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The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
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.
The English-speaking Catholic community was formed in the late 1980s when Fr. Tom Dunleavy was the first priest to return–at the request of the Vatican–to Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge era. The community met in hotel rooms at first, then in a classroom, then a cultural center, and then moved to the auditorium of World Vision Cambodia pictured above. The third-floor windows on the wing extending to the left are those of the auditorium which we use on Saturday evenings at 5:00 PM. We have another liturgy on Sunday mornings at 10:00 AM at St. Joseph Church on the other side of town.
Easter Sunday started off with a gathering of the English Catholic community and ended with a gathering of the Maryknoll Cambodia community.
Most of the day was spent at the cathedral presbytery and at the Caritas Australia office and then in the evening we went to the Finneran residence for dinner. Click here to see today’s limited activities.
Today I was part of a Caritas Just Leadership Day in place of presentations in the Broome Diocese where flooding canceled our travel plans. Click here to see what the JLD entailed.
This morning was occupied with three masses in two churches, and running back and forth between them. Then after lunch I packed up and went to the airport to return to Perth. Click here to see today’s events.
Today was a pleasant day with some work and some sightseeing. Click here to see where we went.