Challenges from storm will make faith stronger, Biloxi priest says

Published: 2005-09-14

BILOXI, Miss.(CNS) -- Father Dominic Phan Duc Dong, pastor of the Vietnamese Martyrs Church in Biloxi, knows about facing challenges and is a strong believer that "challenges make our faith stronger." The 72-year-old priest, who ran through a battlefield with mines blowing up around him in Vietnam and escaped his country in a refugee boat in 1975, rode through Hurricane Katrina on a boat tied to two other boats in a Biloxi canal with eight of his parishioners. Although the boat kept tossing through the night, it survived intact. The next day, he went to the church, where he has been pastor for 20 years, and saw the huge extent of water and mud damage. Many families in his parish had left their homes to live at least temporarily with other families. At Sunday Mass in the parish parking lot the first weekend after the Aug. 29 storm, the priest recounted his experiences in the Vietnam War and refugee boat as a means to encourage parishioners to understand that they would grow stronger from their current challenges.

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