Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4670614.stm

On February 2, 2006 BBC News reported, "Phat Diem's distinctive 19th-Century Catholic cathedral is a popular draw for local and foreign tourists. Its architecture is a mix of East and West - carved stone pillars, wooden side-panels and Chinese pagoda-style roofs. It is a symbol of Catholicism in northern Vietnam that has endured decades of turmoil and communist repression. Vietnam has the second biggest Catholic community in South-East Asia, a legacy of French colonial rule. But the communists who took control of Vietnam in 1975 distrusted this foreign influence. Now, however, restrictions on Catholicism in Vietnam are beginning to ease, in line with a general opening up of the country ever since the reforms of the 1990s."