Views of the Vietnamese Communist Party on Religion through the 12th Congress’ Documents

Abstract

The 12^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam was held from 21^st to the 28^th January 2016 in Hanoi. Delegates discussed in a candid and democratic manner and unanimously passed important documents, including the political report and a report evaluating the implementation of socio-economic tasks between 2011 and 2015 and orientations and tasks for the 2016-2020 period. The Congress’ Documents not only provide the assessment of achievement, results and limitation of the implementation of the 11^th Congress’ limitation, but also makes important decisions towards a comprehensive development of the country in the next stage. The Documents simultaneously propose new awareness, views, and theoretical and practical issues in many domains of social life, including religion. This article reviews and analyses the Communist Party of Vietnam’s view of religion as seen in the Documents of the 12^th Congress in terms of the main contents and the new points in comparison with the previous Congresses’ Documents.