IE02428.1444 May 9, 2007 48 EM-lines (538 words) INDIA    Tribal People Create Script To Save Dying Language In Eastern India RANCHI, India (UCAN) -- A tribal group in eastern India has prepared a written script to promote what it feels is becoming a dying language. The Pastoral Centre of Ranchi archdiocese hosted a meeting on May 2 to discuss tribal issues, especially the promotion of Kurukh, the language of the Oraon tribe. The tribe mainly lives in Jharkhand state. The state capital, Ranchi, about 1,160 kilometers east of New Delhi, is the base of the archdiocese and nerve center of India's vibrant tribal Church. About 300 bishops, priests, Religious and doctors, engineers, government officials, politicians and professors attended the meeting. It was organized by Kurukh Unnati Samaj (society for the advancement of Kurukh), a forum for development of the language. The Oraon, the most "upwardly mobile" of Jharkhand's 32 tribes, has a sizeable number of Catholics, including hundreds of priests, nuns and prelates. Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo of Ranchi, Asia's first tribal cardinal, belongs to this tribe. However, retired Bishop Nirmal Minj of North-West Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church has told UCA News that a gap unfortunately now exists between Oraon people living in cities and those living in villages. "It is sad to say the city people have so developed themselves that it is not easy for them to mix with village people," the Protestant prelate said. "They have become strangers in their own villages because they do not know the Kurukh that village people speak all the time. Mother tongue spreads love and makes one feel oneness and belonging-ness." He and several other speaker noted that the tribe's socio-cultural advancement has adversely impacted their indigenous culture and language. Auxiliary Bishop Vincent Barwa of Ranchi told the gathering that tribal groups worry about their traditional languages, literatures and cultures because the present generation is losing interest in them. Auxiliary Barwa said this "threatens tribal society and its identity and existence," and can be checked only if the language is saved. He said he hopes the meeting also will help revitalize Oraon society. Rameshwar Oraon, a member of parliament, told the meeting that the Jharkhand state government has taken steps to teach tribal languages in schools, "but the mother tongue can be learned best at the mother's lap, at home." Most educated people are shy about speaking their tribal language. Oraon remarked that their preference for English and other languages "is separating them from the rest of the Oraon society, and this will weaken our society." Karma Oraon, an anthropology professor at Ranchi University who heads the forum to develop Kurukh language, pointed out that tribal children who study in English-medium schools prefer to speak with their parents in English. Father Augustine Kerketta, general secretary of the language development forum, told UCA News that parents have been urged to teach the tribal language to their children at home. Advancement of the language, the priest said, has also been blocked by the absence of its own script. But with the help of experts, the forum has developed a script called Tolong Sinki for the language, and it was officially accepted during the meeting. "We will learn and use the script," Father Kerketta said. "We will also ask the government to accept this script to teach this language in the schools." END Related UCAN Reports INDIA Bishop Continues Christian Tradition Of Promoting Tribal Languages (May 16, 2005) INDIA Writers See Need For More Sensitive Use Of Hindi Language In Christian Literature (January 30, 2004) INDIA Tribal Songwriter Helps Keep Jabalpur Church In Tune With Local Culture (June 16, 1995) IJ02416.1444 May 9, 2007 89 EM-lines (No count of words) INDONESIA    UCAN Interview - 'Spirit Of Catholicism' In Laywoman's Audio Dramas YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (UCAN) -- The Javanese-language drama stories of Maria Kadarsih are aired every week by Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI, Indonesian acronym) Yogyakarta, where she has worked as a broadcaster since 1985. The 55-year-old parishioner of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Pugeran, Yogyakarta, 405 kilometers east of Jakarta, told UCA News that "the spirit of Catholicism" imbues all 1,092 episodes she has produced thus far. However, she said she never mentions Bible verses, chapters and names, and avoids using specific Church terms because her RRI audience is religiously pluralistic. Besides her Javanese-language work, the alumna of the Psychology Faculty of Yogyakarta-based Teacher Training Institute has also produced 1,010 episodes of audio dramas in Bahasa Indonesia, the national language. Thanks to her talents and productivity, she has received the Suara Kencana (golden voice) Award seven times and been nominated for the Rancage Award. RRI gives its Suara Kencana Award to the country's best audio-drama writer, and the annual Rancage Award is given to the literary writer or regional literary work that faithfully uses local or regional language. The interview with Kadarsih on April 17 at her Yogyakarta office follows: UCA NEWS: