In the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Vientiane a large banner is hard to miss.
The “17 Martyrs of Laos” banner hangs from the ceiling of Vientiane’s only Catholic Church and commemorates a group of Catholics, including several priests, who died between 1954 and 1970 in a crackdown on the religious by the communist government.
Each year, on Dec. 16, Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, 73, makes sure that the martyrs are not forgotten. “We remember them with a ceremony, because they were witness to the faith,” Ling said inside the cathedral.
Ling, who grew up in a poor family without a father and was raised with the Khmu ethnic minority in Laos’ mountainous Xiengkhouang province, can also be described as a “witness to the faith.” Ling, who became the first cardinal of Laos on June 28, was sent to prison in 1984. Not for committing a crime, but because of his work as a priest travelling around the country.
He spent three years behind bars. But the cardinal sees the jail time as a spiritual experience during which his faith was tested. “There were some difficulties when I was locked up, health diffi-culties for example,” he says. “But it didn’t trouble me a lot. It didn’t disturb me in my personal life. Because we can take it as a test; where is your faith?” The appointment of Cardinal Ling, who studied theology and philosophy in Canada, came as a surprise to many. Including the man himself, who was in the small southern Laotian city of Pakse – where he serves as a bishop – when he heard the news.
“I was walking around when somebody called me, and said: ‘grandfather, you are selected as a cardinal.’ I said ‘no, this is not a time to joke,’ because I didn’t believe it,” he says laughing. “Then it was confirmed, and I had to go to Rome.”
There are an estimated 45,000 Catholics in Laos, according to a 2007 US government report on international religious freedom. But Cardinal Ling believes the true number is closer to 50-60,000, as the Lao Catholic population has grown slowly but steadily. Some live in the main cities along the Mekong river. Others live in remote areas, often with no church nearby.
In the entire country, there are only four bishops and 20 priests. But the low number doesn’t bother Cardinal Ling too much. “For me it’s not the number of priests that count, but the quality. We have to do our best to make them qualified as a priest. And even with nothing we can still do something.”
