This is despite facing government restrictions on religious activities.

These people have begun returning, seeking solace and reconnecting with their religious roots.

Over the past decade, Vietnam has experienced a decline in religious practice, with a significant number of Catholics choosing to distance themselves from the Church.

Reasons for this departure range from a shift towards secularism and economic pursuits to government pressures and the complexities of modern life.

However, in recent months, UCANews reports there has been a notable shift.

"For years, I was caught up in the demands of my career and the fast-paced nature of modern life. But deep inside, I always felt something missing.

"The pandemic and its uncertainties made me realise the importance of finding inner peace. Returning to my faith has provided that solace I longed for," said Mai Nguyen.

While eager to rekindle their spiritual connection, these resurgent Catholics face numerous obstacles due to government restrictions on religious practices.

The Vietnamese government, which strictly regulates religious organisations, maintains control over the appointment of bishops and clergy, often leading to tensions with the Vatican.

Religious gatherings outside of officially sanctioned churches remain a contentious issue, with authorities frequently clamping down on unauthorised events.

Despite this, people s are finding creative ways to navigate these restrictions, organising discreet prayer meetings in private homes or small-scale gatherings in secluded locations.

Nguyen Van Minh, a Catholic priest, acknowledges the challenges faced by Catholics.

"We understand their yearning for spiritual nourishment, and we do our best to provide support within the limitations set by the authorities.

"It's a delicate balance, but we are committed to fostering their spiritual growth while respecting the laws of the land."

UCANews reports that despite the government's tight grip on religious affairs, Vietnam is witnessing a gradual renaissance of religious practices across various faiths as people seek solace and meaning in their lives.

Observers argue the resurgence may be attributed to the country's rapid socio-economic development, which has led some individuals to re-evaluate their priorities and search for deeper meaning beyond materialistic pursuits.

As the spiritual reawakening gains momentum, the Vietnamese government faces the challenge of balancing its desire for social stability with the rights of individuals to freely practise their faith.

In the meantime, Catholics in Vietnam are stepping out of the shadows, reclaiming their religious identity and reaffirming their commitment to the faith.

Source

• UCA News

During the deadliest months of the coronavirus pandemic, when many New Yorkers most needed their faith communities, houses of worship were either closed or operating with limits on attendance.

The solace of grieving with family and friends, the comfort of the communal rituals of prayer and the joys of ceremonies celebrating births and weddings, were missing.

The absence took a deep physical, spiritual and emotional toll — not only on the faithful but also on clergy members who struggled to serve worshipers from afar. Congregants' needs were unending.

The ability of clergy to respond was at times limited by disease, distance and the number of hours in a day.

Priests, rabbis, imams and ministers leaned on the teachings of their faiths to comfort their flocks, and themselves.

They also employed modern technology, including Facebook Live and Zoom, to pray with congregants safely.

This month, Ramadan, Easter Week and Passover overlap, and New Yorkers are gathering at their houses of worship, many for the first time in two years, now that many Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted.

And although some houses of worship appear to be returning to a semblance of normalcy, conversations with clergy members revealed the profound ways in which the pandemic has altered their lives and their work.

My grandmother would say that "trouble will call you to your knees." It will change your position. Covid certainly called us to our knees.

Even while churches were closed, churches started to grow.

More people tuned in online, including the spiritual but not religious.

They were looking for answers and felt like those answers weren't necessarily found in the traditional places of worship.

There was certainly a coming home — a calling to invest in our own spiritual growth and to really ask the hard questions.

What am I doing?

Why am I here?

And why was I spared?

While there's been so much death and so much grief and so much sickness and so much mourning, Covid has also given us some gifts.

The gifts of reimagining worship, of recognizing that the spirit of God is within and that we're connected by our humanity, by our breath, and not only by a pew or a temple or a synagogue or a mosque or a church.

It's helped us to reimagine what it looks like to be in ministry and to reimagine a future that can be even more inclusive.

It is wonderful to be able to gather in person again in communal worship, but there are folks who haven't come back into church because of this continued evolving of Covid. It's not over.

I will always remember the last Mass on Sunday, March 15, 2020, because it was like a funeral.

The parishioners were crying and crying. The churches closed the next day because of Covid, and people were knocking on the doors out of fear.

I remember being very disturbed by the feeling of not knowing what to do.

That Holy Week of 2020 was the first in history without the public. It was terrible celebrating all the rites with the church empty.

But it meant a new opportunity to rediscover my faith because of all the limitations, and the problems compelled believers to understand that faith was something even deeper.

And we had much more time for prayer and a very, very deep need. There were so many deaths here in Corona, often several people from the same family.

I think now, after two years, that the faith of the people is stronger.

I see a rebirth. People understand the value of the Eucharist and of a very personal relationship with God.

And we realize that everything we do affects our neighbours and can even mean death or life in certain cases. We belong to a family, to a community, that is one body, always connected.

I realized just how fortunate I am to be part of a community that is very caring and generous. At the onset of the pandemic, New York City's systems were being overwhelmed.

My students, and our broader community, recognized that our role wasn't merely to sit at home and do nothing.

Over the course of the pandemic, we've probably raised, as a centre, over $7 million in Covid relief funds.

We ran campaigns to raise funds to support people of any background with micro-cash grants.

We collected masks and gloves to distribute to hospitals and ran crowdfunding campaigns to help with funeral costs.

We supported survivors of abuse who were stuck at home with their abusers. Read more

As science became a more widely accepted method for investigating and understanding the physical world, religion became a less viable way of thinking—not just about medicine and mechanics, but also culture and politics and economics and every other sphere of public life. As the United States became more secular, people slowly began drifting away from faith.

Of course, this tale is not just reductive—it's arguably inaccurate, in that it seems to capture neither the reasons nor the reality behind contemporary American belief. For one thing, the U.S. is still overwhelmingly religious, despite years of predictions about religion's demise.

A significant number of people who don't identify with any particular faith group still say they believe in God, and roughly 40 percent pray daily or weekly. While there have been changes in this kind of private belief and practice, the most significant shift has been in the way people publicly practice their faith: Americans, and particularly young Americans, are less likely to attend services or identify with a religious group than they have at any time in recent memory.

If most people haven't just logicked their way out of believing in God, what's behind this shift in public religious practice, and what does the shift look like in detail? That's a big question, one less in search of a straightforward answer than a series of data points and arguments constellated over time.

Here's one: Pew has a new survey out about the way people choose their congregations and attend services. While Americans on the whole are still going to church and other worship services less than they used to, many people are actually going more—and those who are skipping out aren't necessarily doing it for reasons of belief. Continue reading

Sources

• The Atlantic article by Emma Green, a senior associate editor at The Atlantic, where she covers politics, policy, and religion.
• Image: Universal Life Church