What has motivated you to develop so many Javanese audio dramas? MARIA KADARSIH: I was born and raised in a Javanese family with strong Javanese culture. We children were taught to communicate with our parents in correct Javanese in daily life. We usually spoke in ngoko (low-level Javanese addressed to a person of lower social status, or of equal status with whom one has a close relationship), but sometimes we maintained Javanese unggah-ungguh (etiquette) by using certain words that show respect for parents or elders. Javanese audio drama has been a favorite of RRI Yogyakarta listeners since the 1960s because it delivers moral messages in their own language. For me, audio drama provides an opportunity to deliver messages in line with the teachings of my Catholic faith. When did you start writing Javanese audio dramas? I began in 1973 when RRI Yogyakarta conducted a three-week radio broadcast course for radio broadcasters from all private radio stations in Yogyakarta. I was then working for Retjo Buntung Radio Station. On that occasion, I met Soemardjono, a famous Javanese audio-drama writer and director at RRI Yogyakarta. He taught me to play characters in Javanese audio dramas, and encouraged and taught me to write Javanese audio dramas. I guess he thought I had the talent. So I became involved in Javanese audio drama in 1974, and played some characters during that period. Since then, I have always had him read and examine every script I wrote. I had to revise my scripts many times, and there was no educational institution offering Javanese audio drama as a subject, but I never gave up. I also learned audio drama from Father Daniel Handoyo Sunyoto of Sanggar Prathivi in Jakarta. I met him during a three-month workshop organized at the Audio-Visual Studio of Yogyakarta-based Pusat Kateketik (PUSKAT, catechetical center). Several Catholic radio broadcasters from various radio stations in Yogyakarta also attended his workshop. What themes do your Javanese audio dramas usually highlight? I like themes reflecting people's real-life, concrete situations, but I prefer themes related to women's roles in the family, society and the nation. To date, I have written about 300 audio-drama series, involving about 2,000 hour-long episodes. The script for each episode is about 18 pages long. Television seems to interest most people, so why do you still do audio dramas? Basically, radio still serves local societies, cultures and languages. It provides programs that reflect what local people need and want. As long as RRI Yogyakarta can fulfill the wants and needs of Yogyakarta people, it will not lose listeners. I believe radio stations that use local content, culture and approaches will survive. Besides, radio programs are very imaginative. They encourage listeners to imagine what they hear. Do you think radio programs can be an evangelization medium? Today, radio and television create programs for special target audiences. Private-run Sonora Radio Station in Yogyakarta, for example, specializes in religious programs for Christians, and Petra Radio Station focuses on women. There are also religious radio stations that create evangelization programs. As a public radio station, RRI Yogyakarta cannot specialize, but it can have regular broadcasts of the Sunday Mass, worship services and religious forums, as well as programs of spiritual guidance and the like. As an audio drama writer for state-run radio, I can only implicitly include "the spirit of Catholicism" in some characters I create. I avoid mentioning biblical verses, chapters and names, and avoid using specific Church terms. For example, I included the Catholic teaching on love in a dialogue between two siblings when I wrote: "Bapak rak wis ngendika, awake dhewe didhawuhi nresnani pepadha, klebu uwong sing nyatroni awake dhewe (our father has told us to love others, including our enemies)." Does your implicit evangelization spark negative reactions from listeners? I have never received any negative reactions, maybe because I never explicitly express Catholic teachings in the dramas. Some people know I am a Catholic, but they do not object. I believe they appreciate the moral values in the drama stories because the values are universal. What should the local Church do to preserve Javanese language? Javanese language is an adiluhung (noble) cultural inheritance we should preserve. Javanese Catholics can do so by using Javanese within the family and at Catholic neighborhood prayer meetings. The Church can also help by offering Masses in Javanese. Yogyakarta episcopal vicariate, part of Semarang archdiocese, has cooperated with Programa 1 of RRI Yogyakarta to broadcast Sunday Mass in Javanese. This has significantly contributed to the preservation of the local language. If the Church intelligently uses local language and culture to proclaim its teachings through mass media, including radio, these evangelization efforts will be much more effective. END (Accompanying photos available with the UCAN Photo Service. Use story code IJ02416.1444 or a person's name to search for related photos.) Related UCAN Reports INDONESIA Late Dutch Jesuit's Old Javanese Literature, Language Works Praised (February 21, 2006) INDONESIA Traditional Musicians Work Together To Create New Songs For Javanese Liturgy (February 15, 2005) INDONESIA UCAN Feature - Christians Appreciate God's Word On Radio (July 16, 2002) INDONESIA State-Run Radio To Begin Broadcasts In Dayak Kanayatn Language (April 23, 1992) KO02425.1444 May 9, 2007 59 EM-lines (706 words) KOREA    Workers' Sunday Boosts The Spirits of Korean and Foreign Workers Alike INCHEON, South Korea (UCAN) -- A special Workers' Sunday Mass and celebration that allowed South Koreans to speak about the challenges they face at work also boosted the spirits of migrant workers in one diocese of the country. "I'm happy to be here with workers from various countries" and to talk with them in Korean, 52-year-old Addie told UCA News on May 6, the celebration day. The Filipino worker added that the occasion also gave him a chance to meet up with "a Korean nun, an old friend." Addie has worked for the past three years in a plastic injection factory in Siheung, near Seoul. He first came to Korea in 1992 and has since returned twice for work. Incheon, South Korea's second-largest port city, 40 kilometers west of Seoul, is in Incheon diocese, the only one in Korea that celebrates a special Sunday for workers. Incheon diocese's annual practice began in 2002. About 100 Korean workers and another 50 or so from Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam joined in the sharing, games and party for Workers' Sunday. The diocese's Pastoral Committee for Labor organized the activities, which were held at a Church-run high school. Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san of Incheon presided at the Mass, concelebrated by nine priests, including Father Vincenzo Kim Il-hoi, president of the Pastoral Committee for Labor. Bishop Choi read a message for Workers' Sunday in which he said ordinary people are in trouble, despite government claims that South Korea will soon have a per capita Gross National Income (GNI) of US$20,000. "The employment problem is serious and the income gap is growing," he said. According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the GNI per person in 2006 was US$18,372. Bishop Choi noted that migrant workers can get counseling, medical treatment and Korean lessons at two centers set up for them in his diocese, and three parishes also offer English Sunday Masses. He added that the labor committee has three other pastoral centers that cater mainly to Korean workers. After the Mass, two Korean workers spoke about labor disputes they had experienced. A man working for Cort Musical Instruments said the owner of the company, one of the world's largest guitar manufacturers, laid off 56 of the company's 160 workers on March 12. The worker acknowledged that "the company suffered its first loss in 2006, its first within a few decades, but that should not excuse the layoffs." He said the dismissed staff "should be allowed to work again in the company." A worker from Daewoo Motor Sales spoke about a process the company began in August 2006 through which it laid off about 530 workers of its 1,650 staff by transferring them to a smaller subsidiary. The labor union applied for an injunction against the action, and the court ruled that the transferred staff remain Daewoo workers. Even so, about 200 workers refused to be transferred. Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant leaders in Incheon held a prayer rally and press conference in April, and also sent letters to both companies, urging the employers to reverse their decision to lay off the workers. An official of Incheon diocese's labor committee told UCA News that the religious leaders are still waiting for the companies to respond. After the talking, the participants enjoyed dancing, sports and games, and a meal for which foreign and local workers shared the food they had prepared. Kumara, 28, a Sri Lankan who came with three compatriots, told UCA News, "We are happy for this kind of event after working hard. We could meet Koreans and people from other countries, and we enjoyed the games and other activities." This was the second celebration of Workers' Sunday for Kumara, who came to South Korea in 2006. He works in an aluminum-production factory, while his friends work in local furniture and chemical companies. Each earns about 1-1.2 million won (US$1,085-1,300) a month. The first Workers' Sunday was observed several months after Daewoo Motors, a major employer in the Incheon area, laid off thousands of workers in 2002. It has since been observed on a Sunday close to May 1, marked as Labor Day in much of the world and by the Church as the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. END (Accompanying photos available with the UCAN Photo Service. Use story code KO02425.1444 or a person's name to search for related photos.) Related UCAN Reports KOREA Lenten Retreat Highlights Plight Of 'Irregular Workers' (March 31, 2006) KOREA Seoul Cathedral Asks Protesting Migrant Workers To Leave Church Grounds (January 2, 2004) KOREA Priests Propose Joint Action To Respond To Migrant Worker Issues (July 24, 2003) KOREA Diocese Marks Workers Sunday, A First In Korean Church (April 30, 2002) KO02427.1444 May 9, 2007 59 EM-lines (719 words) KOREA    Church Adjusts Ministry To Migrants As More Koreans Marry Foreigners CHEONAN, South Korea (UCAN) -- Perla Oliven says her 9-year-old daughter makes her sad whenever