Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
Last Friday, Dr. Raymond Leos, vice president of American University of Phnom Penh, died suddenly. Today at the school there was a funeral service in English. Tomorrow there will be a Buddhist ceremony at the pagoda. Raymond was a member of our Sunday English Catholic Community.
We’re still getting used to our new mass center at St. Jude Thaddeus School in Phnom Penh. We use their multi-purpose room (a former warehouse) for masses on Saturdays. They keep changing the room around each week. They have some wooden risers we use for a platform for the altar and always before they were covered in worn red carpeting and were of different heights. Tonight they were covered in green and are all the same height, a big improvement.
Every two months I write a column about life and ministry in Cambodia for The Record, the newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. The latest column mentioned Pchum Ben, the Buddhist festival of the dead that we are experiencing this week.
For some reason one of the paragraphs of the published version of the article appears to be corrupted so rather than give the link to the newspaper, I’m trying to make a link that will send you my original copy I sent to The Record. See if you can click on this link below:
This is the hall at St. Jude Thaddeus School we use for mass on Saturday night. This photo was on Sunday morning when the hall had been transformed into the site for the foundation day celebration for the school.
A group of laity and church people, continuing a Maryknoll tradition of gathering every Wednesday, get together every week for liturgy and a meal together. Today was the last day that Bro. Tony Burrows (3rd left) will be with us. He returns to work in Australia on Friday.
For almost thirty years, the Maryknoll INGO met every Wednesday. Now that Maryknoll Cambodia is no longer operating in Cambodia, some of those who used to meet continue to do so.
Here is a collage of photos from the new St. Joseph Church a few days ago when the regional director of Couples for Christ met there with Bishop Olivier. Fr. Chatsirey (blue shirt) showed them the progress inside and outside the ongoing construction.
The detail work inside the new church is continuing but they are also getting serious now about the landscaping and drainage.
Today was the final day of the job coaching training. Kevin Cook presented a lot of good material in these three days. Now the challenge for all the Caritas Cambodia projects is to utilize that information in strengthening our support of appropriate employment for people with disabilities.
