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A native Cambodian was installed to lead a Catholic prefecture in the country for the first time after the Khmer Rouge rule ended some five decades ago, which Church leaders hailed as a historic turning point for the local Church.
Fr Hangly, 51, is the first native Cambodian appointed to Kampong Cham, one of the three ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the country. The other two are the apostolic vicariate of Phnom Penh and the apostolic prefecture of Battambang. Kampong Cham currently has some 20,000 Catholics in a population of some followers 16 million people, mostly Buddhists.
The MEP missionaries returned in 1990 and “everything had to be rebuilt” in these dioceses again. Since then “there were three foreign ordinaries in Cambodia. We now have a new Cambodian prefect, and this is a historic turning point,” he said.