3
Volume 24 No. 3 | Spring 2014
From Vietnam to Australia
and back again
Fr Quang Phan SVD was born and raised in Vietnam, but
came to Australia as a refugee when he was a teenager.
Today, Fr Quang once again calls Vietnam home, having
returned to his birthplace as a missionary priest, after
discerning his vocation through the Yellow Pages.
Fr Quang was born in the Central part of Vietnam, but at
the age of 16 he was forced to flee Vietnam in a boat.
He landed in a refugee detention centre in Hong Kong,
where he lived from 1982 to 1986 before coming
to Australia as a refugee, completing high school at
Bankstown TAFE and undertaking a social studies degree
at the University of NSW.
Fr Quang says that before arriving in Australia, a vocation
to the religious life had not entered his head.
“During the summer time at university, I looked for a
job,” he says. “So I was looking through the Yellow
Pages for a job when I spotted a number – it was just
any number - and I just called it. A cook answered the
phone and said, ‘there is no job here, this is a missionary
place’. So I asked him more about the missionaries and
he handed the phone to another man who happened
to be a missionary and who told me all about the Divine
Word Missionaries.
“I thought – ‘this is interesting! Can I join you?’
“And so my vocation is somewhat famously known
around here as the Yellow Pages vocation.”
Fr Quang began his SVD novitiate in 1992.
“I had a great time,” he says. I was lucky to have a novice
master who was a very experienced missionary and a very
spiritual man. I was privileged to have such wise people
around me. And it was such a multicultural community, so
we were all learning from each other. It was very enriching
and I thought, ‘This is a very worthwhile lifestyle’.
“And the funny thing about vocation is that it is always
being purified. As I learned more and experienced more,
I came to a deeper awareness of what mission is about.”
During his formation period, Fr Quang was sent to
Taiwan to undertake the Overseas Training Program,
an experience he says provided him with “very good
exposure to see a more international aspect of SVD life”,
as well as the challenge of picking up another language.
He took his final vows and was ordained to the diaconate
in Melbourne in 2002, then served as deacon in
Belmore parish in Sydney before being ordained to the
priesthood later that year. He worked as assistant priest at
Macquarie Fields parish, while undertaking further studies
at Macquarie University. His first overseas missionary
assignment was to Vietnam.
“It did feel strange,” he says of returning to his
homeland. “When I left Vietnam, I was at a very young
age. So, in going back, I had to readjust. The culture is
very different. It was a culture I was not familiar with.”
Fr Quang’s main ministry has been in social
communications and helping in formation, as well as
helping confreres who are just out of formation with their
visas and paperwork.
He says that the Church in Vietnam, which has a long
history of persecution and suppression, has its own
particular strengths and challenges.
“For many centuries, people have been occupied with
how to survive. And to be able to survive and be faithful
to the faith, as the Church has done here, is a story of
success,” he says.
The political upheavals of the last 40 years or so have left
Vietnam with a very youthful population, with 60 per cent
of the population born after the Vietnam War.
“So it is a very vibrant, youthful church. You look out into
the congregation and the church is packed with young
faces. As a missionary, I realise that the challenge for us is
not simply to be a church of preservation or containment.
We need to reach out. That’s the challenge for the SVD.
“As the economy continues to develop and young people
are becoming more educated, they have a wider vision of
the world and are striving for a better life. They are thirsty
for many things, such as success, a name, and fame.
“But there is a deeper thirst and we can help them with
this deep thirst. In this age of consumerism, materialism
and individualism, we have to look at the other side, the
deeper thirst, the emptiness.”
