Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The Churches of Cambodia and Laos now have two new apostolic administrators drawn from their own local clergy, a significant development for these small Catholic communities which have been reborn in recent decades after enduring very difficult trials.
During the annual session of their Bishops’ Conference currently taking place in Luang Prabang, Laos, the Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Peter Bryan Wells, officially announced the appointments of Monsignor Paul Lay to the Apostolic Prefecture of Kompong Cham in Cambodia and Monsignor John Vimanephet Indavong to the Apostolic Vicariate of Luang Prabang in Laos. These are not new bishops but apostolic administrators and – as such – these appointments were made by the Dicastery for Evangelisation with the approval of Pope Leo XIV. Nevertheless, they represent very significant steps forward in the journey of the local Catholic communities.
In Kompong Cham, Fr Paul Lay succeeds Pierre Suon Hangly, who was appointed last year by Leo XIV as coadjutor bishop to the Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh, the French missionary Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler. In this role, which positions him to succeed as head of the local Church in the capital, Bishop Suon Hangly has become the first bishop to have grown up within the Cambodian Church, which was reborn in the 1990s following the brutal persecution by the Khmer Rouge (and the second Cambodian bishop ever, after the martyr Joseph Chhmar Salas, who died of starvation whilst in captivity in 1977 and whose beatification process is currently underway).
Fr Paul Lay is 66 years old and was brought up in a Catholic family. During Pol Pot’s genocide, he and his family fled to a refugee camp on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, where he discovered his vocation to the priesthood. Together with the current coadjutor bishop of Phnom Penh, he was one of the first four local priests ordained for the Cambodian Church in 2001. Sent to Paris to further his studies, he subsequently carried out his ministry in the parish of Neak Loeung, in the same prefecture of Kompong Cham which he will now lead and where he had already served as vicar general for several years.
As for Laos, Fr John Vimanephet Indavong is a young priest who has served in the Apostolic Vicariate of Savannakhet. In Luang Prabang, he takes over from Cardinal Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, Apostolic Vicar Emeritus of Vientiane, now aged 82, who also led this very small local Church of just 3,000 Catholics, likewise in the capacity of Apostolic Administrator. With today’s appointment, Laos now has a local priest at the helm of each of its apostolic vicariates:
Bishop Anthony Adoun Hongsaphong as Apostolic Vicar of Vientiane, Bishop Andrew Souksavath Nouane Asa as Apostolic Vicar of Paksé, Bishop Jean Marie Prida Inthirath as Apostolic Vicar of Savannakhet and Fr John Vimanephet Indavong as Apostolic Administrator of the Vicariate of Luang Prabang.
“Let us give thanks to God for these new shepherds,” writes the Bishops’ Conference of Laos and Cambodia in announcing the appointments to the faithful, “and let us pray for the strength and fruitfulness of their forthcoming ministry. May God bless them and bless you all.”
