 Once colonial rule was established, the Catholics were rewarded with preferential treatment in government posts, education, and the church was given vast tracts of royal land that had been seized.After the victorious overthrow of French rule and Vietnam's temporary division in the mid-1950s, Catholicism declined in the North, where the Communists categorized it as a reactionary force opposed to both national liberation as well as social progress.In the South, by contrast, Catholicism was expanded under the presidency of Ngo Dinh Diem, who aggressively promoted it, through coercion and violence, as an important "bulwark" against North Vietnam.