A forgotten sacred army: the birth of the Vietnamese chaplaincy in the state of Vietnam's army

The chaplaincy has been a longstanding institution in the armies of Western countries. Chaplains, or enlisted clerics, were charged with looking after the religious life aspect of believers in the military. Although the term chaplain is of Catholic origin (The American Legion, 2012), it is used to refer to clerics of all religions serving in the military. The chaplains played two roles at the same time: they were missionaries, living and serving the God they believed in, and were also soldiers, bound by discipline and orders given by their superiors in the army. In other words, the chaplain's position lay at the intersection of religion and military. They had their battlefield in which they fought to protect and comfort soldiers from spiritual evils in a military environment. They were a sacred army.

Chaplains in the modern French army were officially established in 1880 (Delannoy, 2019). During the French colonial period in Vietnam (1855–1945), the chaplains sent to Vietnam were all members of the Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, the organization that had exclusive rights to propagate Catholicism in Vietnam since the late 17th century. These chaplains served in the French army from the end of the 19th century until 1954 (when the French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu and had to withdraw to their country). Their service was interrupted for only 6 months from March to September 1945 because of the Japanese army's successful coup d'etat against the French in Indochina. Until 1945, there were only French chaplains serving in the French army in Vietnam. However, with the failure of the Léa campaign (1947) and the growth of the anti-colonial resistance movement by the Viet Minh, the French army was put in a difficult situation. Therefore, the French government established the State of Vietnam with Bao Dai (former emperor of Vietnam) as the head of state and used Bao Dai's name to recruit Vietnamese to join the army. The birth of this Vietnamese force resulted in the birth of Vietnamese chaplains who provided spiritual care for Vietnamese soldiers.

Based upon archival materials on the Vietnamese chaplaincy as well as contemporary studies and memoirs, this article aims to (1) present the historical background and birth of the chaplaincy in Vietnam; (2) explain that the late birth of the Vietnamese chaplaincy (1953) was the continuation of colonial tradition in which the French colonialists never respected the people in the countries they dominated and (3) argue that the establishment of no other religion but the Catholic chaplaincy in the State of Vietnam's Army resulted from the religious inequality during the French colonial period in Vietnam. To achieve the above research purposes, the author employed the theory of the intersection between colonialism and Catholicism that Daughton (2006) and some other researchers (Cao, 2014; Gladwin, 2017) have used. Daughton recalled a sentiment prevalent among French colonialists in the late 19th century that “God had chosen France to deliver Catholicism to the world and that this mission was central to French colonialism” (Daughton, 2006, pp. 9–10). Cao argued that colonialism and missionary work went along during the colonial conquests of the second half of the 19th century (Cao, 2014). Gladwin (2017) also used the term “cultural imperialists” to refer to how missionaries imposed the values of Christian civilization on colonial societies in the 19th century. These approaches shed light on the nature of Vietnamese chaplaincy as a reflection of the combination of colonialism and mission to support the re-colonization of France in Vietnam after 1945. These perspectives also provide a useful lens for reassessing the religious dimensions of the First Indochina War.

In recent decades, historiography on the First Indochina War and the State of Vietnam – further developed in works by Goscha and Tréglodé (2004), Reilly (2018) and McHale (2021) – has primarily examined the political and military dimensions of the conflict and the formation of non-Communist Vietnamese state structures. By contrast, the role of religion - especially as an institutional presence within the military – has received far less systematic attention, leaving important questions concerning morale, legitimacy and spiritual support for soldiers insufficiently explored.

The role of religion, however – especially as an institutional force intertwined with the military and the state – has yet to be examined in a systematic manner. The study of Catholic chaplaincy in the State of Vietnam's Army offers an alternative perspective on the war, one in which religion functioned not merely as a matter of personal belief but as a constitutive element of military morale and state legitimacy. This article argues that the belated establishment and limited operation of the Vietnamese chaplaincy were not accidental phenomena, but rather reflected the structural limitations of the French-led process of “Vietnamization,” as well as the continuation of colonial traditions of inequality within ostensibly national institutions. Through the case of Catholic chaplaincy, the article thus illuminates the limits of efforts to construct a non-Communist Vietnamese army in the context of an ideologically charged conflict.

