Today is the memorial for Blessed Andrew the Catechist, considered the first of the Vietnamese martyrs:

In Vietnam, Christianity’s vibrancy is rooted in the labors and fidelity of generations of catechists who continued to serve Christ and the Gospel for centuries, long after foreign missionaries had been expelled and native clergy prohibited from exercising their ministry.

Among the 44 martyrs declared "blessed" by Pope John Paul II during the very first beatification of the Jubilee Year 2000 was Andrew the Catechist of Vietnam. Though he preached for only a few years, his witness of faith was so strong he has been remembered by millions of Vietnamese faithful for more than 350 years.

The story of seventeenth century Christianity in Cocicina, Vietnam, and of Andrew’s place in it, was told by Jesuit missionary Father Alexander de Rhodes. Fr. de Rhodes was for Vietnam what Matteo Ricci was for China. He compiled the first dictionary of the national language and developed the written characters still used today.

Fr. de Rhodes was also an eyewitness to the imprisonment, condemnation to death, and martyrdom of Andrew. And it was he who wrote down the first account five years later.

Forum 18 reporting on religious freedom in Vietnam today

Relations between the Catholic Church and the government remain tense as the communist regime continues to interfere in the training, appointment and assignment of priests. Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, who has become one of the most prominent Vietnamese dissidents in recent years, was released from prison in February 2005 as part of the government’s general amnesty to 8,000 prisoners and the same month, the government approved the appointment of Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet as Archbishop of Hanoi, replacing the ailing Cardinal Pham Dinh Tung. Yet the government’s record of interference in church affairs had prompted the Archbishop of Hue to tell Asia News in November 2004 that the new religious ordinance will continue to limit the Catholic Church’s ability to conduct its own affairs.

You cannot, of course, talk about the Catholic Church in Vietnam in the modern era without talking about Cardinal Van Thuan. Any and all of his writngs are humbling and hopeful spiritual reading.

The Viet Catholic Network page. Which is in Vietnamese, but there you go.

The USCCB page on Vietnamese Catholics

Oh, and in my surfing around, I found this very nice page about the Catholic Church in Cambodia. There are only a few thousand of them, but they sure do have a good website.