Vietnam’s “Vocation Basket” Hides Apostasy Under Numerical Growth

Vatican News (February 6, 2026) reports on Vietnam’s 76 transitional deacon ordinations and the Vietnamese bishops’ three-year pastoral plan titled “Every Christian as a Missionary Disciple.” The article celebrates Vietnam as a “vocation basket” with 6,000 priests and 31,000 religious serving seven million Catholics, while lamenting uneven clerical distribution between urban and rural areas. Commentator Petrus Do calls for missionary formation focused on “inculturation and interreligious dialogue,” quoting Mr. Bergoglio’s “smell of the sheep” mantra. The Vietnamese bishops’ program aims to create “missionary communities” from 2025-2028 through social engagement and undefined “missionary conversion.” This modernist agenda camouflages apostasy beneath vocational statistics.

Naturalistic Reduction of Priesthood to Social Workers

The article reduces priestly formation to sociological techniques rather than supernatural mission. Petrus Do’s demand for clergy to learn local languages and engage in social action (“understand the pain, aspirations, and daily realities”) echoes the condemned Modernist error that “faith is based on a sum of probabilities” (Lamentabili Sane, 25). Pius XI’s Quas Primas establishes that Christ’s Kingship requires conversion of nations, not ethnographic studies: “Rulers of states…have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him” (Quas Primas, 31). The Vietnamese program’s focus on “social action” and “interreligious dialogue” violates the Syllabus of Errors’ condemnation of those who claim “the Church ought to be separated from the State” (Syllabus, 55). True missionaries administer sacraments, not conduct sociological surveys.

Bergoglian Heresy Infects Vietnamese Hierarchy

Mr. Bergoglio’s “smell of the sheep” metaphor – parroted by Petrus Do – embodies the Naturalism condemned by St. Pius X: “The pursuit of novelty in investigation leads to deplorable consequences…particularly pernicious in sacred sciences” (Lamentabili Sane, Introduction). The article’s call for priests to share in “the struggles of communities” ignores the priest’s primary identity as alter Christus offering the Sacrifice. This reflects the Modernist heresy that “the Church is subject to continuous evolution” (Lamentabili Sane, 53). The “missionary disciple” terminology comes directly from Bergoglio’s Evangelii Gaudium (2013), which the Holy Office would have condemned for its syncretism.

Vocational Abundance Masks Doctrinal Bankruptcy

While boasting of 76 deacons and 6,000 priests, the article omits critical doctrinal safeguards:

  • No mention of the Traditional Latin Mass – the only guarantee of orthodox formation (Pius XII, Mediator Dei)
  • Silence on whether seminaries teach the Council of Trent’s dogmatic theology or modernist heresies
  • Failure to warn that “Communion” in Novus Ordo structures constitutes idolatry due to invalid matter (invalidity of new rite of ordination (Paul VI, Pontificalis Romani))

The claim that “abundant vocations must be matched with missionary formation” hides the real crisis: Vietnam’s 27 dioceses are led by bishops appointed by antipopes. St. Robert Bellarmine states: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope…nor can such bishops claim jurisdiction” (De Romano Pontifice, II.30). The “vocation basket” metaphor is meaningless when harvesters operate under false shepherds.

Pastoral Plan Codifies Apostasy

The Vietnamese bishops’ three-year program (2025-2028) institutionalizes religious indifferentism:

  1. “Every Christian is a missionary disciple” – Erases distinction between clerical and lay states (Against Lumen Gentium 31)
  2. “Every Christian community is a missionary community” – Reduces Church to human organization (Condemned in Syllabus, 19)
  3. “The Church of Christ in Vietnam goes forth” – Implies national church schism (Condemned in Syllabus, 37)

This plan implements Bergoglio’s Evangelii Gaudium directive to create “a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything” (EG 27) – a transformation always away from Catholic dogma. The article’s celebration of Vietnamese priests serving “in neighboring Asian countries” spreads this apostasy abroad, fulfilling Freemasonry’s goal of a global syncretistic religion.

Conclusion: Numbers Without Faith Equal Spiritual Death

Vietnam’s 76 deacons and 6,000 priests matter only if they uphold the Depositum Fidei. Instead, the Vietnamese hierarchy promotes:

  • Religious indifferentism through “interreligious dialogue” (Against Pascendi, 14)
  • Naturalism by prioritizing social action over sanctification (Against Quas Primas, 11)
  • Ecclesial revolution via the “missionary community” concept (Against Lamentabili Sane, 58)

As Pius XI warned: “When God and Jesus Christ are removed from laws and states…the entire human society is shaken” (Quas Primas, 31). Until Vietnam’s clergy reject the conciliar sect and return to the Mass of Ages, their “vocation basket” carries only rotten fruit.

Source:
Vietnamese Church highlights vocation growth, calls for renewed missionary formation   (vaticannews.va)
Date: 06.02.2026