“Finding peace in God” – faith practices of provincial catholic students in Hanoi

Hanoi is one of the major educational centers of Vietnam. Every year, about 500,000 – 600,000 students come to Hanoi to study at colleges and universities, including provincial Catholic students. They mostly come from the northern provinces of Vietnam where Catholics live in tightly-organized, one could almost say closed, communities organized around the daily practice of their faith. For each individual, the way they express and practice their faith in the city shows that they are searching for the practical meaning that religion brings to their lives in this very different environment. Based on anthropological research and sociological surveys with a target group of provincial Catholic students in Hanoi, this study describes how they construct emergent religious identities in order to cope with unprecedented challenges to their understandings of morality and Catholic personhood. This article focuses on understanding the shift in faith practice of provincial Catholic students in Hanoi, the debates within the student community around the core issues of faith and sin, the general tolerance for behaviors -their own and others- that would not be possible in village life. Above all, it describes, how they reach God in ways compatible with these challenging new experiences.