Redemptorists in Vietnam mark mission’s 50 years

Oct 26, 2019

PLEIKU, Vietnam: Redemptorist missionaries have improved the religious and material lives of tens of thousands of ethnic groups in Vietnam’s Central Highlands despite challenges and sufferings for half a century.

Thousands of Catholics from the ethnic Jarai, Bahnar and Kinh majority groups attended special ceremonies Oct 14-16 to commemorate the start of the Redemptorist mission in Gia Lai province 50 years ago.

Bishop Alosius Nguyen Hung Vi of Kontum presided at the Mass held at Pleikly Evangelisation Centre, the cradle of Catholicism for Jarai villagers.

Bishop Vi said the local Church was extremely grateful to Redemptorist missionaries who volunteered to live among ethnic villagers, brought the Good News to them, translated the Scriptures into their languages and helped them conserve their cultures.

He said at first only four Redemptorists worked with the Jarai group and later with other ethnic groups.

Fr Peter Nguyen Van Dong, vicar general of the diocese, said 32 Redemptorists now provide pastoral care for 45,000 Jarai Catholics, 10,000 Bahnars and 6,000 Kinh people from 247 villages and 75 mission stations. They have baptized about 40,000 Jarai people.

The priest said they have built 14 churches in parishes and 77 chapels in ethnic villages.

Fr Dong said four missionaries died for their missions in the area. The congregation kept one minute’s silence in honour of their deaths.

Redemptorists love ethnic people and poor people in the area, the priest said. He called on more Redemptorists to be sent to work in the diocese, which serves 350,000 Catholics out of the total population of two million in Gia Lai and Kontum provinces.

Fr Dong said he is happy that although ethnic people live in poverty, many attend liturgical services, children join in catechism classes held under trees because of lack of facilities, and many people are ready to evangelise other people.

Fr Joseph Nguyen Ngoc Bich, provincial superior of the Redemptorists in Vietnam, said local Redemptorists would continue bringing the Good News to those who have not known God. He also urged local Catholics to work as lay missionaries.

Redemptorist Fr Joseph Tran Si Tin said the late Bishop Paul Seits of Kontum drove four missionaries including him to Pleikly village on Oct 10, 1969. The missionaries had never been there and knew nobody there. He said the bishop blessed the Jarai people and left.

Fr Tin, who speaks the Jarai language fluently, said they had to live for months in a goat shelter but villagers later erected a leaf house for them.

They lived in poverty among villagers, worked on their farms, learned their language and culture, and went hunting and fishing with them for nearly 20 years. They translated the Bible into the Jarai language.

In 1971, communist soldiers destroyed their house and led three missionaries and some villagers to forests in Cambodia two times.

Redemptorist Bro Mark Tran Van Dan died of malaria in a forest.

After 1975, when the country was reunified under communist rule, the government banned religious activities. The late Redemptorist Fr Anthony Vuong Dinh Tai was detained for a week.

Fr Tin, 80, said the Redemptorists started to offer pastoral care to Jarai villagers in 1988 when local people began to embrace Catholicism. “We taught them how to read the Bible and held prayer groups in villages,” he said.

Redemptorists also trained many lay missionaries to work with villagers.

Fr Tin said that in 2005 some 100 ethnic villages followed Catholicism. Now five young Jarai ethnic men have become Redemptorists.

Fr Anthony Le Ngoc Thanh, who served Jarai people for seven years, said Redemptorists have built good relationships and kindness between them and villagers, but “the Holy Ghost himself drives ethnic villagers to look for God and embrace Catholicism.”

He added, “God sends them to us so that we care for them. God works in us when we perform our mission.” -- ucanews.org