grow up? 

LT: I would think so. I think that this trend is the model for the Vietnamese congregations here in the USA.

AN: Since you work with congregations that are so big, what role does the Vietnamese culture play in terms of their faith? How do they practice and learn about it?

LT: Well, Vietnamese congregations in the USA don’t have fixed boundaries, oftentimes it can be very large. Parishioners can be an hour away driving to and from the church, but they somehow get a push that keeps them coming back to the church. It’s very difficult and is a lot of work for the pastor and the priests to come and visit them when they have called for an emergency call like the Anointing of the Sick. It is very difficult for the church, for the pastor to go right away and things like that. So in terms of programs that reach out to the older people, I don’t think we have much at all, except in the smaller groups. The larger population of the congregation just comes to church on Sunday, mostly just once a week for the smaller group. And because they meet every week, we know them well. The parishioners who are living close by the church would come to daily mass for the services during the week. But for those who are far away, we don’t know them very much because of their presence just once a week. 

AN: So would you say that with the parishes you’ve worked with so far, pastors have a stronger connection to the younger generations as opposed to the older generations?

LT: Well, I would say it in this way: we provide more activities for the younger generation, more activities, more focus on them. But of course, for the older people, we don’t have to take care of them that much because they are already settled down in their faith. But to provide services or ministry to them, we could come and visit them at home. They would be very happy to do that with us. So anytime that we have some kind of special feast day or Vietnamese Tết, we would organize a special event to gather them together and they would respond very well.

AN: Yeah, that’s the term I was thinking about: the ministry. That’s interesting because in my experience with my local parish, it’s quite different because the ministry is directed towards sustaining the older generations because they live a lot closer to the parish, and their involvement is a lot stronger. Whereas for younger kids, like in my generation, we have like a few programs, but it’s typically just for school aged kids. Basically after you finish school, you kind of just either leave entirely or you stay but stop actively participating. That’s a problem and I want to see how we can sustain that involvement that you have as a youth into adulthood.

LT: Yeah. So, we try our best because the young adults are very important to the church. We try our best but of course, as you know, when they go to college or university they are far away from their local church. But according to my experience, when they come back, they join the groups that are here in the parish.

AN: Where do you see Vietnamese Catholicism in the future, like fifteen or twenty years from now? Do you think that community involvement will still be a strong point of interest? Or will that interest be directed towards something else?

LT: Well that’s a very good question, and I don’t have the answer to that. However, since young families here are smaller families like two or three kids, not large families anymore, when the kids get older they move out of their home and form their own families.

For the next ten years, I think that the Vietnamese communities here in the U.S. will not change that much, because I see the involvement from the middle aged people in the Church. And that is one of the signs that they will pass what they think is important or how they practice their faith onto their children. Their children will still have that tradition. But for those children growing up away from the Vietnamese parish setting, like when they join American parishes, I don’t know if they will be able to keep that tradition anymore. They will become Americanized. So for me, if they continue to be with the parish, I think they will continue to live out their faith in that way. And maybe they will get more involved in the future.

So that’s why we want to keep the Vietnamese language at the parish. When we teach the Vietnamese language, we teach the culture and pass on the culture and traditions onto them. So hopefully if they keep doing that, they keep holding onto the traditions.