Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm
57 priests were ordained today in Viet Nam, in a move towards more religious freedom, in strongly secularized and officialy atheist country.
The ceremony was presided over by Cardinal Crescienzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, urging the newly ordained priests to "convert more people in the southeast."
"They will be like Jesus here," Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, head of the Vatican's missionary arm, told a cheering crowd of several thousand at a ceremony in Hanoi Cathedral, a Gothic edifice built by Vietnam's French colonial rulers in the heart of the capital.
"Those who have not heard about Jesus should listen to these priests," he said. "Of the 80 million Vietnamese, only 6 million are Catholics."