she asks for help to do her Korean-language schoolwork. Her inability to help prompts the girl to ask, "Mommy, you don't know that?" The 41-year-old Filipina has lived in South Korea for 13 years, but she never learned Korean properly. As a migrant worker in the country in 1991-1993, all she could manage to follow was a televised children's program. Oliven told UCA News on May 4 that she went back to the Philippines after that two-year period, but she returned to South Korea in 1997 to marry a local man whom she had met when she was a migrant worker. She lives with her husband, daughter and 6-year-old son in Cheonan, about 80 kilometers south of Seoul, and now works part-time in the Migrants' Pastoral Service Center in Cheonan, run by Daejeon diocese. It still bothers Oliven that she is not up to the task when her daughter, now a primary school second-grader, asks for help with her schoolwork. Ministering to the needs of Oliven and other foreign spouses has become a pressing concern for South Korea's Catholic Church. Bishop Vincent Ri Pyung-ho of Jeonju, president of the Korean bishops' Committee for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants, acknowledged this on April 29 in a message marking the 93rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Bishop Ri said that South Korea now has about 1 million migrants and that one spouse is a foreigner among some 160,000 married couples. He also noted that 40 percent of Korean men in rural areas marry foreigners and about 8,000 children from families of mixed nationalities are already going to school. However, the bishop observed, the government is inadequately prepared to handle the growing trend, so Catholics should find ways to address the "mass immigration" that the country is facing "for the first time in its history." Father Joseph Kang Seung-soo, the chaplain of foreign workers in Daejeon diocese, agrees. He explained to UCA News on May 4 that most migrants in the 1990s had been migrant workers, but foreign spouses, especially women from other Asian countries, have become more numerous in recent years. The priest, who is in charge of the Migrants' Pastoral Service Center, stressed that pastoral care to migrants should now take foreign spouses into account. "They have a different culture and are handicapped because they do not communicate well with local people," he said. In a statement issued on April 15, the Supreme Court of Korea said one of every eight marriages in South Korea in 2006 involved a foreign spouse, a huge increase from 1990, when just 1 percent of marriages included a foreign spouse. The court also noted that divorce among such couples has been rising, from 1.6 percent of all divorces in the country in 2003 to 4.9 percent in 2006. Some foreign spouses told UCA News about the challenges they face. One such spouse is Leliosa Villarin, a 38-year-old Catholic Filipina living in Cheonan with her Korean husband since 2000 and now the mother of two daughters. She said that foreign wives unfamiliar with local culture and the price of goods may ask their husbands to buy what they cannot afford. When the husband refuses, Villarin said, the wife begins to think, "My husband does not love me," and this creates discord in the family. Amanova Zamzagul, a 38-year-old Kazakhstan woman who married a Korean man in a Protestant Church in 2000, told UCA News she found it hard to adjust to her new life, not least when she tried to learn Korean. She wants the Church and society to offer foreign spouses important help and information. Zamzagul, who professes no religion, lives with her husband and 6-year-old son in Seoul. According to Father Kang, Church ministry to foreign spouses should be done at parish level because parishioners know the migrants living in their midst. In 2006, the staff of his center visited 34 mixed-nationality couples to teach Korean to the foreign spouses. Center volunteers also assisted seven foreign women during their pregnancies. According to the Supreme Court, 39,071 out of 337,528 marriages in 2006 included a foreign spouse. In all, 29,660 foreign women -- 14,450 Chinese, 9,812 Vietnamese, 1,474 Japanese and 1,131 Filipinas -- married Korean men. END (Accompanying photos available with the UCAN Photo Service. Use story code KO02427.1444 or a person's name to search for related photos.) Related UCAN Reports TAJIKISTAN Labor Migration Affects Families, Weddings Too (August 30, 2006) KOREA Koreans Asked To Be More Open To Foreigners, Different Cultures In Their Midst (June 30, 2006) KOREA Church Workers In Ministry To Migrants Asked To Be 'Transnational' (April 27, 2006) PL02431.1444 May 9, 2007 52 EM-lines (594 words) PHILIPPINES    Media Workers Must Be Responsible, Veteran Church Official Says MANILA (UCAN) -- Philippine journalists must become more responsible, even as guns and libel cases continue to threaten their lives and profession, says a veteran Church communications official. Jesuit Father James Reuter, executive secretary of the Philippine bishops' Commission on Social Communications and Mass Media, told UCA News on May 3, World Press Freedom Day, that though press freedom all over the world is a "blessing," it has to be "matched by equal responsibility." The 90-year-old missioner, a native of New Jersey in the United States, emphasized that research aimed at confirming a report from one or two witnesses and presenting the "whole picture" is "necessary" in journalism. The 1989 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts noted that something or someone can look "good" or "bad" by the choice and selection of details, "as everyone engaged in media knows." While Father Reuter asserted that the press "should be free to express the truth" and not be "cabined, cribbed and confined" by the government, he still acknowledged that some journalists in the Philippines are "almost (at) the bottom of the barrel" in terms of being responsible. