NEWS STORY: Catholic “Encuentro’’ Meeting Underscores Church’s Diversity

c. 2000 Religion News Service LOS ANGELES _ Standing before a packed crowd Thursday (July 6) at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Bishop Francois X. Nguyen Van Thuan talked about the “defects” of Jesus _ qualities the Vietnamese prelate believes strike human logic as odd but actually underscore God’s love. President of the Vatican’s Pontifical […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ Standing before a packed crowd Thursday (July 6) at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Bishop Francois X. Nguyen Van Thuan talked about the “defects” of Jesus _ qualities the Vietnamese prelate believes strike human logic as odd but actually underscore God’s love.

President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Van Thuan addressed the first general session of “Encuentro 2000,” a national gathering of Roman Catholics intended to celebrate ethnic and cultural diversity within the U.S. church.


Activities for the event, which ends July 9, include worship, workshops, group discussions led by bishops, an exhibit hall, a photography show, and a film festival. Among Catholic leaders of national prominence scheduled to speak are Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, and Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles.

Law presides over a reconciliation service on the second day of meetings, and Mahony, head of the Roman Catholic diocese in the country with the largest Hispanic population, celebrates a Jubilee Mass on Saturday. Registration as of July 6 was about 5,000, with the possibility of a few on-site additions, according to David Early of the United States Catholic Conference.

Ordained a priest in Vietnam in 1953 and eventually imprisoned in his homeland, Van Thuan mixed sometimes humorous observations with references to his own suffering.

He recalled, for example, asking special permission to fashion a cross when sent to cut wood as a prisoner. Warning the request was dangerous and illegal, a friendly guard nevertheless granted it. The bishop still wears the cross.

As an example of the “defects” of Jesus, the bishop cited Jesus’ forgetfulness, which he linked to the divine capacity to forgive. “Jesus doesn’t have a memory like mine,” he said. “Not only does he forgive, he forgets everything.”

Another “defect”: faulty mathematics. Referring to the New Testament parable of the shepherd who forsakes the whole flock for one lost animal, the bishop quipped, “for Jesus, one equals 99.”

Interviewed afterwards, Nguyen Van Thuan explained his approach as a way to help the audience identify more personally with Jesus. “I’d like to introduce them to Jesus very humanly,” he said.


The Vietnamese prelate was one of three general session speakers embodying the multicultural focus of Encuentro 2000.

Georgiana Sanchez, who teaches American Indian Studies at California State University-Long Beach, spoke of reconciling her conflicting heritages as Native American and Roman Catholic.

The third speaker, Monsignor Raymond East, is pastor of the Nativity Church in Washington, D.C. East, an African-American, spoke of what he called “the new black parish.” He noted the increasing presence of Africans now joining the African-Americans in his church, adding, “I encounter Jesus in the faces of these newly arrived immigrants.”

Opening with a greeting in Spanish, East also noted the Hispanic growth in his neighborhood. “And who is our neighbor? … The hundreds of Latino families who now live in a black parish.”

Encuentro 2000 developed out of three previous “Encuentros” _ in 1972, 1977, and 1985 _ primarily intended for Hispanics. Proposed by the Bishops’ Committee on Hispanic Affairs and approved in 1997, this year’s event “reflects the pastoral challenges and demographic realities of today,” the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said in its description of the meeting.

According to the NCCB, eight of the top 20 nations for immigrants to the United States are largely Catholic: Mexico, Philippines, Dominican Republic, Poland, El Salvador, Haiti, Colombia and Peru. The figures show around 300,000 Catholic immigrants arrive every year. In addition, church figures show significant Asian growth in the church, with Asians now forming 2.6 percent of American Catholics.


Van Thuan underscored the importance of Encuentro 2000 for helping U.S. Catholics experience the spiritual power of their diversity.

“When they are together, there is a transformation, there is an impact” he said. “The liturgy must be lived deeply … in the heart of the people.”

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