The World - News from Aug. 7, 1987

Vietnam accused a group of Roman Catholic priests of training a 1,600-member “army of priests,” partly financed by the United States, to undermine the Communist regime. The newspaper Saigon Giai Phong said that police arrested Tran Dinh Thu, a senior member of a Catholic order, and a number of his followers near Ho Chi Minh City. After the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, Thu, 81, was sent to a re-education camp for two years. The newspaper said he had since set up a network of 1,600 priests throughout the country. Vietnam’s 3.6 million Catholics have been a source of continual resistance to the Communist regime.