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, in the 1998 and 2004 editions of its book News for Sale, detailed how some journalists worked as press relations officers and paid hacks during an election season. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), in a statement issued on May 3, tallied 51 journalists slain since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power in 2001. The latest, a journalist working for a government-run radio station in Nueva Ecija province, was killed on April 18. According to NUJP, those statistics make the Philippines second only to war-torn Iraq as the world's most dangerous place for journalists. NUJP reported in an earlier press release that many of the victims were "poor journalists paid on a piecemeal basis for their work." Father Reuter, who has lived in the country for 63 years, described journalists killed because they "told the truth" as "martyrs." Referring to this year's World Press Freedom Day theme, "Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity," he also flayed the government for failing "to get the killers" and "administer justice" on behalf of the slain journalists. In February, the International Federation of Journalists, which represents more than 500,000 journalists in more than 115 countries, urged Arroyo to promote a "free" and "safe" press by bringing to justice the people responsible for slaying journalists in the Philippines. Besides the killings, journalists also face libel cases filed against them by government officials. The most notable instances were 17 libel suits that Miguel Arroyo, the president's husband, filed against 46 journalists who wrote articles linking him to massive corruption. Several national broadsheet editors were arrested and released on bail before Arroyo dropped all the charges on May 3 in what he said was a "gesture of peace." Father Reuter agreed that government officials are entitled to file a libel case "if it is really libel." Though "journalists sometimes go too far and present something that is only a rumor as if it were a fact," he insisted that libel should not be used to "silence" people who oppose the government. Marites Danguilan Vitug, editor-in-chief of Newsbreak magazine and a respondent in two such cases, said in a May 3 statement that though she is "glad" Arroyo has "seen the light," the suits should be resolved in court. The NUJP says all credit for withdrawing cases belongs to the "valiant Philippine press" and to the sued journalists "who refused to be cowed." END Related UCAN Reports PHILIPPINES Filipinos Honor Father Reuter As Teacher, Priest And Communicator On 90th Birthday (May 23, 2006) PHILIPPINES Church Lauds Programs For Slain Journalists' Children, Denounces Killings (May 12, 2005) ASIA Father Reuter Given Magsaysay Award For Journalism, Communication Arts (August 16, 1989) TA02433.1444 May 9, 2007 56 EM-lines (681 words) TAIWAN    Bishop Of Taichung Hopes To Revise Chinese Canon Law After Retirement TAICHUNG, Taiwan (UCAN) -- An elderly bishop in central Taiwan plans to revise the Chinese version of the Code of Canon Law after he retires. Bishop Joseph Wang Yu-jung of Taichung, who turned 76 years on April 27, said there has been no news from the Vatican since he submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI a year ago. A resignation letter is canonically required of every bishop when he turns 75. The Taipei-based Apostolic Nunciature in China has told Bishop Wang that the pope received his letter, "so I can only wait for the pope's decision," Bishop Wang told UCA News on May 7. He said he hopes a new bishop will be appointed for Taichung diocese this year. When he actually retires, the bishop said, his main task will be to revise the Chinese version of the Code of Canon Law, published in 1985 by the Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference in Taiwan. When Pope John Paul II announced the new code in early 1983, Taiwan's bishops appointed Bishop Wang, then secretary general, to lead a team to work on the Chinese translation. Shanghai-born Bishop Wang obtained a doctorate in Canon Law at Pontifical Urban University in Rome in 1959, four years after he was ordained a priest in Madrid. "In the early days, we could base our translation only on the Latin and Italian versions, but this was not satisfactory," he said. The Canon Law is now available in more languages, he noted, "so I can check and revise each of the 1,752 canons by also referring to the French and Spanish versions." "If I still have the energy," he added, "I will revise the Chinese course materials of the Cursillo Movement, too." This lay movement, launched in Spain in 1949 