Your Excellencies, fellow Priests, Brothers, and Seminarians,

By making a few points with you I wish to share with you what I have gone through and what I would like to do when I return to Thailand.

The history of the Catholic Church in Thailand is about 400 years old. The first missionaries who went to evangelize Thailand were the Portuguese Dominicans. At present we have ten dioceses in the whole of Thailand. The population is 60 million but the Catholic population is 4/10 of a percent, or about 250,000 Catholics. We are proud of having eight canonized martyrs; seven martyrs were beatified about ten years ago, and the other beatified last year (2000). The seven martyrs were killed during the war with the French (1944-45), a war Thailand, led at the time by a nationalistic Prime Minister, declared against France to reclaim the land we had lost to her some time before. Because of the Catholic Faith some Thai shared with the French, they were considered traitors to the country and so were persecuted. Witnessed by some young women in a small parish kitchen, two sisters were forced to leave their religious habits and denounce their religion. However, they stood fast and were shot and killed. One lay catechist was killed and a jailed priest died in prison. (The priest was the saint beatified last year.) Nowadays, there is no persecution. We are friends with the Buddhists and with Thai people of all groups.

After the fall of Vietnam to Communism (1975), the foreign bishops resigned from their offices. It was Vatican policy that they should resign and give place to the native priests to become bishops to rule the dioceses. [This is the reason why all the bishops of Thailand are Thai.] According to the domino effect, it was anticipated Thailand would become the next Communist country, but we succeeded in keeping the Communists from taking over my country.

My diocese is Ratchaburi, one of the ten dioceses in Thailand, about 60 miles southwest of Bangkok near the eastern border of Burma [with the Gulf of Thailand to the west —Ed.]. It is composed of four provinces. The bridge made famous in the movie Bridge over the River Kwai is in my diocese. There are about 2 million people in my diocese, but only about 15,000 Catholics. I have 55 diocesan priests, about three religious congregations of men, 12 religious congregations of women. The overwhelming majority of the people are Thai people. A few missionaries still remain here, but Thailand has closed its doors to new missionaries. So we have to stand on our own feet with native religious vocations. The main apostolate in my diocese, like that of the whole of Thailand, is education. Every parish has a school, and schools are the main source of income for the maintenance of the diocese. We have to make schools flourish, develop, so that we can attract more children to the schools. Unfortunately, it is often a case of quantity more than quality, and that is not good, in my opinion. It means that our priests find themselves employed in schools more than in their parish apostolates. Priests are looked upon as administrators of schools rather than pastors.

Some Background on Myself

I was ordained to the priesthood on May 10, 1961. I have pastoral experience in parish, school, and seminary work. My former bishop sent me to get my Master’s degree in philosophy at Catholic University, Washington, DC (1976-77). When I returned to Thailand I taught philosophy in Lux Mundi Seminary for eight years. Lux Mundi is the only major seminary in Thailand. At 120-30 seminarians from the ten dioceses, the number of vocations is still relatively good. I took my sabbatical year in 1984 in Belgium to study. To my dismay, however, I missed the visit of the Holy Father to Thailand that year. Upon my return to Thailand, I was appointed rector of the seminary for a year. By the end of 1985, the bishop of Ratchaburi had died of cancer at age 51. He was only one year older than I. I was called by the nuncio and told that I had been nominated to be his successor. I was called to Rome to be consecrated by the Holy Father in Saint Peter’s Basilica on January 6, 1986, together with Bishop Donald Wuerl [of Pittsburgh, PA —Ed.] from the US and other bishops nominated at that time.

A bishop is responsible for much other work outside what is normally considered his "ordinary work." Once consecrated, I was chairman of Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue for the FABC [Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference] and of the National Commission for 12 years. Having come to know by the grace of God the reality about interfaith dialogue, I was happy that my term expired in this office last November. There was a change of officers in the Bishops’ Conference of Thailand, and so I am no longer in charge of the FABC, but I am in charge of the new Commission in Charge of Tourism, Migrants, and Seafarers. Many poor people from the countryside move to Bangkok to make a living, so we have to take care of these workers, even though they are not Catholics. Many foreigners who entered Thailand illegally were put into jail, so my Commission has to take care of them. I receive plenty of help because this is new work for me. I depend on the American Maryknoll Fathers and lay people who work for this Commission. They are very good to get money to carry on their works.

Ecumenical Dialogue

In Asia we have the CCA [Christian Council of Asia]. It is an imitation of the WCC [World Council of Churches]. We have made up a new common body to organize meetings which we call AMCU, standing for for Asian Movement of Christian Unity, an office created during my tenure of the last 12 years. We used to sponsor common meetings of Christians and Protestants. In Thailand, we don’t call non-Catholics "Protestants;" we commonly refer to them as "Christians." By this organization we have frequent meetings to work together for a better understanding and for friendship. The AMCU sponsors joint prayer meetings for Christian unity (in the last week of January) at alternating Catholic and Protestant sites. It organizes group study on certain theological issues. In any case, we propose to defend the Catholic Church of the Vatican II documents.

Now, about interreligious dialogue....The bishops of Asia emphasized the importance of interreligious dialogue because Asia is the cradle of many religions of the world. We live surrounded by the pagans and sects so we cannot evangelize directly; we have to use interreligious dialogue as a means of evangelization. So when Dominus Jesu was published [cf. the September 2001 issue of Si Si No No, #42 —Ed.], protests came from many parts of the Catholic Church in Asia that the Church was going back, that it was unacceptable, that interreligious dialogue had to continue, that we had to hold hands with other religions for our survival....

In my first years as bishop I was advocating interreligious dialogue. I helped the Archbishop of New Delhi, India, Archbishop Fernando, who chaired the commission of Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue for the FABC. I succeeded him in the chairmanship and had to organize a series of seminars for the Bishops’ Institute for Religious Affairs [BIRA]. We had BIRA-1 to BIRA-10! Sometimes we had meetings of BIRA in two places at one time. Its purpose was to provide opportunities for as many bishops as possible to attend at least one of these ten seminars in order to learn the "theology of dialogue." The bishops had to learn about this new thing and so they needed to be exposed to Fr. Perez of Sri Lanka, a renowned theologian in Asia, to learn the "theology of dialogue." The seminars took place in different countries and, of course, the bishops had a good chance to travel and see places and countries, like the Philippine Islands, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (!) ... I had to go to all these places to organize these meetings, mostly Manila, Bangkok, and Hong Kong, where facilities are more desirable and available than in other countries. India and Pakistan are difficult to enter, and so is Singapore. I traveled a lot during my ten years in office.

The executive office of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference was formerly in T’aipei, Taiwan, where a Jesuit priest, the Executive Secretary, lived and organized the work. As bishop and the new chairman (1988), I transferred the FABC office for convenience to Bangkok, Thailand, and convinced a sister to help in the office. At present, Br. Chia, a La Salle brother living in Malaysia, is executive secretary.

As far as I have seen, the ecumenical inter-religious dialogue is good only to make friends with people of other religions. It is good for peaceful coexistence, but has little or no effect on conversion. In fact, because they have been told to respect freedom of conscience, priests and religious are less active in making converts.