On Sunday, September 2, 1945, as Ho Chi Minh took the grandstand and read aloud the Proclamation of Independence, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was born. It has been speculated that the day was chosen after he visited St. Joseph's Cathedral, Hanoi, on August 22, 1945, to coincide with the Catholic Church's commemoration of Vietnamese Martyrs (Pham, 2015). For a moment, the Church's association with the French colonial rule seemed to recede into the past as a new chapter began (Tran, 1988; Keith, 2016). Vietnamese Catholics were offered an opportunity to cooperate with their compatriots to build the country. In this context, many Vietnamese Catholics believed that they could remain loyal to the Church while also participating in the construction of an independent nation. However, as war broke out and ideological conflict deepened, the possibility of reconciling religious loyalty with political choice quickly collapsed. As a result, many believers - particularly those serving in armed forces – found themselves confronting profound spiritual and moral crises within an increasingly brutal wartime environment. (Tran, 1988, pp. 84–85).

Three weeks after Independence Day, gunfire resounded in South Vietnam. On September 23, 1945, the French army attacked and occupied several headquarters of the Southern People's Committee (Patti, 1980). Vietnamese blood was shed. The Oath of Independence (Vo, 2011) urged the people to take up arms against the invaders. On the day of the attack, representing the aspiration of Vietnamese Catholics, the four bishops Nguyen Ba Tong, Ho Ngoc Can, Ngo Dinh Thuc and Le Huu Tu signed a joint letter to the Holy See calling on the Vatican to support the independence of Vietnam. It remained unanswered.

The Vatican had long assumed a position in opposition to (atheistic) communism. As early as 1846, two years before Marx and Engels released The Communist Manifesto, Pope Pius IX publicly denounced communism as a doctrine contrary to God's natural law in his encyclical Qui Pluribus (On Faith and Religion) (Pius IX, 1846). This position was upheld by later popes in 1878, 1910 and especially in 1937, by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Divini Redemptoris (The Promise of a Divine Redeemer), describing communism as “a system full of errors and sophisms,” voicing a protest against the persecutions of Christians in the Soviet Union, Mexico and Spain, and anticipating grave global developments (Pius XI, 1937). The birth of the DRV in September 1945, with a government made up of many communists, worried the Holy See. As de Gaulle was planning the return of the French to Vietnam, the Holy See endorsed his decision to appoint Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu as High Commissioner of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to reinstall the French colonial rule (Buttinger, 1968). The Holy See hoped that, upon assuming his position, “this priest will succeed in rallying the support of Catholics as [the French did] a century earlier” (Tran, 1988, p. 61). Once again, colonial action and missionary action replayed the metaphor of “two parallel lines that transcend all laws of geometry to meet again and again,” as noted by the French diplomat Charles-Roux (Cao, 2014, p. 8). In this context, anti-communism was not merely a political stance but was also regarded by many believers as a moral and religious choice. For Catholic soldiers participating in the war, the conflict was not simply a military confrontation but was also perceived as a struggle to defend their faith and religious community (Doan & Xuan, 1973, pp. 98–99). Consequently, the need for spiritual guidance and pastoral support within the military environment became increasingly important.

The Vatican's colonial affiliation divided the Vietnamese church. On the one hand, the patriotism of Vietnamese Catholics urged them to rise in resistance against the invaders. Indeed, there were several Catholics who joined the resistance from the very first day when the French opened fire in South Vietnam (Le, 1972), and many others (Ngo Tu Ha, Nguyen Son Ha, Vo Thanh Trinh, etc.) participated in the construction of the DRV government (Do, 2010). On the other hand, many Catholics were apprehensive about the Communism of the Viet Minh. Happenings in the Soviet Union and the Church's position further promoted anti-Communist tendencies among the laity. This anxiety was heightened in 1946 when the Viet Minh started to eliminate non-Communist elements from the government (Chu, 2008). Under clerical leadership (Le Huu Tu, Pham Ngoc Chi, Hoang Quynh, etc.), Vietnamese Catholics had built “autonomous regions” (Phat Diem, Bui Chu) to counter the Viet Minh. It should be noted that, while the laity, under the spiritual leadership of the bishops of Phat Diem, risked their lives to maintain the Catholic autonomous regions, the French only paid them a symbolic wage (equivalent to 2.5 kg of rice/month, 1950, price in Thanh Hoa) (Pham, 1972; Dang, 2002). Phat Diem stood during the war thanks to poor-but-rich-in-faith lay Catholics, rather than the weapons of the French army. This division did not occur solely at the political level but also deeply affected the spiritual lives of believers, who were compelled to choose among competing centers of power and moral authority. For Catholics serving in the military, the absence of an official religious institution within the armed forces made it difficult to find spiritual guidance and support amid the prolonged conditions of war.

