KOMPONG CHAM PREFECTURE MOURNS ITS FORMER BISHOP

Posted: 2nd July 2004

A couple of hundred Catholics of the Apostolic Prefecture of Kompong Cham came together on Sunday, June 20th to mourn his former bishop, Msgr. André Lesouef, MEP who died in France on June 6, 2004. Msgr. Lesouef was remembered by several faithful Christians who gave their testimony during the celebration, as a dedicated missionary who gave so much of his love for them and as a man of moral and physical strength who was always ready to risk his life for them.

In the ceremony participated bishops Emile Destombes, Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh, bishop Antonysami Susairaj, successor of Mgr. Lesouef in Kompong Cham and Mgr. Yves Ramousse, former bishop of Phnom Penh. In a moving, symbolic act of love, following the Khmer tradition, the faithful present paid their deep respect for Mgr. André Lesouef.

Testimony of Mgr. Antonysami Susairaj, MEP, succesor Apostolic Prefect of Kompong Cham:
¨One day after Mgr. André came back to Cambodia in 1993 he got permission from the Cambodian Government to visit Kompong Cham. He stood outside the K. Cham market the full day expecting to meet some Christians but he didn’t meet any, so he came back to Phnom Penh. Some days later it so happened that a woman called BONNAT who new about his arrival in Kompong Cham and happened to be a new Christian, took interest to write to Mgr. André and invited him to come to Kompong Cham. She wrote to him that she was always waiting for his arrival. She told Mgr. Lesouëf that she would be very happy to help to start the Church in Kompong Cham. Bishop André was very happy because just a single Christian was more than enough for him. He went back to K. Cham, bought a small house and started to live there and to organize the Kompong Cham diocese or Apostolic Prefecture. We new that bishop Lesouëf in that time could animate the Kompong Cham diocese throughout the different areas, such as Neak Loueng, south of the Prefecture, where there was a big Catholic Community, mostly Vietnamese, with around 1.600 Catholics in one parish alone. But Bishop André had as a priority to start in the Kompong Cham province with the Khmer communities so that they could feel that they are part of this country and to feel proud of their faith and as a way to help them not to be misunderstood by the other Cambodians. With this interest, Bishop André stayed in Kompong Cham and he did all what he could to restart the Catholic Church among the Cambodians.

After receiving the letter from the lady he went to meet her at in her house. Then she was the one who helped bishop André to buy the house and to organize it. In that time she was selling at the market and she had one young girl helping her in the market named TARIN, who new another young girl that was a sewing teacher at the market. When Bonnat started to help Bishop André she brought those to girls. The two of them later on became Christians and those same two girls are the first Religious Sisters who made her first religious vows a couple of months ago in Kompong Cham: Sisters Tarin and Songvat. Through the same Bonnat many others, who are now Catholic leaders in different places, came to know bishop André, such us our Catechist Sokty and his family. It was thanks to her witnessing, nurtured by Mgr. Lesouëf, that they have come to know the Church in Kompong Cham¨.

The small Catholic Community of the Prefecture of Kompong Cham Cambodia, will keep the living testimony of its former bishop as the first Christian Communities remembered the first generation of apostles at the beginning of Christianity.

Article Source: E-NEWSLETTER - C.S.C.