THAILAND Missionary Society Plans Yearlong Training Program

Posted: 14th August 2008

BANGKOK (UCAN)-- The Thai Missionary Society (TMS) is planning a yearlong training program to prepare Church workers to spread the faith, and do relief and development work among poor and tribal people in Thailand and beyond.

According to the TMS director, Father Adriano Pelosin, the society is now enrolling potential missioners for its first such course, to run one week a month from October 2008 to October 2009. Father Peter Komthuan Suksuthip, the vice director, told UCA News the training would last for five days each time.

Father Pelosin, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), has told UCA News, "We have launched a campaign to Catholic faithful in Thailand -- priests, catechists, Catholic teachers, laypeople, male and female Religious --- and urged them to attend the course."

According to the missioner, the courses will include mission theology, the history of mission work, mission spirituality in the Bible, dialogue, evangelization and the works of pontifical missionary societies.

The training will be held at PIME House in Pak Kret, just north of Bangkok, and in northern Thailand's Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Lampang provinces.

Archbishop Louis Chamnien Santisukniran of Tharae-Nongsaeng is overseeing the program and will be one of the program's instructors. Others are Bishop Joseph Chusak Sirisut of Nakhon Ratchasima and Father Pelosin.

Father Pelosin pointed out that Religious women who are associate TMS members will discuss their work and experiences among tribal and poor people.

Training candidates, Father Pelosin noted, must have completed at least the 9th grade, and their psychological and physical health should be good. They also require a recommendation letter, Religious from their superior and laypeople from their parish priest.

Father Komthuan said that TMS, which the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Thailand set up 20 years ago, now has 10 members, all of them priests, and seven associate members, all nuns. Two TMS priests and five of the nuns work in neighboring Cambodia; the rest among tribal people in northern Thailand.

According to Father Komthuan, TMS workers not only preach Catholicism but also help people advance socially and educationally.

TMS is also planning to send missioners to Laos and Mongolia, he added.

Article Source: ucan