Commenting on the split situation of the Vietnamese church during the war of 1945–1954, priest Tran Tam Tinh wrote, “Catholics are caught between two extremes, a dilemma: Either cooperate with Viet Minh communism (it would be more accurate to say that it was under communist leadership) and risk being anti-Church, in the time of Pope Pius XII when anti-Communism was seen as a dogma; or ally with France, to betray the Fatherland again” (Tran, 1988, pp. 84–85). The division within Vietnamese Catholics was an opportunity for the French colonialists. In October 1949, when the State of Vietnam's Army parachuted into Phat Diem, Phat Diem Bishop Le Huu Tu gave up his role as Supreme Advisor of the DRV government to cooperate with the State of Vietnam and the French (Doan & Xuan, 1973). This decision of Le Huu Tu deepened the division in Catholicism in Vietnam during the Franco-Vietnamese War.

The survival of Catholic autonomous zones such as Phát Diệm demonstrates the crucial role played by the clergy in sustaining the morale and discipline of Catholic communities under wartime conditions. The religious authority and spiritual leadership exercised by bishops and priests enabled these communities to endure material shortages and military pressure. This experience shows that pastoral support and spiritual leadership could become decisive factors in maintaining the fighting spirit of an armed community – an element that was largely absent within the State of Vietnam's Army during its early years of existence.

The French Expeditionary Army, with its enormous military potential, initially prevailed when the war broke out in December 1946. Viet Minh had to retreat to the mountain regions and launched a prolonged people's war that gradually bogged down the French forces. Ho Chi Minh remained influential throughout the country, and in an attempt to undermine his popularity, the French formed a counter-government headed by a Vietnamese who would remain under French supervision, turning to the former emperor Bao Dai to head that government (Devillers, 2003).

On June 5, 1948, France signed the Ha Long Bay Agreements with Bao Dai, recognizing Vietnam as an independent state within the French Union and providing for the return of Cochinchina, which had been separated from Vietnam by the French since 1874 (Bao, 1990). For the first time, the agreements also mentioned the creation of a native army (Pham, 1972). The French expeditionary army urgently needed such an army as the increasingly protracted war required replenishment of manpower, while France could no longer sustain large troop deployments to Indochina. This marked a major strategic turning point toward “Vietnamizing” the war (jaunissment) (Vo, 2011). However, the plan to establish a native army did not receive unanimous support. General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Commander-in-Chief of the French army in Indochina (December 1950 - November 1951), strongly supported the initiative (Pham, 1972). But de Lattre's successor, General Raoul Salan doubted the effectiveness of such a force (Tran, 1989). Salan did not trust the commanding skills of the Vietnamese officers as well as the combat skills of the Vietnamese soldiers. Therefore, he sought to delay the establishment of a native army. His attitude, shared by many French officials of the time, reflected a continuation of colonial assumptions in which Vietnamese personnel were regarded as inherently inferior.

Under French colonial rule (1858–1945), the French considered themselves to be superior to the Vietnamese, with a mission to civilize their country. Such attitudes had endured for nearly a century and had become deeply embedded in colonial ideology. It was indicated in Nguyen Ai Quoc's reports on the “civilization policy” of the French colonialists in the 1920s (Ho, 2011) and was also reflected in contemporary religious and military life. Priest Tran Tam Tinh bitterly stated that Vietnamese missionaries were only “second-class clerics” in their homeland and had to suffer all kinds of disparagement from European missionaries (Tran, 1988). In the military sphere, colonial authorities also tended to keep colonial soldiers at a low rank. They needed native soldiers to “understand orders, give orders and make short reports,” but were reluctant to promote them to higher command positions (Ta, 2011, pp. 312–313). Even after the Ha Long Agreements were signed (1948), the French military circles still had the habit of treating their Vietnamese counterparts condescendingly, which insulted the national pride of Vietnamese soldiers and made them want to disobey the command of French officers (Do, 1986). In this context, although the State of Vietnam's Army was presented as the armed force of an independent nation, it remained in practice under substantial French control and influence. As a result, many soldiers found it difficult to regard this force as truly representing national interests, which in turn directly affected both their fighting spirit and their sense of attachment to their units.

The opportunity to establish a Vietnamese army led by Vietnamese officers finally emerged in the early 1950s, when the situation on the battlefield turned unfavorable for the French. Representatives of the State of Vietnam traveled to Paris to persuade the French government of the necessity of building a Vietnamese army. The French government, after careful consideration, agreed with the State of Vietnam (Tran, 1989). In 1952, the State of Vietnam's Army Command was established, albeit largely in name. By May 1954, this army had grown to 250,000 soldiers (Pham, 1972). Following the creation of the State of Vietnam's Army, attention increasingly turned to the need for structures capable of sustaining soldiers' morale, including the eventual establishment of a chaplaincy.

