The Catholic Church in Vietnam has received with great joy and hope the ordination of 40 new priests during June, month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
According to the Vatican Agency Fidesthe diocese of Da Nang welcomed six new priests “consecrated to be each one Old Christ (Another Christ), to become pastors of God’s people, not to live for themselves, but to be all for all, ”said Mons. Joseph Duc Duc Ngan, Archbishop of Hue and Apostolic Administrator of Da Nang, in his homily of the ordination mass on June 24 in the local cathedral and before numerous faithful.
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“The priest does not become perfect since the day of his ordination. The priesthood is a path of daily growth in Christ and constant strengthening in the Holy Spirit to fulfill the mission of God and the Church with joy and true love,” said the prelate.
Mons. Peter so he presided over the ordination mass of 13 new priests on June 25 in the Cathedral of Soc Trang, of the Diocese of Can Tho.
In the Eucharist, the prelate invited the faithful present to “unite in prayer and to accompany the new priests, to always lead a faithful life to their pastoral identity: humble, holy and dedicated to flock.”
On June 27, the day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day of the sanctification of the priests, 21 new presbyters for the Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh were ordered.
Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Nang said in his homily that “the priest is not like a robot of the modern era. The priest, in his ministry, takes the will of God seriously so that, in every action, liturgical, pastoral and charitable, he can transmit the good news.”
Fides also reports that in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bai Dau, in the Diocese of Ba Ria, Bishop Emmanuel Nguyen Hong are ordered six new deacons, also on June 27.
This Monday, June 30, Pope Leo XIV received at the Vatican audience to the Vice President of Vietnam, VO Thi Anh Xuan, a gesture that confirms the positive evolution of the relations between the country of Southeast Asia and the Holy See.
In a statement from the press office of the Vatican It was reported that “there was a great appreciation for the positive evolution of relations between the Holy See and Vietnam.”
In particular, they highlighted the application of the historical 2023 agreement on the Pontifical Representative resident in Vietnam, with which the Holy See could have a representative again in the country, something that did not happen since 1975, when the communist government expelled the apostolic delegate.
Vietnam has almost 93 million inhabitants. Of them around 6.8 million are Catholics, that is, 7.4% of the population, according to the states published by the Holy See.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.