The Burmese priest came to
Kansas in 2007 to help fill a shortage of priests, but he'll soon be
returning home to become the Bishop of Pyay, Myanmar.
Pope Benedict XVI announced the new appointment of the
bishop-designate on Dec. 3.
He will leave behind his two parishes in
Kansas and return to the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar –also known
as Burma– after Christmas.
There, he expects to be consecrated as a
bishop next spring.
While his adopted country struggles with a priest shortage and many
cultural challenges, those difficulties pale before the obstacles facing
the Catholic Church in Myanmar.
The country became a military
dictatorship in 1962, and citizens have almost none of the religious and
civil rights that Americans take for granted. While worship is allowed,
most other religious activities are not.
Four priests from Myanmar, where Western countries once sent their
own Catholic missionaries, currently work in the Diocese of Salina in
Kansas.
Fr. Cho was ordained a priest for the Burmese Diocese of Pyay in
1975, and served for more than two decades as a pastor there. The
bishop-designate was also rector of Myanmar's major seminary for seven
years.
“The priests in Burma heard about the need for priests in the United
States,” he told CNA on Dec. 3.
One of their compatriots who had come
to America noted the clerical shortage, and put the word out back home.
That was how Fr. Cho ended up coming to Salina to work double-duty as
the pastor of St. Mary's and St. Aloysius Gonzaga parishes.
That experience, the bishop-designate said, provided important
lessons that he would take back with him to his native Pyay.
“I've
learned many, many things,” he reflected, especially from observing the
“systematic running of the diocese,” and sharing in the “very friendly
and very brotherly” spirit in which the hard-working priests support one
another.
This lesson in mutual support could prove to be especially important
for Burmese Catholics, who comprise less than two percent of a nation
that is around 80 percent Buddhist.
An even smaller proportion of the
people residing in the Diocese of Pyay are Catholic, reportedly less
than one percent.
The future bishop of the diocese noted it would be “very hard” to
convert some residents whose Buddhist practice is closely tied to their
regional and tribal identity. Yet he was optimistic about opportunities
for evangelism, mentioning a “very great hope” for the Church's growth
in areas where Buddhism is less dominant.
Fr. Cho predicted it will be difficult to fulfill the Church's entire
social and cultural mandate, under a regime that grants almost no
freedom to its citizens.
In this context, he said, the Church in Myanmar
will have to be “very careful” to preserve its current small measure of
freedom.
“The government is trying to control everything,” he observed.
“At
present, it is very hard to change the whole system … they have their
power, they have their guns. So it is not easy to change the situation
at present. I don't see a very good future yet.”
The bishop-designate's leadership will be urgently needed.
“Because
of the improper governing, people are also becoming worse in their
morality, in their livelihood, in their education, all these … The
situation is becoming worse.”
SIC: CNA/INT'L