Chaplains had long served the French army, and based on this precedent, a chaplaincy might have been expected for the army of the State of Vietnam. This was a difference between the State of Vietnam's Army and the army of communist countries. The armies of communist countries, including the Viet Minh, did not have chaplains but instead had political commissars, or officers in charge of soldiers' political affairs. Communist soldiers fought not in the name of religion, but for revolutionary goals such as the liberation of the working class (Chu, 2006). This contrast further underscored the symbolic distinction between theistic and atheistic military structures on the battlefield.

The process of establishing a Vietnamese chaplaincy was quite slow. Initially, the French only provided weapons and financial aid to a few clerics (in Phat Diem, Bui Chu) to organize local militias to defend the dioceses. The local clerics concurrently acted as spiritual caretakers for these militiamen (Doan & Xuan, 1973). These militiamen primarily acted within the scope of the dioceses and were occasionally integrated into a wider range of coordinated operations by the French army (Tran, 1988). These units were not counted as regular military forces.

The first officially Catholic armed formations supported by France were the U.M.D.C. units (Unités mobiles de défense de la chrétienté), which operated under the slogan Pro Deo et Patria (“For God and Country”) and were classified as auxiliary forces of the State of Vietnam's Army (Pham, 1972). Established in Binh Dai (Ben Tre province) in July 1947 under the leadership of the French-Vietnamese officer Jean le Roy (Keith, 2016), these units recruited primarily from Catholic communities and were deployed mainly in Kien Hoa province, where they conducted operations against resistance forces. Despite their explicitly religious character, these units did not possess an official Vietnamese chaplaincy. Spiritual care was largely provided informally by local clergy, while mobile troops often depended on French chaplains when available. This arrangement revealed the limited attention paid by French authorities to the pastoral and emotional needs of Vietnamese soldiers, even in units whose identity was closely tied to Catholic communities. This concern is confirmed by archival documents concerning the organization of military chaplaincy, which emphasized that such institutions were intended to ensure “the moral and spiritual well-being of officers and soldiers,” indicating that pastoral care was regarded as an integral component of military organization rather than merely a religious concern (Prime Minister's Palace Record Group. Aumônerie Militaire au Vietnam, 1947-1953, file 6,216, p. 1).

The absence of an official chaplaincy system for Vietnamese soldiers was not merely an organizational or personnel issue, but also reflected the fact that the French military had yet to regard Vietnamese forces as a national army deserving comprehensive care, including attention to the spiritual lives of its soldiers.

The changing position of the Holy See toward local churches also played a role. From the late 1910s onward, the Vatican gradually promoted indigenous clergy after long prioritizing Western missionaries. By 1933, the Vietnamese clergy had their first Vietnamese bishop − Nguyen Ba Tong (Keith, 2008). In the following years, more Vietnamese bishops, namely Ho Ngoc Can, Ngo Dinh Thuc, Phan Dinh Phung, Le Huu Tu, Pham Ngoc Chi and others, were also ordained. The growing influence of Vietnamese clergy strengthened demands for greater representation of Vietnamese religious leaders within the army of the State of Vietnam. Extensive discussions took place between Vietnamese bishops, the Apostolic Nuncio to Indochina John Dooley and Prime Minister Nguyen Van Tam between 1951 and 1952 (Cassaigne, 1951). As reflected in correspondence from the Apostolic Delegate in 1952, the Holy See, after examining proposals submitted by Vietnamese bishops, concluded that cooperation among local ecclesiastical authorities to appoint chaplains represented the most suitable solution for addressing the spiritual needs of Vietnamese soldiers under prevailing wartime conditions (Dooley, 1952, Prime Minister's Palace Record Group, file 6,216). As a result, in March 1952, the first Vietnamese priest was appointed as a chaplain for the Auxiliary Army. After that, 10 more priests were appointed as assimilation chaplains, standing together in the ranks of French chaplains. This was, however, nowhere near sufficient. By early May 1954, the State of Vietnam's Army had reached 250,000 soldiers, of which about 10% were Catholic (Le, 1956; Nguyen, 1960). Although Catholics represented only about ten percent of the army, this still constituted a significant segment of the fighting force, making pastoral care directly relevant to military morale rather than merely a religious concern.

Thus, until the early 1950s, French authorities devoted limited attention to both the development of the State of Vietnam's Army and the spiritual needs of Vietnamese Catholic soldiers within it. Disappointment among Vietnamese Catholic soldiers was inevitable. “During many years of fighting and sacrificing, many soldiers have been injured, dying without seeing a priest and living without moral guidance,” reported Le Trung Thinh, Rector of the Department of Catholic chaplaincy, to President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1956 (Le, 1956, p. 42).

