The European tour was meant to ‘better understand our differences, be able to live better together in our society’
From left to right: Father Will Conquer, Sun Soveasna (Minister Counselor of the Cambodian Embassy), Mengly J. Quach, Venerable San Sochea and MEP Superior General Father Vincent Sénéchal. (Credit: MEP; GPE / Natasha Graham)
Members of an inter-religious team from Cambodia, which recently toured Europe and met Pope Francis, say their six-day trip helped them understand differences between cultures and to seek ways to develop their nation better.
The tour ended on Jan. 22 in Paris, where the three-member delegation – Buddhist monk Venerable San Sochea, Cambodian businessman and philanthropist Mengly J. Quach, and Paris Foreign Mission Father Will Conquer — spoke about their tour experience to some 200 people, including Cambodians.
On Jan. 19 they met Pope Francis at the Vatican, making it the first such meeting with the pope involving a Cambodian Buddhist monk in four decades.
The last such meeting was in 1983 between the patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, Venerable Maha Ghosananda, and Saint John Paul II.
The delegation made “conversion, spiritual detachment and ecology” the theme of their tour.
They were also received by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and attended a symposium organized at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
The delegation also traveled to Monaco where they were received by President Brigitte Boccone-Pagès and Archbishop Dominique-Marie David of Monaco
Quach, a Cambodian genocide survivor, along with other members of the delegation, wanted to support a program of helping migrants who fled Cambodia several decades ago because of the war.
The delegation donated 5,000 euros for the charity program carried out in collaboration with Caritas Monaco.
Father Conquer told a gathering in Paris that Venerable San Sochea “keeps a heart for Cambodia and inspires a new generation” of Cambodians, although he currently lives in Australia.
The Khmer Buddhist monk is considered the “young conscience of Cambodia” as he has nearly a million followers on Facebook and nearly 300,000 subscribers on Youtube, where he publishes videos regularly.
Quach, 53, was born in Battambang province of Cambodia and survived the Dangrek massacre (1979-1980) on the Thai-Cambodian border that killed many mostly Sino-Khmer refugees, who were refused asylum by Thailand in June 1979.
Quach’s family, after being initially pushed back to Cambodia by the Thai army, was finally able to find refuge in Thailand on a second attempt.
He moved to the United States in 1984, studied medicine and returned to Cambodia in 2002 aiming to reconstruct his country’s health and education sectors. He founded an education center and a foundation to help the most disadvantaged.
Quach lives in Phnom Penh with his wife and two daughters and has become a prominent figure with nearly 2 million followers on Facebook.
Father Conquer said “each of one us, with distinct traditions and different paths, is trying to build a better world. We cannot be witnesses to the Good News if we only have bad news to announce.”
The missionary priest based in Cambodia said Christianity and Buddhism are two great traditions that have inspired the Eurasian continent with a model of life represented by the monastic life.
“This monastic life is a simple, sober, stable life, which can inspire ecological conversion. The monks and priests, in this model of life of detachment, must be able to continue to inspire an ecological conversion for the world,” he said.
Quach, who explained his first painful years in Cambodia and as a refugee, said his European tour was an opportunity to “better understand our differences, in order to be able to live better together in our society”
The hardships of violence “have left generations of Cambodians with serious trauma,” he said and estimated that more than 70 percent of Cambodians suffer from trauma because of the war.
“I experienced this myself until 1995, even until the year 2000. I was so afraid, each time they celebrated the Chinese New Year with fireworks I had the impression that it was the war that was coming back,” he said.
The businessman and philanthropist said Cambodians finally have a chance to live in peace and freedom.
“After the war, it was difficult for us to find a way out, to find peace in our families, in our economy, in our society and in our kingdom. But Cambodian society is much better today,” he said.
Venerable San Sochea said Quach has “made his wounds a strength for his life today…I no longer remember the Khmer Rouge period because I was too young, but I remember what remained…the poverty and trauma of that painful time. That regime is over but its consequences still last,” he said.
The monk said that human greed destroys the earth and quoted Pope Francis to stress that human activities are the root cause of the current environmental crisis.
“When people renounce their greed and consume only what is necessary, there is less destruction in the world,” he continued.
Venerable San Sochea recalled the words of Cambodian Buddhist leader Maha Ghosananda, who meet with Pope John Paul. After the meeting, the senior monk said: “Some say that Buddhism and Christianity cannot coexist. I would like to say: why not?”
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