and introduced in Taiwan in 1968, grew out of a cursillo de Cristianidad (short course on Christianity), which was developed as a lay renewal instrument geared toward apostolic action. Bishop Wang said he hopes to invite someone to rewrite and revise the Chinese course materials of the Cursillo movement, which will mark its 40th anniversary in Taiwan in 2008. He estimated that more than 1 million people in Taiwan have attended its three-day course during the past four decades. Meanwhile, Taichung diocese looks forward to having its own building for its curia, or central diocesan offices. Bishop Wang said the four-story cylindrical building is to open on Aug. 15, Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, exactly one year after its groundbreaking ceremony. "I am retiring, but my successor and his curia will work and reside there," he said. The building is finished but its interior is not. The building will house curia offices, lay association offices, a residence for clergy working in the curia, a chapel, a conference room and a library. Among Taiwan's six dioceses and one archdiocese, Taichung was the only one lacking a curia building. Bishop Wang recalled that when he became the bishop in 1986, he borrowed a house from the Congregation of Saint John the Baptist for use as his office and residence for just three years. "But I could return the house only 20 years later!" he exclaimed. The return would have happened seven years sooner if a major earthquake did not hit the Taichung area on Sept. 21, 1999. At that time, the bishop said, the construction permit for the curia building had already been granted. The earthquake, which hit 7.6 on the Richter scale, claimed more than 2,000 lives and injured thousands. It also destroyed and damaged 20 churches, and the bishop decided to use funds for the curia building to restore some of those churches. More donations were also collected to repair eight churches, rebuild five others and build two new ones. New donations were later solicited for the curia building, he pointed out. According to the 2004 Taiwan Catholic Church Directory, Taichung has nearly 35,000 Catholics, served by 69 priests and 119 Religious sisters. The diocese covers Taichung city as well as Taichung, Changhua and Nantou counties. Taichung city is 130 kilometers southwest of Taipei. END Related UCAN Reports TAIWAN Religious Congregation Holds Its Largest Priesthood Ordination (January 6, 2004) TAIWAN Church Restoration Continues Despite Ongoing Tremors (May 30, 2000) TAIWAN Quake Delayed Diocesan Plans, Offered Opportunity For Loving Outreach (January 31, 2000) TAIWAN Bishop Wang, Auxiliary Of Taipei, Formally Installed As Bishop Of Taichung (November 26, 1986) VT02423.1444 May 9, 2007 61 EM-lines (774 words) VIETNAM    Young Priest Develops Ministry To Abandoned Catholics In Their Homes YEN BAI, Vietnam (UCAN) -- Some Catholics in northern Vietnam who had no chance to practice their faith for decades have returned to the Church, thanks to their new parish priest and his special approach to their pastoral needs. In March 2006, Father Michael Nguyen Tien Quang, 34, became the first parish priest of the parish established in Mong Son in 1999. Mong Son is in Yen Bai province's Yen Binh district, 220 kilometers northwest of Ha Noi. Father Quang also serves Luc Yen parish, in adjacent Luc Yen district, along with nine sub-parishes in the two districts. In all, about 5,000 Catholics now attend his services in four wooden churches in the parishes and sub-parishes. Pierre Nguyen Tuan Sinh, 74, told UCA News that after not practicing his faith for 40 years, he is so happy that Father Quang visited his family and regularized his marriage. This past Lent, the priest heard Sinh's confession and administered Baptism and Confirmation to his wife in their own home. "If Father Quang did not visit and encourage me to return to the Church, I would still have a guilty conscience and live in constant fear of being punished by the Church," the former communist soldier admitted. After he married a Catholic woman and they had a son, Sinh said he left them to marry another woman in 1965. Since then, he said, he did not want to meet any priest or go to church, even after his first wife died five years ago. Sinh's wife, Marie Luong Thi Nghiep, 70, told UCA News she willingly converted because she is interested in Catholicism and her Catholic neighbors are good friends who love others. She said she decided to go see Father Quang when her husband refused her constant pleading that he return to his faith. Nghiep recalled the priest telling her, "God loves people, especially sinners, and does not punish anyone." The priest did everything to help them become Church members, she said, and she hopes their four children will also become Catholics in the future. Father Quang, who was ordained in 2005, pointed out to UCA News that the area had no resident priest for a long time, so many Catholics married outside the Church or married people of other faiths without Catholic rites. Other local government workers, he noted, stopped practicing their faith altogether. "My first priority," the priest said, "has been to visit and offer pastoral service -- confession, celebrating Mass, teaching catechism -- to Catholics in their homes, especially