Fr Ngô Phan Dinh Phuc, a Jesuit providing pastoral care to tribal communities in Pleiku

The clergyman runs Caritas in Giai Lai province. “I love the indigenous people. I like their simplicity,” he writes. “To help them, we must think in terms of integral development. For this reason, I believe that what we must promote first and foremost is education.”

Pleiku (AsiaNews/JesuitGlobe) – Fr Ngô Phan Dinh Phuc is a Jesuit priest whose pastoral work takes place among the tribal people in and around Pleiku, the capital of Gia Lai province, in the highlands of central Vietnam. For him, adaptation "is the keyword, in education as well as in pastoral care".

The local indigenous population is divided into 54 different ethnic groups. In Vietnam, almost half of the ethnic minority population still lives in extreme poverty, this despite the country’s economic development.

In the mountainous areas, tribal communities live in a context of marginalisation. Fear of natural disasters aggravate their condition. We present below Fr Ngô Phan Dinh Phuc’s own testimony about his social and pastoral outreach, which he gave to jesuits.global.

In the village where I live, there is a community of about 400 Catholics and a few Protestants out of a population of about 3,600. We don’t have a church, so I celebrate Mass in the parishioners’ houses, in turn. But this pastoral work is only a small part of my ministry. I am responsible for Caritas, the Church’s social services wing for the whole province of Gia Lai under the responsibility of the Jesuits with the collaboration of religious sisters. I respond to all those in need, whether they are Christians or not.

For example, there are about 1,500 leprosy patients in the province. I try to visit all of them every year to bring them medicines, but also spiritual and moral support and encouragement so that they do not isolate themselves. Sometimes these patients have to be taken to the hospital and Caritas takes care of meeting the transport and medical costs involved and providing accompaniment.

Here is another example of the assistance we provide. We have an ambulance because the hospital’s regular ambulance services do not go easily into the mountains. In fact, many mothers died in childbirth because they could not go to the hospital. So, we considered it a priority.

I also remember the case of a man who suffered severe burns. People, at first thought that he must have been drunk and that he set his house on fire through negligence. The reality was that he had entered his burning house to save his wife and four-year-old daughter. She had unexpectedly turned on the gas when the mother lit the fire to cook the meal and everything blew up. We accompanied them and paid for the medical expenses.

I love the indigenous people. I like their simplicity. They are also very sensitive and we must show them a lot of respect. They have often suffered from being ignored. To help them, we must think in terms of integral development. For this reason, I believe that what we must promote first and foremost is education. But the traditional school does not suit them. They do not have an abstract approach to reality; their relationship to the world is concrete. Adaptation is therefore the keyword, in education as well as in pastoral care.”

(Photo credit: jesuits.global)

• vietnam
• social doctrine
• catholic church pastoral care
• tribal communities
• central vietnam