Francophone Summit

[Photo] Cambodian officials and leaders from the Francophonie Summit meet in a preliminary meeting in Phnom Penh.

Next week top leaders including French President Macron and Canada Prime Minister Carney will meet in Cambodia for the 20th summit meeting of the Francophonie, an organization of more than 20 French-speaking countries.

Originally founded to promote French language and culture, the Francophonie has broadened its focus to include political, economic, educational, research, and other areas of international cooperation. Cambodia will exercise the presidency of the organization for the next two years.

I find Cambodia’s participation somewhat curious since there is little evidence today of Cambodia’s colonization by France as part of former French Indo-China.

Fall Convocation

Today all the priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville were invited to a fall convocation, an event designed for on-going formation and for building a sense of community among the priests.

The speaker for the day was a monk from St. Meinrad Seminary, Br. John Mark Falkenhain, OSB, who offered some theological reflections on the practice of celibacy for priests. It was an interesting and informative presentation.
At the end, Archbishop Shelton thanked Br. John Mark and then opened the floor for any comments or questions about anything. He does that at every priest gathering to encourage communications.

On the Road Again…

adcC

A special feature of this ADCC was the presence of Fr. Dong, the second deaf priest in the diocese of Seoul. It is going to be great having him organizing and leading in Asia for the next generation. He has been ordained two years.
This conference was so well organized! There were lots of non-business, fun things to see and do and learn. One Korean deaf man, a skilled calligrapher, helped people to write their names in the Korean language. I got a good grade on mine but I had an unfair advantage of 13 years writing Chinese characters in Hong Kong.
Another special touch to the conference was the really inclusive and professional use of IT and audio-visuals. These three video cameras in the rear of the room focused on presenters’ sign language and projected it larger than life on a huge screen at the front of the room.

On the Road Again…

The final off-campus trip we took during the week-long conference was to the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. This is an old steam locomotive that used to ply between the two Koreas but was attacked and destroyed at the beginning of the Korean War.
The DMZ is 8 kilometers wide. This cable car takes visitors from the southern edge of the DMZ (by the destroyed locomotive) to the center point of the DMZ where the actual negotiations have taken place.
The actual negotiations building is this living-room sized room. It is stark with just a wooden table and three chairs on each side so the two teams face each other. I was a bit put off by the fact the DMZ is now a major tourist draw with dozens of tour buses, a Dunkin Donuts, and all the other tourist amenities.