Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

No Kings Day Demonstration

There were all sorts of viewpoints and themes displayed at the Louisville No Kings Day demonstration yesterday. It was good to see many people expressing religious concerns.

Usually there is a group of us priests at these rallies but this time only me and John Burke and another priest were at the Frankfort Avenue site. The others were downtown at the larger rally.

No Kings Day Demonstration

Louisville organized two large demonstrations today, one near Nazareth Home where I live. They were well attended! Super!

A group of us priests participate in these demonstrations. Today three of us were at the Frankfort Avenue rally and the others went to the larger rally downtown. Here John Burke and I finally meet up after looking for each other in the crowd.

[More photos to come]

Path to Sainthood

The Khmer Rouge ruthlessly attacked the leaders of the Catholic Church and other religious leaders. The bishop at that time and eleven other church leaders have been proposed for canonization as modern martyrs for the faith. Pope Francis asked the present bishop, Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler, in 2015 to start the process and it has just now concluded and the evidence and documentation required has been sent to Rome.

Bishop Olivier, Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh, solemnly closed the diocesan inquiry for the beatification of the Presumed Martyrs of Cambodia: The Servants of God, Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas and his 11 Companions. Here is his statement:

These Servants of God — bishop, priests, religious, and laity — gave heroic witness to Christ amid the Khmer Rouge communist genocide (1975–1979), a brutal regime that caused the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million Cambodians through execution, starvation, forced labor, and persecution of faith.

After 10+ years of work, nearly 2,500 pages of testimonies and documents — radiant signs of faith in the darkness — are sealed and will soon go to Rome.

Pray fervently that they may soon be recognized by the Universal Church as models of charity and martyrdom.

As Bishop Salas said before his exile and death:
“Speak of us to the world.”
50 years later, we still do.

Fratelli Tutti

A further reflection on immigration from Pope Francis’ encyclical, #44:

We forget that “there is no worse form of alienation than to feel uprooted, belonging to no one. A land will be fruitful, and its people bear fruit and give birth to the future, only to the extent that it can foster a sense of belonging among its members, create bonds of integration between generations and different communities, and avoid all that makes us insensitive to others and leads to further alienation”.