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, key developments in Indochina and the world greatly altered the situation. Following the triumph of the revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government recognized the legitimacy of and established relations with the DRV in 1950. The Soviet Union and Eastern European countries followed suit, establishing diplomatic ties with the DRV. The war of resistance of the Vietnamese people under the leadership of the Viet Minh was subsequently supported by the Socialist bloc. Meanwhile, after the failure at the Sino-Vietnam border (1950), France was forced to rely on American assistance to continue the war in Indochina, effectively altering their strategy.

In December 1950, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was appointed Commander-in-Chief and High Commissioner of France in Indochina, with full authority to decide on all military and civil matters in Indochina. Unlike his predecessors, de Lattre was a proponent of and proactive in the process of Vietnamizing the war. Under de Lattre's administration, military training bases were built and came into operation. The State of Vietnam's Army was strengthened in number and well-equipped.

Given these developments, the government of the State of Vietnam started to see the need for a separate chaplaincy for the Vietnamese Catholic troops. This development created an opportunity for Vietnamese clergy to mobilize support for establishing an independent chaplaincy. Trinh Nhu Khue, Archbishop of Hanoi and other influential figures in the Vietnamese church at the time, such as Truong Cao Dai (Vicar Apostolic Emeritus of Haiphong, 1953–1954) and Jean Cassaigne (Archbishop of Saigon), lobbied Bao Dai and Nguyen Van Tam to create such an institution (Dooley, 1953). Under their advocacy, initial ideas were drawn up toward the establishment of a Vietnamese chaplaincy (Dooley, 1952). On that basis, on June 8, 1953, the Head of State of Vietnam, Bao Dai, issued Ordinance No. 51-QP on the establishment of missionary chaplaincy in the Vietnamese army (Bao, 1953). Clerics were treated as non-Combatant personnel and granted ranks equivalent to lieutenants or captains (Article 4).

However, the establishment of the chaplaincy in 1953 took place when the war had already entered its decisive phase, and many of the soldiers' spiritual difficulties as well as questions of loyalty had already taken shape. Consequently, this newly created institution was unlikely to bring about any significant improvement in the army's fighting spirit. Although the ordinance represented an effort by both the Vietnamese clergy and the State of Vietnam government to meet soldiers' religious needs, it came too late. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 quickly brought the war to an end, leaving the Vietnamese chaplaincy with barely a year of effective operation.

At first glance, the establishment of chaplaincy appeared as a considerate gesture toward Vietnamese soldiers. However, chaplains primarily served Catholic personnel, who comprised less than ten percent of the army, while soldiers of other faiths – including Protestant and Buddhist communities - did not receive comparable support until much later. This imbalance reflected colonial religious hierarchies in which Catholicism, long supported by colonial authorities, continued to enjoy preferential treatment. Religious inequality, a characteristic feature of colonial rule, thus persisted within the spiritual life of the State of Vietnam's Army.

The case of the chaplaincy in the State of Vietnam's Army reveals the profound limitations of efforts to build a national army in the context of a late colonial war. While the army was expected to serve as a symbol of an independent state, the failure to provide timely attention to the spiritual lives of soldiers demonstrated that inequalities inherited from the colonial period continued to shape institutions operating under the banner of national sovereignty.

After the founding of the DRV and the outbreak of the First Indochina War, Vietnamese Catholics found themselves caught in a dilemma: whether to remain loyal to their Fatherland and resist the return of French colonial rule, or to follow a Church that strongly opposed communism. Efforts to Vietnamize the Franco-Vietnamese war led to the establishment and expansion of the State of Vietnam's Army, within which many recruits were Vietnamese Catholics. Yet the spiritual and religious needs of these soldiers remained a low priority for the French authorities. A Vietnamese chaplaincy was only formally established in June 1953 through cooperation between the State of Vietnam government and the Vietnamese Catholic hierarchy.

This occurred near the end of the war, when both French and Viet Minh forces were concentrating their resources on the decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu. In that battle, the State of Vietnam's Army played only a secondary role, and the newly established Vietnamese chaplaincy therefore remained largely ineffective before the conflict came to an end. Meanwhile, in regions such as Phat Diem, Catholic clergy and lay communities had resisted Viet Minh pressure for years, demonstrating the importance of spiritual leadership in sustaining morale and cohesion among Catholic combatants. Learning from these experiences, from 1955 onward, the government of the Republic of Vietnam began to consolidate and expand chaplaincy services for its military personnel.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 13th Engaging with Vietnam Conference (2022). The author would like to thank Liam C. Kelley and Phan Le Ha for organizing the conference and providing an intellectually stimulating forum in which some of the ideas developed in this article were first discussed. The author also thanks the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are solely the author’s responsibility.