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ANCESTOR WORSHIP AS A POPULAR RELIGIOSITY IN VIETNAM

1. Ancestor Worship in the Vietnam Context.

2. Ancestor Worship in the Vietnam Catholic Context.

 

Ancestor worship is not restricted to people in "primitive" societies. It can be found on every level of social and educational development within the same cultural milieu, even though the term may mean one thing to the educated and another thing to the poorer masses. It has many different forms of expression, varying from people to people and from group to group. This essay addresses first of all ancestor worship in the Vietnam context and then in the Vietnamese Catholic context.

ANCESTOR WORSHIP IN THE VIETNAM CONTEXT

The Vietnamese have a long tradition of ancestor worship as do many other peoples around the world. Under the influence of three religions—Buddhism, Taoism and especially Confucianism—the Vietnamese have performed a ceremony that we call "ancestor worship."

But what is ancestor worship? To avoid confusing ancestor worship with worship of God alone, one can use some alternative terms like ancestor cult, ancestor veneration or more simply, ancestor rites, namely rites and ceremonies related to ancestors.

And who are ancestors? They are forefathers, that is, deceased parents, grandparents and so on. One never worships living parents and grandparents; one venerates them. That is the reason why people prefer the term ancestor worship to ancestor veneration. Besides worship of blood forefathers, the Vietnamese also worship as ancestors the spirits of the founders and the heroes of locality. Worship of deceased forefathers is not to be confused with the cult of the dead. The two are related but not identical. In the cult of the dead, attention is focused on death itself, while in the cult of ancestors, the human relationship between the living and the deceased is the center of attention.

The Vietnamese people strongly believe that human being includes a body and a soul. Sometimes though they see a human have three souls (the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul and the spiritual soul) and nine vital principles for women or seven for men, they call all of these elements a soul or a spirit. The soul is immortal and is honored ritually at the altar as well as at the tomb. In a word, the living and the dead are in a "living" relationship.

People worship, however, their own ancestors, not all of the dead. In so doing, they express their filial piety and gratitude. Even though ancestor worship existed before

Confucius, he is the one who more than anyone else was responsible for the establishment of ancestor cult as it is today. He provided it with a rational and ethical basis of filial piety. As the Vietnamese usually say, "To live, one should not forget one's origin. To drink, one should remember its source." Failing to fulfill one's cult to one's ancestors is to be ungrateful.

Moreover, one may worship one's ancestors in the hope of gaining benefit, protection, and support. They argues that whoever are parents, love their children, so their offspring can pray to them for a cure of illness, a prosperous business, or a good marriage, etc.

To worship their ancestors, the Vietnamese organize solemn and long funeral for their parents and grandparents. All children and as many relatives as possible relatives of the departed gather together even though they must come a great distance. One may wait for days for the "return home" of the children (the "home" where parents have lived is also their home) so that they could see the dead before burying them.

Having been influenced by the Confucianism of the book entitled Analect, "Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents and let them be remembered with ceremonies of sacrifice even after they have long departed; then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence," the Vietnamese spend a lot of money on funerals and they do so without any regret. The traditional funeral runs into thousands of dollars. They build up large tombs with high stele. Even in the case of cremation, children purchase expensive coffins made of precious wood for their deceased parents.

In their home, the rich sometimes build an ancestral shrine, but most people make a small ancestral altar where they place pictures of the dead. In front of the altar they place a censer or an incense burner or more simply, an incense bowl with two red candles on both sides.

Offering an incense stick is a very popular rite of ancestor worship. With burned incense sticks in hands, one bows down repeatedly before one's ancestors and finally puts the sticks into the incense bowl on the altar.

On the death anniversary of an ancestor, the whole extended family gathers together first of all to visit the respective tombs and then to have a large meal after offering the same dishes on the ancestral altar at home.

All of these rites for ancestors as described above were not permitted among Vietnamese Catholics before the Second Vatican Council.

II. ANCESTOR WORSHIP IN THE VIETNAMESE CATHOLIC CONTEXT

1. Absolute rejection of ancestor worship

Both the term "worship" and rites for ancestors were seen as tremendous obstacles before they were allowed to be performed as an acceptable ancestral cult among the Vietnamese Catholics.

