THE PARTICULAR STRUCTURAL TRAITS OF THE MIGRATION CATHOLIC COMMUNITY IN THE SOUTHERN VIETNAM

Abstract

The Vietnamese Catholic community is not only a religious community but also a traditional village with relationships based on kinship and/or sharing the same residential area, similar economic activities, and religious activities.

In this essay, we are interested in examining migrating Catholic communities which were shaped and reshaped within  the historical context of Viet Nam war in 1954. They were established after the migration of  millions of Catholics from Northern to Southern Viet Nam immediately after Geneva Agreement in 1954. Therefore, by examining the particular structural traits of the emigration Catholic Communities we attempt to reconstruct the reproducing process of village structure based on the communities’ triple structure: kinship structure, governmental structure and religious organization.