Bishop Nguyen faces a shortage of priests, travelling long distances, and new responsibilities

The B.C. Catholic
KAMLOOPS



There’s a shortage of priests in the Diocese of Kamloops, and that’s only one of the challenges its new bishop is facing.

“It’s totally different from Vancouver,” said Bishop Joseph Phuong Nguyen in an interview weeks before his Aug. 25 ordination in Kamloops.

The Vietnamese bishop, who was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Vancouver and spent 24 years serving it, is now the spiritual leader of 65 parishes in B.C.’s southern interior.

Those 65 parishes, which include more than 57,000 Catholics, are staffed by only about 20 priests. That works out to about 2,850 Catholics per priest.

“Each priest needs to take care of two or three communities,” he said. “On Sunday, they would be on the road almost all day: three hours, four hours, driving. That’s a real challenge.”

Bishop Nguyen, who spent years as the vocations director for Vancouver, said he would get right to work reaching out to the young men of Kamloops. “They only have one or two seminarians there. That’s one thing I’ll need to work on.”

He’ll have a smaller staff to work with. While about 100 people are employed at the Archdiocese of Vancouver headquarters, he has only about seven employees in Kamloops.

“Their boardroom is half the size of my (Vancouver) office!”

The Diocese of Kamloops is about the same size as the Archdiocese of Vancouver, about 120,000 square kilometers, but has completely different geography.

“The roads are rougher than Vancouver’s. Winter there is very cold, with a lot of snow, not like in Vancouver. When I went there, people told me: ‘Father, you need a new car.'”

The Catholic population is only 13 per cent of Vancouver’s, but spread across the same amount of space. That means a lot of travel time for him and all the priests, religious, and lay workers. Many parishes are in rural areas, and about 30 of them are on First Nations land.

The bishop’s brother, Father Peter Tuyen Nguyen, from Hamilton, Ont., is aware of these difficulties.

“This is not a huge diocese, but it’s a missionary diocese, so there’s lots of work ahead for him,” he said after being present at his brother’s ordination in Kamloops.

“He has to work hard to build a staff for the diocese, and promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life. There are a lot of parishes that have no priests. I think that is the number one concern for him.”

Msgr. Fermin Sosa Rodriguez, who represented Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the papal nuncio, urged Bishop Nguyen to be an “attentive, compassionate father.”

“It will be something of a contrast to the situation in which you have exercised your ministry in the past: from the bustling city of Vancouver to the more rural portion of the interior of British Columbia.”

Archbishop Richard Gagnon of Winnipeg pointed out other new responsibilities for Bishop Nguyen during his homily at the ordination Mass.

“This vocation journey also leads to a new fraternity, within the college of bishops in Canada, who share in the responsibility for the whole Church as well as their individual dioceses,” he said. “Welcome to the college of bishops.”

Bishop Nguyen has joined in the college Archbishop Emeritus Adam Exner, OMI, who ordained him a priest, Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, whom he served as vicar general, Archbishop Gagnon, Bishop Stephen Jensen of Prince George, and other B.C. prelates whom he considers friends.

“My brother, love and support your special collaborators, the priests and deacons, and pray for them, as well as for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Have a special regard to those most in need and those on the fringes of the Church and of society,” Archbishop Gagnon said.

“Encourage all the faithful to exercise their discipleship in Christ in partnership with you, and above all, be a good listener to their concerns.”

All this and more, he said, is possible when a bishop places his full trust in God. “All of this seems so very great and difficult, yet it is the Holy Spirit who assists all believers, and so it is with bishops, too.”