The term ancestor worship can be misleading. The latria cult which directs the act of religion to God alone is never given to the ancestors. The ancestors cannot be worshiped as God. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese use the same term worship (thôø) whether it be to God (or Heaven), to the King or to ancestors. "Ancestor worship" is a very common phrase in everyday life. When Western missionaries came, they had a mentality like that of Descartes which emphasized distinction, they could not accept the same term worship (thôø) having various meanings. As a result, ancestor worship was totally forbidden.

Moreover, beside the term "worship" some rites for ancestors such as offering incense, bowing down, building altar had confused the missionaries of the past and even those of the present. To western missionaries, an altar is reserved for God alone. God alone is worthy to receive prostration and incense offerings. Doing this for anyone else is to regard him as God. In his two trips around the world (1975-1976), Bernard Hwang, a professor of theology at the University of Portland, encountered missionaries who still insisted that ancestor cult is absolutely incompatible with the Christian faith and can in no way be tolerated as a practice within the Church.
It is true that some ancestor rites have been practiced as a sort of religion mixed with a lot of superstition. Such an understanding of ancestor worship is not acceptable in the Catholic Church. The so-called Chinese Rites Controversy (1603-1742) which spanned nearly one and a century and a half has influenced the mentality of the Vietnamese Catholic Church. Being on the periphery of China, Catholic missions in Vietnam were directly affected. The Regional Council of Annam (the former name for Vietnam) was held in 1682 at which two bishops and a hundred missionary priests met to discuss, among other things, ancestor worship. Of course, a ban on ancestor worship was promulgated.

The Benedict XIV apostolic constitution Ex Quo Singulari in 1742 officially ended the controversy. Mateo Ricci' s argument that Chinese ancestor worship was a civil rite and merely expressed courtesy and veneration for ancestors was rejected. From then on, any missionary who was sent to China was obliged to make this oath:

"I, N… a missionary sent to China… will obey fully and faithfully the apostolic precept and command… which our Holy Father Pope Clement XI has given… I will never allow the Rites and Ceremonies of China…which have been condemned by our Holy Father Benedict XIV… So may God help me and his Holy Apostles."

By banning ancestral rites the Church was forced into a posture that seemed hostile to the Asian environment. Instead of being leaven, Christianity became a foreign substance in the body of local social culture. This was one of the reasons which lead to the ban and persecution of Catholicism proclaimed by royal edicts during the 18th and 19th centuries in Vietnam. Catholics were accused of abandoning their roots, they were accused of denying their ancestors by refusing to pay respect and veneration to their ancestors through the various rituals. Many Vietnamese, especially the eldest sons of families—because they are the ones held responsible to officially perform ancestral rites to their dead parents on behalf of the entire family—have refused to convert to Catholicism. This long-standing prejudice against Catholicism continues even now, though the Church has promulgated an accommodation.

Accommodation.
a) Plane Compertum Est Compertum Est (1939)

The reopening of the rites controversy was due to several incidents, both in Japan and Manchukuo (a Japanese-controlled state), when the Japanese army (during W.W. II) required all subjects to bow before the Shinto shrine or Confucian temple. In May 1932 several Catholic students from Sophia University in Tokyo refused to bow before the Yasukuni Jinja, a state-supported Shinto shrine to the war dead. This crisis of conscience for native Catholics was not alleviated until the government officially assured the Church that these ceremonies were "nonreligious and only civil in meaning." Because of these two developments, the Congregation of the Propagation of Faith in 1939, with the Pope Pius XII ' s approbation issued the instruction Plane Compertum Est, permitting the native Catholics and missionaries in China—issues had been granted to Munchukuo (1935) and to Japan (1936)—to attend and even perform ceremonies in

honor of Confucius and the ancestors which had been prohibited for more than two centuries. This permission, however, did not take effect in Vietnam until the Vatican II Council.

b) Communiqueù of the Vietnamese Bishops' Conference (1965)

After over three hundred years of mission, on November 24th, 1960 Pope John XXIII issued a papal bull to formally establish (create) the indigenous ecclesial hierarchy of Vietnam. And under the influence of the Vatican II council's spirit, the Vietnamese bishops asked the Holy See to apply the Plane Compertum Est to Vietnam. On October 20th, 1964 the Congregation of the Propagation of Faith issued an approval and the Vietnamese bishops' conference announced, on June 14th, 1965, a communiqueù regarding the veneration for ancestors and heroes.

