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In two weeks, Fr. Bob Wynne will take up a new assignment at the Maryknoll house in Seattle, Washington. Tonight was the last time he would celebrate the liturgy with the Saturday night congregation which meets at World Vision auditorium. He spoke about his mission in Cambodia and at the end of mass the community thanked him and gave him a gift.
Pat Marrin is an artist who applies his skills to church themes connected with Pope Francis. He does a really good job of giving new insights into current issues such as the sexual abuse scandal or caring for the environment. His comic strips on Pope Francis are published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Here is his latest strip, again taking a stance on clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up:
You can have an e-mail sent to you about each new Pope Francis cartoon by going to this address:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/environment/francis-chronicles/francis-comic-strip
Today was Fr. Kevin Conroy’s birthday and we celebrated it as part of our regular Maryknoll Wednesday meeting.
Kevin: “I was afraid no one would remember my birthday so I dressed up a little….”
Sr. Regina: “I’m staying away as far as I can. I think I’m safe here….”
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“This is an astonishing thing to have to say about an American president, but Trump is taking a page from the playbook of totalitarian dictators: Believe only me. Reality is what I say it is. Anyone who claims otherwise is an Enemy of the People.”
~Eugene Robinson (Washington Post Op-Ed) |
The foreign population of Phnom Penh is constantly turning over. We see that in our parish community where we need to recruit new ministers every four or five months because so many are rotated out or reassigned. And it’s the same with the buildings here. Places that I pass often have been family homes, a restaurant, a crocodile farm, a bar and brothel in quick succession. One group moves out and the other moves in with the least bit of disruption.
An illustration is the house in these pictures. Just a year and a half ago, it was a residence for high-ranking US Embassy personnel. I was often there for meetings, dinners, birthdays, etc., with the family with four children who lived there. Yesterday it opened as some sort of high-end coffee shop!
Heavy rains–it’s the rainy season–plus extra water from a collapsed dam in Laos have raised the river levels quite high in Phnom Penh. Bishop Olivier experienced a bit more difficulty than usual in making visits to the parishes along the river. Click here for more.
She must have as much stuff in front of her as behind her, judging from the angle of her legs! Not fun!
“I’m not PLAYING in the street, I’m DRAWING!!!”
Last month Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won all 125 seats in the legislature. That would be a truly remarkable accomplishment in a real election in a real democracy. But the CPP didn’t play by the normal rules. First the leadership of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was arrested and jailed or forced into exile. Then the party itself was declared illegal and dissolved. Since the CNRP was the only strong opposition party, it’s no wonder that the CPP took all the marbles.
Hun Sen faced a barrage of international criticism for not allowing a free and fair election. He anticipated that so in the eighteen months before the election, he encouraged (maybe even created) opposition parties which “contested” the election he won so handily. Of course because they were small, new, and inexperienced—and so many, the nineteen opposition parties couldn’t capture much of the vote. Hun Sen touted their participation in the election, though, to counter claims that it was a one-party election.
Another move after the election, to further counter the claims of a rigged election, has been to release the opposition members his courts had jailed before the election. See the headline above. The opposition leaders had been nullified during the campaign and now are no longer a threat so he appeals to the king to issue royal pardons and he thinks it makes him look good and “kind” (his word). I think most people see through that ruse, though.