austraLasia 1682

Following up the missions - and the missionaries

ROME: 7th November 2006 -- A little mission news that you may wish to follow up.  Bosconet (sufficient for the moment to go to the home page, 'What's new' section) contains a collection of the UCAN reports collated by the FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences) on the recent Asian Mission Congress in Thailand.  Read together - the dates indicate the date of the UCAN report - they offer a useful overview and some ideas for reflection.  Also available is Fr Alencherry's most recent letter on the mission/ary policy of the Congregation: it is a practical outline of where the needs are, how they are being responded to, and why.  The letter was published in the most recent copy of the AGC but for some it may be easier to get hold of it, especially for download purposes, from Bosconet.
    There are four Vietnamese missionaries in Hungary as part of this plan.  Recently, given that he was making the extraordinary visitation in nearby Slovakia, Fr Klement was able to spend a short time with the four.  They have now been there 10 months, much of which was spent at the Provincial House learning Hungarian, but now they are spread around in various communities hard at work.  Fr Klement finds them buoyant and certainly highly appreciated.
    One Practical Trainee is in Obuda, assigned to the Oratory of the parish attached to the Provincial House. Another Trainee is assigned to the novitiate community and boarding school at Szombatherly, while a third is assigned to the new community in Easter Hungary, Kaczin Barzyka, where there is a vocational training centre and boarding facility mainly for Rom (Gypsy) youngsters.  This is a difficult work since the Gypsy community is definitely not integrated into the wider European community with all the attendant difficulties that brings. The Rector of this community is an Indian Salesian, so it really is a missionary community in every sense.  The fourth Vietnamese confrere, a priest, is assigned to the novitiate community mentioned above.
    All missionary confrere in this challenging European mission outpost recognise the difficulties, not just at the surface level of learning a new language. An extraordinary degree of patience is called for! Despite Hungary's nominal 70% Catholicism, youngsters who attend the Oratories and more so in the Rom areas do not know much about the Church.
    The confreres keep regular contact with their province of origin, and Fr John Ty, once their provincial now himself a missionary in Mongolia, keeps in touch with a weekly newsletter.  They also indicate they like receiving their daily austraLasia to keep in touch with the EAO Region.
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