The communiqueù reiterated the arguments Plane Compertum Est had affirmed, that "It is abundantly clear that in the regions of the Orient some ceremonies, although they may have been involved with pagan rites in ancient times, have—with the changes of customs and thinking over the course of centuries—retained merely the civil significance of piety towards ancestors, or love of the fatherland, or of courtesy towards one's neighbors." The communiqueù also said that, although the rites may have had at one time carried religious significance, over the process of time they had become sufficiently laicized (secularized) so that Catholics could participate in them without fear of conscience. From then on, the Catholic Vietnamese have been permitted to venerate ancestors and heroes.

c) The communiqueù of the Evangelization Committee (1974)

Because the Vietnamese were cautious in their welcome of the Communiqueù of 1965, the Evangelization Committee of the Vietnamese Bishops' Conference, consisting of seven bishops, held a seminar in Nhatrang and issued a communiqueù that was stronger in encouraging the cult for ancestors and heroes for the sake of evangelization:

-An ancestral altar is allowed to be built in such a way that it is lesser than God's altar at home and provided that nothing superstitious, such as a Hoàn Baïch (white soul) is placed there.

- Incense and candle offerings and prostration are permitted before the ancestral altar or bed, since these are gestures of filial piety and veneration.

- On the death anniversary, it is allowable to sacrifice and offer fruit, flower and incense on the altar of the dead, provided that there is nothing superstitious such as Ñoát vaøng maõ (burning paper things) and Ñoà cuùng (food offering).

- On their wedding day, the bride and bridegroom are allowed to perform a cult for their ancestors. This is their way of expressing gratitude and filial piety, and of presenting themselves to their ancestors.

- At funerals, Catholics are permitted to bow and offer incense before the corpse.

The communiqueù also allows the faithful to attend the cult for heroes.

The communiqueù of 1974 was very helpful but its influence was not deep and extensive enough, due especially to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Under the governmental control of the Communist Party, most religious activities have been forbidden or very limited. Consequently the spirit of this communiqueù could not spread its influence so that people would no longer regard Catholicism as an ungrateful religion. Nonetheless, nowadays given the Catholics' practice of ancestor cult, people have began to view Christianity differently. They now have a better appreciation for Catholicism.

Today, most Catholic Vietnamese no longer hesitate to offer incense sticks, which they did not dare perform before. Most Catholic families have, at home, an ancestral altar, where they place the picture(s) or, at times, an ancestral tablet of their forefathers. Basically, the extent of their veneration goes back only about three generations, that is to say, children only place the images of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. In front of them, they often put an incense burner, candles, flowers and even fruit. They may burn some incense sticks daily. Before the 1960s, there was not any such an ancestral altar in Catholic homes. That is the reason why Catholicism was ridiculed as the "religion that is ungrateful to the ancestors."

Today, on the anniversary of deceased parents or grandparents, Catholic Vietnamese usually visit their tomb, clean and cut grass around it and burn incense. After the new Code of Canon Law of 1983, which no longer forbid cremation, many churches have built a place, or a room reserved for the ashes of the deceased. In place of visiting the cemetery, they go to church. They ask for a Mass intention for the dead, and attend Mass together. For the most recent death anniversaries, i.e., the first, the second and perhaps the third death anniversary, children and relatives gather together at home to pray for the deceased and have a large meal afterward.

At church, there are at least two official celebrations of ancestor cult during the year. One is on the second day of the lunar new year (some churches perform it even on the Teát, the first day of the lunar new year). On this day, Catholics offer Mass and some gestures to venerate and appreciate ancestors. Another celebration is on the second day of November, the so-called "all souls day" of the Roman Catholic calendar. The parishes which have their own cemeteries usually celebrate Mass for the dead and ancestors at the cemetery.

Today, even though the ecclesial and formal term for the cult of ancestor is veneration (dulia), not worship (latria), the ordinary Catholic continues to use the term "ancestor worship," because it is the popular everyday term.

