Catholic Vietnam

I've heard that Ngo Dinh Diem wanted to convert all of Vietnam to Catholicism through means of a cultural revolution. Could this have been achieved?
 
I've heard that Ngo Dinh Diem wanted to convert all of Vietnam to Catholicism through means of a cultural revolution. Could this have been achieved?
anything is possible.. but .. in that time frame.. no.. negative.. not with out the bad parts of the last cultural revolution

I mean if only 1/4 remain and are catholic .. fine it works.. but you really loose a lot of diversity in the process.. not to mention the crimes against humanity to achieve such a thing.
 
Diem was a devout son of the pre council church. His idea of government was far from western ideals. That said, his vice president was a Buddhist. The idea that he would use force for conversion is stupid. He favored coreligionists obviously, so had the french. Many Catholics and the few protestants had been given greater access to education. He had no idea of persecution of the local Cao Dai sect who mixed Catholicism with local traditions and veganism.
 
I've heard that Ngo Dinh Diem wanted to convert all of Vietnam to Catholicism through means of a cultural revolution. Could this have been achieved?

What is the benefit in doing so? Diem's goal was to stay in power, preferably with his Catholic clique with him. As long as Catholics control the country, Diem would have no reason to enforce the faith amongst the lower classes.


Edit: Another point of importance is that with the U.S. support keeping him alive, there is no way he could get away with such actions. It is probably the greatest violation of the 1st amendment imaginable, so there is no way it was possible. Historical figures have wild fantasies that they sometimes jot on paper.
 
I've heard that Ngo Dinh Diem wanted to convert all of Vietnam to Catholicism through means of a cultural revolution. Could this have been achieved?
ASB in the timeframe, and I don't think even Diem wanted to convert Vietnam by force. With incentives and favoritism maybe, but Diem, despite being a sonofabitch, was not that stupid.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
What is the benefit in doing so? Diem's goal was to stay in power, preferably with his Catholic clique with him. As long as Catholics control the country, Diem would have no reason to enforce the faith amongst the lower classes.


Edit: Another point of importance is that with the U.S. support keeping him alive, there is no way he could get away with such actions. It is probably the greatest violation of the 1st amendment imaginable, so there is no way it was possible. Historical figures have wild fantasies that they sometimes jot on paper.
If he somehow was able to do it without causing a massive recruiting boost for the VC or getting himself killed in a coup, then the US wouldn't care. But there's no way he would have been able to pull it off, so the US would give it's blessing to a coup against him just like OTL.
 
Vietnam: Why did we go?

By Avro Manhattan, a European intellectual hanger-on who devoted most of his "career" to bashing Catholics. He styled himself as a friend of Maria Stopes and H.G. Wells, but ended up with Jack Chick as his main publisher(seriously).

Manhattan says the Vietnam War happened because of a plot to make Vietnam Catholic. From my brief skimmings of the book, his facts are probably accurate, but rather isolated from any larger context, to overstate the importance of Catholicism.
 
Edit: Another point of importance is that with the U.S. support keeping him alive, there is no way he could get away with such actions. It is probably the greatest violation of the 1st amendment imaginable, so there is no way it was possible. Historical figures have wild fantasies that they sometimes jot on paper.

But does the First Amendment apply to foreign-policy? If it did, I should think that outlaws US support for the mujahideen or the Saudi monarchy, just for starters.
 
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