Mai Le, a very pious Catholic, and Hy Nguyen, a Buddhist, are meeting with the priest at Mai's parish in preparation for thier upcoming wedding. They plan to have their wedding ceremony in this parish church. The conversation with the priest has gone well until he asks Mai to sign a statement promising to do all in her power to have the children of this marriage baptizied and raised in the Roman Catholic faith. Hy does not want her to sign. Being a good son in a Buddhist family, he cannot oppose the family tradition in which his family has been immersed for many generations. This story is common story in Vietnam where Buddhism is the main religion. Buddhism came to Vietnam early in the Christian era and was deeply rooted in the majority of Vietnamese. Catholicism was not introduced into Vietnam until the late sixteenth century and dominantly influenced the people in large cities and government officials. There are differences in the practices of faith between the Vietnamese Buddhists and Catholics. At times, these differences became a cause for the conflicts between two churches. The first president of the Republic of Vietnam was a Catholic who was unjustly blamed as one of the causes for a natitonal conflict between the Catholic Church and the Buddhist Church in the 1960s. The differences in religions and the conflicts between them have influenced many Vietnamese Catholics who prepare for marriages with the Buddhists.Therefore, mixed marriages between Catholics and Buddhists has been the main concern of the conferences of bishops in the countries where such marriages take place. In general, the Catholics Church acknowledges the diverse pastoral needs of local churches in regard to mixed marriages among their members. On March 31,1970 Pope Paul VI issued a motu proprio to remind conferences of bishops of certain key concerns in this matter in these words: if fall this is kept in mind, certainly no one will be really surprised to find that even the canonical discipline on mixed marriages cannot be uniform and that it must be adapted to the various case in what pertains to the liturgical form of contracting marriage. its liturgical celebration, and finally the pastoral care to be given to the married people and the children of the marriage, according to the distinct circumtances of the married couple and the different degrees of their communion with the Church.
