Vietnamese refugee to be ordained bishop in Australia
June 08, 2011
An Australian newspaper has published a profile of Father Vincent Long Van Nguyen, a Conventual Franciscan friar who will be ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne on June 23. The priest, who was 13 when Saigon fell to the Communists, fled by boat to Malaysia and spent 16 months in a refugee camp.
“'My childhood was spent in poverty and war,” he recalled. “I still vividly remember many nights when our parents would bundle us kids into the bunker that every house in Vietnam would have.”
“'Because of their hardships, because of their experience, [Vietnamese Catholics] have a particular way of adhering to the Catholic faith,” he added. “It means much more to them than just a Sunday service. Where they are, there is more vitality and dynamism.”
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