Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
A group of parents in the English-speaking Catholic community have formed a Fun Play Group to allow their children to meet and be friends with other children in a fun atmosphere with a little prayer and reflection to help the children grow in a positive setting.
The group met Saturday night after the evening mass and a good time was had by all!
Because we have a multi-cultural congregation in the English-speaking Catholic community, we provide a paper missal that allows people to read the scripture readings when they are being proclaimed by the lector at mass. For 95+% of our congregation, English is their second, third, or fourth language so sometimes they don’t catch the full meaning of only the spoken word.
The new English Missals for the church’s new liturgical year got lost this year. They were shipped from Ho Chi Minh City on 14 November but we didn’t pick them up here until last Wednesday. Then today I took 400 of them in a tuk-tuk to World Vision where we have our Saturday night mass in their auditorium.
Couples for Christ is quite active in Cambodia—and throughout Asia–and today they had a Christian Life Seminar to encourage believers to live out their faith more fully. I gave the open talk in the two-day program, about Jesus and who he is.
If you’re curious about what the English-speaking Catholic community is up to here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, click on the link below to subscribe to our newsletter e-mailed every Friday evening. You can always unsubscribe through the link at the bottom of each newsletter.
This weekend was the last time for Fr. Bob Wynne to celebrate with the Saturday and Sunday English communities before he takes up a new assignment in the United States. Click here to see pictures from the two farewells.
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
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.
We had the opening ceremony for our religious education program today. We have a great bunch of students and really dedicated staff helping us.
DDP has become quite well known in the deaf world since 1997 and many deaf people–individuals and groups–come to see us. This past week, Hosanna Church in Busan, Korea visited. They are a deaf congregation and we had a good visit.
