3697_Sister Mary Tang, Cambodian Salesian sister forever

By Fr. Albeiro Rodas, SDB

Phnom Penh - Cambodia. Sister Mary Tang, the first Cambodian young woman to joint the Salesian Family in the Daughters of Mary Help, made her Perpetual Profession at the New Phnom Penh Pastoral Center before three bishops and many representatives from the Cambodian Catholic Church.

Sister Mary Tang did her novitiate in 2007, her first Profession in 2007 and now she gives her definitive yes to the Lord as a Consecrated religious in the troops of Don Bosco and Maria Mazzarello.

The ceremony started at 9 AM and it was presided by Mgr. Oliviere Schmitthaeusler, Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh, but also Mgr. Enrique Figaredo, Apostolic Prefect of Battambang and Mgr. Antonysamy Susairaj, Apostolic Prefect of Kompong Cham.

The Daughters of Mary Help (FMA) arrived in Cambodia in 1991 with the Salesians and opened three training centers for young women and basic education for children in Phnom Penh and Battambang. They are also involved in the pastoral activities of the Cambodian Catholic Church. Roman Catholicism is a minority in the Buddhist Kingdom of Cambodia with less than 0.5 % of its population. The biggest religious minority is Muslims present in the Cham ethnic minority. In the recent troublesome past, Catholicism, as other faiths, were bloody persecuted by the Khmer Rouge regime (1975 - 1979). Currently, the Church has presented several cases of martyrs under the regime.

Some other young Cambodians, men and women, are in discernment about joining the Salesian Family as religious, though vocations are few in the country.