CARTHAGE, Mo. -- The annual Marian Days celebration draws up to 50,000 or more people to Carthage, and this year Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law will be among them as he returns to the state he served earlier in his career.
The event for Vietnamese Catholics began in 1977 and honors Mary, the mother of Jesus. A 33-foot statue of the Blessed Mother is a focal point of the various ceremonies which began Thursday night and continue through Sunday.
"It is meant to be a thanks to Mary for helping us escape Vietnam," said John Nghi, a member of the Congregation of Mother Co-Redemptrix.
"I never miss a single one," said Tam Nguyen of Springfield, who was raised a Buddhist but converted to Catholicism after coming to the United States. "It's part of the heritage."
As he has every year since 1984, Bishop John Leibrecht of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau celebrated the opening Mass on Thursday night. About 150 priests from the Vietnamese congregation led the procession to the stage set up in front of a former seminary.
Leibrecht took over from Law, who led the Missouri diocese for 11 years before being promoted to the Boston job in 1984.
This year the cardinal has become a central figure in the growing controversy over sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests. He has been criticized, with some calling for him to resign, for being slow to act in removing abusive priests from duties.
Procession through city
The cardinal, who was instrumental in bringing the Marian order to Carthage in 1975, is to celebrate Mass today during the largest event of the weekend. There will be a procession through the city on Saturday evening in which participants in traditional Vietnamese dress will carry a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
In 1975, Law was called upon to help find sponsors for the many Catholic Vietnamese refugees who came to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon.
He learned about 170 priests and brothers with the Congregation of Mother Co-redemptrix who had escaped from Vietnam in small boats, later to be picked up by American cargo ships. They left behind about half their congregation, as well as almost 300 student candidates.
The refugees were told that they would have to split up in the United States if they hoped to find sponsors.
Law thought about the vacant 28-acre Carthage campus once used by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
"He put two and two together very quickly," said Leibrecht.
The first group of 48 arrived at Carthage June 30, 1975, and all 170 were there by August.
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