Catholic people in Vietnam lead their lives as Catholics and Vietnamese who integrate their Catholic and traditional Vietnamese cultures in their sacraments and daily lives.  They have established their neighboring communities in the harmony and peace with non-Catholic people who practice their local Vietnamese beliefs and customs. The project will examine the Vietnam's Catholic communities that bear the Vietnam's culture and Catholic culture. The Catholics in Vietnam have established their own culture in the way that they live in the sacraments, but at the same time they interweave the local Vietnam's culture in their Catholic practices. Their integrated Vietnam's and Catholic culture is not paid attention by the government as well as scholars. This study aims to interpret the culture and society that the Catholics have adapted, created, and developed. Through this case study, the project explores fundamental universal values of religious culture and society. The cultural understanding and respect of various religious groups enhance new values for religious dialogue and symbiosis. It contributes to formulating a concept for the formation of new communities in which a diverse range of people can live in harmony, and dealing with religious conflicts. 

- Catholicism came to Vietnam at the beginning of the 16th century. It has undergone the inculturation process in order to spread in Vietnam. Many researches have explored the history of missionary work and the social role of Catholicism, beliefs and catechism in Vietnam. Some other publications mainly analyze the relationship between Catholicism and the traditional culture of the Vietnamese in general, not from the Catholic insiders and their views on how they continue to practice their traditional cultural expressions.
- This project has carried out the fieldwork among different Catholic communities of the Viet majority and Lach minority in Vietnam. Catholic people in Vietnam lead their lives as Catholics and Vietnamese who integrate their Catholic and traditional Vietnamese cultures in their sacraments, ritual practices, life circles rituals, and daily lives. This project sees how the Vietnamese and Catholic cultures co-exist in the intercultural and interreligious dialogue and symbiosis.
- In order to understand in depth on the project overviews the Catholic mission in Vietnam and sees how the Gospel has been brought in inculturation with the local cultural and belief systems.
The project explores the cultural expressions that contain in themselves both the Catholic and the local elements. With the interreligious dialogue and symbiosis approaches, the project analyses the ways in which the Vietnamese Catholics lead their life and spirituality through their sacraments, ancestor’s worship, funerals, weddings, and the other important events in their life circle. Through the case study of Vietnamese Catholic communities of Phu Nhai, Ke Sat and Lang Biang parishes, the project explores fundamental universal values of religious culture and society. The cultural understanding and respect of various religious groups enhance new values for religious dialogue and symbiosis. It contributes to formulating a concept for the formation of new communities in which people of different religions can live in harmony and peace.
The project has been carried out from anthropological perspectives and methods, including:
- 4 fieldwork research trips in the Catholic communities of the majority Viet people in the North and the central parts and the Lach minority people in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. These case studies reflect vividly the integration of Catholic and traditional cultures.
- The research applies the multi-sited field methods. The field work is carried out among Catholics in the selected locations where they live and in places where the Catholics take their pilgrimage.
- The research is not only carried out not only among the Catholics, but also the non-Catholics, and the related local authorities and government people.
- The deep interviews are very important data that provided the insightful exploration on how the Catholics have reflected and gone through their interreligious dialogue in themselves and live in symbiosis among different religious groups in society.
Through the project, the team researchers have collected a quite amount of field data including the collections about the Catholic life, the history of the parishes, the interviews, the video footage. With the visual and audio and textual data, the project has finished some outputs including: 3 short videos on the life circles of a Catholic person including: Film 1: Catholic Wedding in Ke Sat Commune, Hai Duong Province; Film 2: The Catholic Funeral in Nhu Nhai Commune, Nam Dinh Province; Film 3: The Death Anniversary of Ancestors in Phu Nhai Commune, Nam Dinh Province). There were two articles by Vu Hong Thuat, the research of the project published on the journal of Ethnology and Religious Studies on the life circle of the Catholics and on the ancestor’s worship. The important result of this project is the monograph draft by the principle research Nguyen Thi Hien an Vu Hong Thuat, that is expected to be published toward the end of 2017.
- With these outputs, the videos will be archived at the Center for Heritage Data at Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts Studies for its distribution to the educational and research institutes and universities.
- The articles and monograph are the important resources for education, for the cultural and religious policy sector, for local authorities and public in general.
The outputs are expected to diffuse information about the Catholic religious life as a part of the mainstream of Vietnamese culture and the respect for cultural diversity and understanding.