Author: Charles Dittmeier

Lockdown Day 5

Last Thursday the government imposed a lockdown on Phnom Penh to control the spread of Covid-19. We won’t know for a while whether it is effective or not–and the government has implemented it very clumsily–but at least this morning our neighborhood was basically shut down. The street above is normally very busy at 8:00 AM in the morning.

The street was not totally quiet, though. Pong, a simple little bakery, was open with their guard outside. And the woman in the stainless steel shop may not have been on duty–she lives above the shop–but put out a few wares just in case someone desperately needed a drying rack for clothes.

Give food to the hungry…

When the government suddenly imposed a lockdown without much time for people to prepare, many were left without adequate food and other necessities. Bishop Olivier establish an emergency relief committee and they have started distributing needed supplies to poor families like these two in the photos.

Do you have yours?

Pope Francis has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, calling it a lifesaving, ethical obligation and saying the refusal to be vaccinated is suicidal. A coalition of Catholic groups, including Maryknoll, support the pope’s emphasis on being vaccinated. And just this morning, the Maryknoll Cambodia community received their first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine. https://catholiccares.org/resources #CatholicCares

Registering for vaccinations

Khmer New Year–Day 2

On the way to a hospital to get our first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine, the Maryknoll group passed Wat Phnom, the spiritual center of Cambodia. It was decorated for the new year but no one was there because yesterday afternoon the government imposed a lockdown on Phnom Penh with just five or six hours notice.
The government rarely does things simply and clearly. Yesterday they announced that the lockdown would start at midnight. Today the papers said it started at 12:00 April 15th. Was that yesterday midnight or tonight midnight? The police apparently thought it was yesterday midnight because they had streets blocked off when we finished getting the vaccine.

Easter…still

Maryknoll Fr. Joe Veneroso is a poet who takes the themes of our belief and theology and puts them into a form that sings their meaning to us. We are still in the Easter Season–and will be for several more weeks. Let us not forget what Easter means for us. Here is Fr. Veneroso’s Easter message:


“We stand at the foot of the cross and
Cannot help but wonder why

Undergo such sacrifice and
Unspeakable suffering and humiliation.

As if reading our unspoken thoughts, he says,
‘Do you still not see or understand?
Nothing you can do, no sin you can commit
Will ever make me stop loving you.’

And with that he bows his head and dies.
Before daybreak we rise to walk
Alongside the mourning, myrrh-bearing women.

The stone removed, our sadness devolves into despair.
An empty tomb taunts us with renewed doubts.
Grave robbers? The owner? The wrong tomb? Or. . .
‘Why seek the living among the dead?’
He says our name.
He whom we thought dead now lives again
We rush back with Magdalene
To spread the Good News and henceforth

To live for him who died and rose for us. Amen. Alleluia.”