Social Science Research Council

"Catholic Vietnam: The Politics of Religion in French Indochina, 1920-1945"

My research focuses on the changing place of Catholicism in interwar French Indochina in three overlapping contexts: the distancing of the Vatican from European nations and Rome’s support for the growth of an indigenous clergy in European colonies, the emergence of a widespread contestation of French colonial rule in Indochina, and social and cultural changes taking place in Vietnamese society. The dissertation considers several aspects of the subject; the rise of the indigenous clergy and the first generation of Vietnamese bishops, Catholic attitudes towards “the social question” and the origins of Vietnamese Catholic anti-Communism, growing conflicts between the Church and the colonial state over state support for Buddhism and Protestantism, continued restrictions placed upon Catholic proselytizing and voluntarism, and the growth of a public sphere among Vietnamese Catholic elites and intellectuals, primarily studied through newspapers and lay religious associations.