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Hanoi (AsiaNews) – With the ordination of four priests on 22 December, the fledging Society of Mission and Annunciation (SMA) set up 10 years ago by the then Cardinal of Hanoi, Paul Joseph Pham Dinh Tung, could be said to have reached maturity.

The four new priests, Joseph Tran Van Doat, Francis Xavier Vu Quang Hung, Pierre Tran Van Thuc and Antoine Tran Cao Tich, are aged between 35 and 41 years. They were ordained in Nam Dinh, around 90km south-east of the capital during a ceremony attended by many faithful and representatives of Buddhist and Protestant communities as well as government authorities. Thus the slow and ever partial improvement in religious freedom in Vietnam is confirmed after years of hard repression. This is also revealed by the fact that bishops are appointed quite regularly and Episcopal ordinations are possible, even if seminarians are strictly monitored and restricted. And aid and educational activities are permitted although they are formally still the preserve of the state.

In this framework, there is a significant fact to note: for the first time, priestly ordination was permitted in a parish and not, as has been the case so far, in a cathedral or in a seminary.

During the ordination, celebrated outdoors, the archbishop of Hanoi, Joseph

Ngo Quang Kiet, exhorted the new priests “to live in holiness and to love and serve the people of God, especially the poor and the sick.”

The Society of Mission and Annunciation has 25 members, including 14 who have already taken vows, but it does not have formal government authorization yet. The ordination of the four new priests brought to 71 the number of priests for Hanoi diocese that has 300,000 Catholics in 135 parishes.