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Vietnamese-American men turning to the priesthood
By Neela Banerjee
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — When Father Augustine Tran went to Vietnamese-American parishes as a seminarian a couple of years ago, pastors and worshippers would hand him money to help him with school, though they had little of their own. When he goes to the Vietnamese enclaves of suburban Virginia, where he now works, Roman Catholics often greet him like a celebrity, his siblings said.
Strong support from the community, as well as their own families, has helped propel Vietnamese-American men such as Tran, 29, into the priesthood in ever-larger numbers.
At a time when fewer American Catholics are expressing interest in the priesthood, Vietnamese-American men are an anomaly. They are now the second-largest minority ethnic group in seminaries, only slightly behind Hispanics, who account for a far larger portion of the general population.
While church experts and priests say that some Catholics frown upon their sons’ joining the priesthood and are even embarrassed by it in the wake of the sex-abuse scandals among members of the clergy, Vietnamese Catholics continue to hold the priesthood in high regard. They say that the sex scandal marred individual clergymen but not the vocation itself.
Like many of his counterparts, Tran, a priest at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Fairfax, Va., came to the United States from Vietnam when he was young, in his case at age 17. Those of his generation, like the one before him, often describe the priesthood as the pinnacle of service and success, as many European Catholic immigrants did a century ago.
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002677053_priest11.html
By Neela Banerjee
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — When Father Augustine Tran went to Vietnamese-American parishes as a seminarian a couple of years ago, pastors and worshippers would hand him money to help him with school, though they had little of their own. When he goes to the Vietnamese enclaves of suburban Virginia, where he now works, Roman Catholics often greet him like a celebrity, his siblings said.
Strong support from the community, as well as their own families, has helped propel Vietnamese-American men such as Tran, 29, into the priesthood in ever-larger numbers.
At a time when fewer American Catholics are expressing interest in the priesthood, Vietnamese-American men are an anomaly. They are now the second-largest minority ethnic group in seminaries, only slightly behind Hispanics, who account for a far larger portion of the general population.
While church experts and priests say that some Catholics frown upon their sons’ joining the priesthood and are even embarrassed by it in the wake of the sex-abuse scandals among members of the clergy, Vietnamese Catholics continue to hold the priesthood in high regard. They say that the sex scandal marred individual clergymen but not the vocation itself.
Like many of his counterparts, Tran, a priest at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Fairfax, Va., came to the United States from Vietnam when he was young, in his case at age 17. Those of his generation, like the one before him, often describe the priesthood as the pinnacle of service and success, as many European Catholic immigrants did a century ago.
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002677053_priest11.html