A Christian service is held in a church in the Lao capital Vientiane in a file image (Photo: Radio Free Asia)
By UCA News reporter
Nov 27 2023
Andrew Souksavath Nouane Asa’s grandfather was a close associate of the missionaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) who evangelized in Pakse and other parts of Laos during the early years of Catholicism.
Asa’s grandfather helped missionaries by “preparing food for them and helping them with pastoral service” and his parents followed in his footsteps.
Nearly a century later, 51-year-old Asa is serving more than 20,000 Catholics in the Apostolic Vicariate of Pakse covering Attapeu, Champasak, Salavan and Sekong provinces in southern Laos.
Pope Francis appointed him the second native bishop of Pakse on May 31 last year. He was ordained on Aug 15 in the Church of Saint Joseph in his native village of Kamphaeng, about 30 kilometers north of Pakse city.
Asa spoke about the missionary heritage of the tiny church in Laos, the faith of his ancestors, and the growth of the church in the communist-ruled nation in an interview with Vatican News published in October.
“In Laos, our life is missionary every day and in all circumstances. Simple, with few resources, but with the great joy of being like this,” Asa said.
“In this sense, I can say that we are in deep harmony and put into practice the words that Pope Francis gave us in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of Gospel),” he explained.
Catholicism in Laos dates back to the 16th century when Portuguese Dominican priest Gaspar da Cruz became the first European missionary to set foot in the country. He was followed by Jesuit missionaries including Giovanni Maria Leria who visited from erstwhile Tonkin (Vietnam).
A succession of political, religious and military forces created serious problems for the Jesuits and other missionaries, prompting them to rethink and recast their missionary strategies in Southeast Asia.
Church records say churches in the Kingdom of Laos remained largely isolated and shadowy amid the kingdom’s bad relations with Siam (Thailand) and war between the neighboring states.
In the 17th century, the Jesuits who visited Laos decided to establish ties with Macau, a Portuguese colony. The king of Laos reportedly approved the ties expecting to get a supply of weapons and goods. Despite all the efforts Lao mission declined and closed in 1650.
The Catholic mission was reborn in the late 19th century. In 1878, MEP missionaries arrived in Laos and set up an indigenous Church.
MEP priests founded their first mission station on Dec 8, 1885, which is traditionally accepted as the foundation day of the Catholic Church in Laos. The Apostolic Vicariate of Laos was established in 1899.
Oblate missionaries arrived in 1935 and concentrated their missionary work mostly in the mountainous tribal areas in the north of the country.
There are about 51,000 Catholics in Laos today spread in four apostolic vicariates. Most Catholics are ethnic Vietnamese.
Asa says that the church continues the missionary legacy as it was in the early days. The priests visit remote villages to offer pastoral care to Catholic families.
“They also talk about Jesus to other people to those who don’t know him with joy in the heart.”
A former French colony, Laos is a nation of an estimated 7.3 million people. It does have formal diplomatic ties with the Vatican. An apostolic delegate based in Thailand oversees the affairs of the Laotian Church.
One of the world’s few remaining communist states, Laos expelled all missionaries and closed all churches in 1976, a year after the overthrow of the monarchy and the communist takeover.
The situation changed in December 2019 after the Lao government passed a law that guarantees religious freedom. This allowed Christians to practice their faith without being disturbed, after decades of persecution.
However, the law has been little publicized and is practically not applied in the interior of the country where Christians continue to face discrimination from some provincial officials and local Buddhist villagers who view Christianity as an alien faith.
Asa said his birth in 1972 into “a deeply Catholic family” that lived near the bishop’s house in Pakse has been a great privilege.
“We attended Mass every Sunday and then talked about the Word of God,” he recalled.
Asa joined a minor seminary when he was 16 and continued his studies at the university with a government scholarship.
French MEP missionary Pierre Antonio Jean Bach, former Apostolic Vicar of Savannakhet, assisted him to leave for Canada, where he would complete his “studies towards the priesthood.”
In Vancouver, he studied philosophy and theology, with financial support from the local Catholic community.
He was ordained on Dec 30, 2006, and one of his first missions was to serve 300 Catholic families at St. Joseph’s parish in Kamphaeng “the village where my family was born.”
In 2006, when he was ordained, there were only three priests in the Vicariate and the number of Catholics was about 17,000 people. Priest had to serve more than 5,000 Catholics each.
Asa had 10 mission stations under his control, some of them difficult to access, in the mountains or in the forests. “In some places, there were 20 Catholic families, in others 50. I was always on the move,” he recalled.
Today the work has not changed much, he said.
The Vicariate of Pakse has 64 mission stations, sometimes mere wooden chapels, where indigenous families “gather to pray and listen to the Word of God, often led by a catechist.”
After years of restrictions, the Lao government granted religious freedom, allowing Christians to practice their faith relatively freely.
“Today we can move freely, and we only need special authorizations for large gatherings of people; there are no obstacles in the daily service,” Asa said. – UCA News
* This report is an edited version of a feature first published by Portuguese-language Catholic weekly Jornal O-Clarim of Macau Diocese on Nov. 20, 2023.
