austraLasia #2214


Ordination Day for Vietnam Province

HCM CITY: 2nd August 2008 -- On 1st August the Salesian Province of St John Bosco in Viet Nam celebrated 'Ordination Day'.  By 5 in the morning many relatives of the ordinandi had already arrived at Don Bosco Xuan Hiep, even though the celebration was not taking place until 8 am.
    The ordaining prelate was Bishop Joseph Hoàng Van Tiem sdb, bishop of Bui Chu Diocese.  He was joined by more than 100 concelebrants, most of them Salesians, and with around 2,000 in the congregation - religious, relatives and friends.
    Fr Andrew Wong, EAO Regional, also took part in the celebration.  There were Salesians, too, from the Philippines North Province (FIN) - Fr Danilo Torres, Vice Provincial and Fr Alton Fernandez from the Seminaryo ng Don Bosco, Paranaque, given that four of those to be ordained had studied there.
    It was really a grand ordination occasion: four deacons ordained and eight priests, three of whom will head out soon for the missions (two for PNG and one for Sudan).
    In his words of thanksgiving, the Provincial of Viet Nam, Fr John Baptist Nguyen Van Them, thanked the FIN Province for its assistance with the formation of Vietnamese confrères (he added that the Province had 'stolen' two confrères in the sense that now as missionaries they will go to Papua New Guinea, which is officially a Delegation of the Province - but was quick to add that it was a 'happy loss'!).
    This is one of the first occasions that austraLasia has been able to report easily on ordinations in the country.  Over the past five years or so things have eased considerably in this regard. On this occasion the provincial was able to forward his list of candidates to the officials and all were accepted for ordination.  May it always be so!
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 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2008 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2214
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces VIE ordinations
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2214