those who married outside the Church." He added that many who did not go to confession or receive Communion for many years, as many as 50 years, are still afraid of going to church for liturgical services. The priest recalled some people telling him, "My God, you visit us sinners, who are unworthy of your visit!" All he wants to do, the young pastor said, is to be their friend and bring them God's love. "The Church should create favorable conditions for people to return to God, not burden those who already suffer from many difficulties," he said. To date, Father Quang reported, 20 couples in Mong Son parish have had their marriage regularized, and hundreds of non-practicing Catholics have gone to confession at home. In Luc Yen parish, 100 kilometers from Mong Son, eight couples are preparing to have their marriages regularized, he added, and the wives and children of two parish lay leaders are not yet baptized. One lay leader told UCA News that Father Quang celebrates Mass and hears confession at his house because the parish has no church. Before long, all members of his family will be baptized, the lay leader added, and that likely will prompt hundreds of inactive Catholics to revive their faith. Joseph Tran Van Diep, a Mong Son parish council member, brings Father Quang on a motorbike to visit people who never go to church. Diep told UCA News that he and the priest also visit people who drive their children to church but do not enter. People who welcome the priest's visits and ministry in their homes, he said, typically take part in parish activities later on. Joseph Vu Huy Phuong, a lay leader, told UCA News that Father Quang is the first parish priest for the two parishes since 42 Catholic families left Thac Ba Lake in the early 1960s, when a hydroelectric plant was built in the area. For the parish to grow in the future, Father Quang said, he will conduct catechism classes, revive Catholic associations and build churches because he realizes he cannot continue his special brand of home ministry indefinitely. END (Accompanying photos available with the UCAN Photo Service. Use story code VT02423.1444 or a person's name to search for related photos.) Related UCAN Reports VIETNAM Northern Diocese Appoints Priests To Remote Parishes In Time For Holy Week Ministry (April 3, 2006) VIETNAM Witness of Bishop Visiting Remote Areas Inspires Local Catholics (April 12, 2005) ZY02432.1444 May 9, 2007 107 EM-lines (No count of words) VATICAN    A Defining Moment In The Pontificate Of Benedict XVI UCAN Column "Vatican Vista" by Gerard O'Connell SAO PAULO, Brazil (UCAN) -- Pope Benedict XVI has often been described as "Euro-centric," but his May 9-13 visit to Brazil may soon shed some of that image. Though close to half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics live in Latin America, Pope Benedict has paid little attention to them since he was elected pontiff on April 19, 2005. That at least is the widespread impression among believers in this continent where Catholicism was introduced 500 years ago. The pontificate of the 80-year-old pope faces a defining moment when he lands in Sao Paulo, the biggest metropolis in the country with the world's largest Catholic population. About 155 million of Brazil's 186 million people are Catholics. More than half of them are younger than 21, and most are poor. How he relates to them and the other 350 million Latin American Catholics who will follow what he says and does in Brazil could significantly impact his entire pontificate and the future of the Catholic Church in the whole region. Many priests, Religious and lay faithful in Brazil and the rest of Latin America regard the theologian-pope as the foe of liberation theology, which flourished here from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. It spread to other parts of the world, including Asia and Africa, and it still influences many priests, Religious and the members of Brazil's 80,000 basic ecclesial communities. This perception of Benedict stems from the 36-page "Instruction on Certain Aspects of 'Liberation Theology'" that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued under his leadership on Aug. 6, 1984. That text denounced many aspects of the movement in Latin America, particularly those associated with Marxism concepts and analysis. This perception spread as the CDF dealt with some of the most celebrated liberation theologians, including Leonardo Boff of Brazil and, most recently, Father Jon Sobrino of El Salvador. Beyond that negative reading, this reserved, gentle, intellectual pontiff has not yet touched Brazilian hearts as Pope John Paul II did. The Polish pope made four visits to Brazil (1980, 1982, 1991, 1997), while the German pontiff, now 80, is about to make his first. The distance between Benedict and Brazilian Catholics is vast if one accepts the findings of a recent poll here in which about half of Brazilians could not even give the name of the present pope. During his 100 hours in this land of immense contrasts, Benedict will have a golden opportunity to modify such perceptions -- perhaps his only one, since most people do not think he will visit again -- by assuring Brazilian and Latin American Catholics that he also has a big place in his heart for them. Pope Benedict has to convince Brazilian