Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
Today at our Saturday evening liturgy, we celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi according to the universal church calendar and also the Sacrament of Confirmation for 26 young people in our English Catholic Community.
This was also my last day as pastor of the English Catholic Community. Fr. Pedro Emilio (L), from the Quebec Mission Society, officially replaced me as the spiritual leader for our group. Bishop Olivier gave me a warm thank-you for my 25 years with the English community.
This is our religious education group working with the children of our English Catholic Community in Phnom Penh. Last Sunday they saw a group of young children receive their first communion. Tomorrow they see older youth receive the sacrament of confirmation. (A super group of people!)
Tomorrow a good number of our children in the religious education program will receive their first communion. Today, to prepare them for communion and to introduce them to another of the church’s sacraments, we offered the Sacrament of Reconciliation, known as confession in the past.
Fr. Charlie was the presider and Fr. Fel (L) and Fr. Pedro were also ministers of the sacrament.
The distinctive twin spires of St. Meinrad Archabbey dominate the countryside and can be seen across the fields and forests of Spencer County, Indiana.
At the liturgy this morning, I proclaimed the first scripture reading.
A special part of this liturgy was the offering of the sacrament of the sick to any of the priests who felt the need for it. Archbishop Shelton Fabre anointed them with the holy oil blessed in Holy Week.
St. Meinrad Archabbey is an old and traditional Benedictine abbey but it is also home to new technology, with a solar power field on the abbey grounds.
For two of the four days we were at St. Meinrad, Sr. Jane Becker presented about the dynamics of a reorganization of a diocese. She had two lectures on each of the two days.
Each day we had a liturgy in the St. Thomas Aquinas chapel.
St. Meinrad Seminary is an old institution in rural southern Indiana, an establishment of Benedictine monks who came from Germany. This is a view from my third-floor window.
This is my room at the seminary, in Anselm Hall. The wide angle makes it look much bigger than it is!
Every year the priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville gather for an assembly, at St. Meinrad Seminary in southern Indiana. This year I was able to join them for the four-day event.
The priests always say the best part of the assemblies is getting together with friends and colleagues.
After a brief opening session, the group walked through an interior courtyard on the way to their first dinner together.
The meals were fantastic, both for the food and for the conversations.
After an evening prayer, the group returned to the dining room for an address by Archbishop Shelton Fabre who spoke of his hopes for this time together.
On Saturday, May 30, Cole McDowell was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Louisville and all the priests gathered for the celebration
I appreciated the timing of the ordination because it gave me an opportunity to reunite with priests I went to the seminary with 60 years ago and to meet the new priests ordained after I started working in Asia.
St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky was in operation for eighteen years. I was there for the middle six-year span. Many of us who went through St. Thomas keep in touch via a Google group called “LostBoysofSTS.” Most of our contact is online but occasionally we meet for lunch. We got together last Friday and it was a great gathering.
This photo caught everyone to my right looking rather sombre but it was really a good time!
For thirty years, the Maryknoll community met every Wednesday for a meeting and a liturgy and a dinner together–and for celebrations for special events like birthdays. The Maryknoll NGO is no longer in Cambodia but some of those formed by Maryknoll’s long tradition of weekly meetings continue to gather each Wednesday.
Today was a birthday celebration for those born in May and we honored (L to R) Binh, Cristina, Kila, and Robert.
The Vicariate of Phnom Penh had a memorial service for Pope Francis this morning, a few hours before his funeral in Rome. All three bishops from Cambodia were there and about 50 priests.
