With a Rosary around the Neck and a Weapon on their Shoulder

Priests and the faithful of the Catholic village of Honai, Vietnam, told me that they would not flee in front of the triumphant tank crew members of Communist atheist regime who were just within five kilometers of their homes. Women, children and old men of this fierce and resolved community gathered in prayer in well-lit churches. The men, trained in self-defense battalions, a rosary around the neck, armed with old rifles, were slaughtered while trying to prohibit the access of the North Vietnamese armored tanks into their parishes. Father Hoang Quynh, priest of Cholon, refugee of North Vietnam himself, once told me: "Communism is the death of us. When we were in Tonkin, we thought we had a vague idea of the plans they had in store for the southern populations: barbaric acts, torture, imprisonment, the faith tracked down in the cities and the countryside - in our hearts - that was the plan. The border between China and the Mekong Delta is a painful road for Catholics. Thousands of graves mark out that border already and there will be thousands of others around Saigon, Hué and Dalat. This is the price that we will have to pay. We are ready. Each cross will bear witness to mankind."