3. Is ancestor worship a form of popular religiosity?

As mentioned above, ancestor cult is rather popular in Catholic community in Vietnam today. But is it a religiosity? Knowing that a religiosity is not a religion, but they relate to one another. Recently, a number of studies on the relationship between ancestor worship and religion have been published. Some regard ancestor worship as a religion, some say it is not. Both present all their strongest arguments. But we can easily accept the Catholic point of view, that, although ancestor cult is not a religion, it is a religious thing, an acceptable form of religiosity. It is in the spirit of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue and the belief in the communion of saints.

The Fourth Commandment.

In Decalogue, right after the three first commandments which refer to God alone, the next is to "honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the Lord, your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12). Although this commandment does not mentions one's deceased father or mother, honoring them is possible and even obligatory. For "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Mark 12: 27). In a certain sense, this means that "with God nothing is dead."

Besides, as Ricci pointed out, "it is asserted by many that this [ancestor] rite was first instituted for the benefit of the living rather than for that of the dead. In this way it was hoped that children, and uneducated adults as well, might learn how to respect and support their parents who were living as a consequence of seeing that their departed parents were so highly honored by those who were educated and prominent."

In Vietnam history, a courtier was commanded to venerate the Nguyeãn royal family's ancestors. The courtier, being a Catholic, refused to obey the command, at risk of losing his life:

"Why is it, when I have so long provided for you, and bestowed on you many honors, you refuse to salute my ancestors? I have not forced you to abandon your religion, not ordered you to worship idols or spirits, all I have asked is that you should join in paying public honor to my ancestors."

"I acknowledge your majesty for my king," said the mandarin, "and hold you in the most profound respect; and how could I dare to show any disrespect to the ancestors of my king? But they have been long dead, and I do not believe that they can return; and my religion forbids me to salute them in a place where I do not believe they are."

"Do you not salute the saints?" asked the king. "How do they differ from my ancestors? They are dead also, they cannot come back; how can you salute them, and refuse the same honors to my ancestors? I do not believe that my ancestors are present here, or that they eat the meat I offer them; but I salute them only by way of public recognition."

This incident points to the fact that the emperor did not regard ancestor veneration as a formal religion, but instead as a public act of paying respect to one's ancestors. The filial piety of Confucianism and the fourth commandment in a sense are very similar.

The Communion of Saints

But more than Confucianism and the thinking of the emperor as mentioned above, Catholics strongly believe that the dead are still alive even though it is in a quite different way. The cult for ancestors is a way of practicing the dogma of the communion of saints.

This communion already existed in ancestor worship outside Christianity. Indeed ancestor cult is used to bring about the continuity and unity of the family, society and nation. The foundation of Vietnamese society is the family, and filial piety is the principle of all actions in the family and serves as its bond of unity. Ancestor cult nourishes filial piety and is seen as the guarantor of family unity and continuity. When the family is sound and healthy, the society and nation will endure. The Vietnamese, by practicing ancestor cult, are actually promoting harmony and unity as a check against excessive competition and exaggerated individualism.

More than that, the Catholic Vietnamese, by performing ancestor rites, recognize the communion of saints, through whom God would bless their living children. From the communion of saints viewpoint, the death of ancestors is seen as a passage to the abode of God, a passage to better living. "Even beyond death, God makes his people live and leads them into his house where a better life awaits them."

Thus through ancestor cult, the Catholic Vietnamese live both the fourth commandment and the mystery of the communion of saints. Both indicate that ancestors are still alive. Perhaps since there could be a ban of ancestor cult in the Liberian Church, Roar G. Fotland expressed in his dissertation with its challenging title, "The Ancestor Are Alive, Does the Church Know?" The thesis of this work is that, if the Church in Liberia would include in its life an acceptable understanding of ancestors, Christianity will more readily be accepted as a religion that is open to all aspects of life.

 

Fortunately, the Vietnamese Catholics are no longer forbidden to have ancestor cult. They are much more readily permitted to perform it. Yet even in the time when it was prohibited, most new converts kept the practice of the cult but in a secretive manner. Bernard Hwang is right when he states, "For many [Asians], Africans and American Indians, ancestor cult is probably the only religious practice they perform in their life and the only way they know of to fulfill their religious needs." Indeed, ancestor worship has been widespread and popular over all of Vietnam. Now with the approval of the Holy See, ancestor cult—which is closely related to the fourth commandment and the communion of saints—has become a form of popular religiosity within the Catholic Vietnamese community. Ancestor worship as a form of popular religiosity never really dies.