and other Catholics in Latin America that he is concerned not just about the orthodoxy of their beliefs and correctness of their liturgical celebrations. He must also show his concern for the many millions who suffer from extreme poverty, grave injustice, unemployment, corruption and violence. For example, the greater metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, where he will stay for the first three days, has 24 million people, of whom 6 million live in shantytowns, even in the very heart of this city the Jesuits founded in 1554. According to one priest working in one such shantytown, locally known as a favela, 15,000 people of such areas suffer violent deaths every year. The pope must show that he is aware and concerned about this dramatic reality and that he also realizes the globalization bringing great benefits to many people has left many other Brazilians and Latin Americans worse off than before, causing them to scream out for justice and solidarity. The Brazilian Catholic Church has led this struggle for justice for 40 years, and its members hope Pope Benedict will throw his intellectual and moral weight behind them in this ongoing titanic mission for justice and peace in their homeland and throughout Latin America. Yet another major problem deeply worries Benedict XVI: the increasing migration of Catholics in Brazil and all over Latin America to Protestant Pentecostal sects. As in the rest of Latin America, the Church in Brazil suffers from a dire shortage of priests, just one priest for every 8,000 Catholics, and Pentecostal sects have two pastors for every Catholic priest. At the Synod of Bishops in 2005, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, then archbishop of Sao Paulo, put this dramatic situation into sharp focus by reporting that "the number of Brazilians who declare themselves Catholics has diminished rapidly, on an average of 1 percent a year." In 1991, he said, 83 percent of Brazilians were Catholics but the figure dropped to 67 percent by 2005. He said that many indicators show "the same is true for almost all of Latin America." After presenting those statistics, the Brazilian cardinal, who last October was appointed prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, then voiced a disturbing question: "Until when will Brazil be a Catholic country? Until when will Latin America be a Catholic continent?" The problem he framed may have tilted Benedict's crucial decision to cross the Atlantic for the first time as pope, to meet Brazil's people and to deliver the keynote address at the Fifth General Assembly of the Latin American Bishops' Conference (CELAM). The assembly is to take place May 13-31 in Aparecida, 168 kilometers northeast of Sao Paulo. The CELAM event will bring together more than 200 representatives of the region's 22 bishops' conferences from 35 countries. They are to discuss the dramatic situation in Latin America before deciding on pastoral priorities and directions for the Catholic Church in the continent for the coming decade. Representatives of episcopal conferences in other continents will also attend, including Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato, Philippines, secretary general of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences. Pope Benedict's visit to the world's most Catholic country will give him ample opportunity to let Brazilians and other Latin Americans know his heart and thinking on vital issues such as poverty, social justice, evangelization, the family, human life, the environment and globalization. While in Sao Paulo, the city with the largest number of Japanese outside Japan, the pope is to meet Ignacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's worker-president, as well as 30,000 young people and the representatives of Christian Churches and other religions present there. He also will address the Brazilian bishops' conference and celebrate Mass for about a million people, during which he will canonize Frey Galvao, the first native-born Brazilian saint. He will spend the last two days at the Marian shrine of Aparecida, which attracts 7 million pilgrims a year. While there on May 13, his last day in Brazil, Pope Benedict will join the bishops at a concelebrated opening Mass for the CELAM meeting. Four hours before returning to Rome, he will deliver his all-important keynote address to the CELAM assembly. That speech will reveal better than anything else how Pope Benedict sees Latin America and the Catholic Church's role and mission there, now and in the coming years. What he says and does during his Brazil visit will largely determine how bishops, priests, Religious and lay faithful, and other Latin Americans will remember him. It will also leave a lasting imprint on the future of the Church on this region, which he recently described as "the continent of hope." Soon after returning to Rome, Pope Benedict will turn his eyes to the East as he signs his long-awaited letter to the Catholics in mainland China. That may build on his visit to Brazil and further modify his "Euro-centric" image. ----- Gerard O'Connell covers the Vatican as a correspondent for UCA News and other news organizations. END (Accompanying photos available with the UCAN Photo Service. 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