Diệm's family also seized businesses belonging to Buddhists in order to enrich themselves. Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it. Forgetting that he was talking to a Buddhist, Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." The distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas resulted in weapons only being given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of Buddhist pagodas occurred. Some Buddhist villages converted "en masse" to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime.