Chapel being built in Cambodian nature reserve
A Catholic chapel is being built in the Keo Seima nature reserve in eastern Cambodia, for the indigenous Bunong people who live there.
Feb 23, 2024

PHNOM PENH: A Catholic chapel is being built in the Keo Seima nature reserve in eastern Cambodia, for the indigenous Bunong people who live there. The Bunong are traditionally animists. They practise subsistence farming in small forest villages. They believe that nature is populated by good and evil spirits and also practise ancestor worship. Several families have now become Catholic.
Msgr Pierre Hangly Suon, Apostolic Prefect of Kampong Cham, presided over the Mass and ceremony laying the foundation stone in Keo Seima recently, in front of an assembly of priests and nuns, as well as about 150 Catholic believers from various communities in the Mondulkiri region. He explained that the construction of a church in this ‘natural paradise’ was a response to the growing number of believers in the area, and that it could now continue to grow according to God’s plan.
This chapel will be “a centre for the proclamation of the Gospel, a point of light and evangelisation to proclaim the love of God to all the people in the area. This small church, but above all the church made up of people, should be a light of God’s grace to those around us, so that they may know Christ and be saved by him,” said the bishop.
Bishop Suon laid two stones in the ceremony: the first came from the village of Gati, where the proclamation of faith began in Mondulkiri; the second was from the parish of Nak Loeung in Banam, in Kampong Cham Prefecture, one of the oldest parishes in the country, founded 160 years ago.
The building is expected to take almost a year to complete and locals have agreed to work on it. -- Fides
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