Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

Kentucky to Cambodia

Jerry Bell, John Burke, and Joe Graffis are three priests from Louisville, Kentucky and long-time friends and colleagues of Charlie Dittmeier.  On their way to Vietnam, they stopped in Cambodia to visit with Charlie and learn more about the church’s work here.  Click here to see pictures from the first part of their trip.

Sihanoukville Retreat

All the priests and bishops of Cambodia are having a retreat together this week, starting today.  We are at the Catholic center in Sihanoukville on the southern coast.  Getting here was quite an experience.  It took 6+ hours to do 135 miles from Phnom Penh.  It’s really late now so I’m not able to post the pictures from today’s trip but come back tomorrow.

First Communion

This evening at the 5:00 PM mass, thirteen of our younger children received their First Communion, always a significant marker in a Catholic child’s spiritual development.  Here one of the boys reads the first reading for this weekend’s liturgy.

Quarterly Meeting

Today we had our quarterly meeting of the priests of the Phnom Penh vicariate.  Cardinal Ling from Laos was with us at the diocese’s pastoral center.

Cardinal Ling explained about the state of the church in Laos. He was imprisoned for three years by anti-Christian forces in the government.
After talking with Cardinal Ling and then after a time of prayer in chapel, our group met with all the pre-school teachers of the diocese who were at the pastoral center for a three-day workshop.
The teachers showed us all the educational toys they made for their students in programs where there is no money to buy such resources.

Boat Ride for Clergy

This morning was the celebration of the Cambodian martyrs under Pol Pot and this evening was a boat ride and dinner on the Mekong River to introduce the Phnom Penh clergy to Cardinal Ling, the archbishop of Vientiane, Laos.

Boarding the river cruise boat at sunset.
Bishop Olivier recognizing Fr. Bob Wynne’s 80th birthday, 50th anniversary of ordination, an impending return to the United States.
A chance for the priests–spread out over the lower half of the country normally–to get together and talk.
The river provides a vantage point for a different view of Phnom Penh.

Khmer New Year Day 1

It’s not only the local Cambodians who have abandoned Phnom Penh.  Many, many of the expatriates here have followed the locals on to the highways for a long holiday weekend for the Khmer New Year.  Today, the first day of the new year, we saw attendance at our Saturday evening mass down a great deal.