A Sunday Wedding

Last Sunday after Mass at St Joseph's in Hanoi  I watched this young couple and two other couples primp and pose for wedding photos in front of  the Cathedral.   While there are many Catholics in Vietnam, I don't think they were having their wedding here, just using the location for its facade.

The Gothic style Cathedral was built to resemble Notre Dame and built in the 1800s on the site of a sacred Buddhist pagoda - a regretful but not unusual practice.  When the Viet Minh took control of Hanoi in 1954, the Church and priests were persecuted and tortured and the Cathedral did not open again until Christmas 1990.