Posted:Saturday,February 21,2015
by Bill Sherman:religion writer.
Last Sunday, the worship hall at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Parish, 1541 E. Newton Place, was packed with people for the Sunday Mass, a celebration that included four weddings. Extra chairs were brought in to accommodate the crowd.
Nearly all of the parishioners are refugees from Myanmar, formerly called Burma, a large country tucked between India and China that is just coming out of 50 years of military dictatorship and global isolation.
“These are the most wonderful and devout Catholics I’ve had the privilege of serving,” said Monsignor Patrick Brankin, who was instrumental in founding the parish.
“They’re grateful for all the Diocese (of Tulsa) has done for them. They’re willing to do whatever is required of them. They’re faithful.”
Few of them speak English. During Sunday’s service in their native dialect, the only word that crossed the language barrier was “Alleluia,” sung enthusiastically to a melody that is well-known to western Christians. Some of the children could be heard chattering together in English.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary is unique because it is the only parish serving Burmese Catholics in the United States, Brankin said.
How does he know it’s the only one? Because the Burmese communities across the United States are close-knit and in communication with one another, he said.
In other parts of the United States, Burmese Catholics meet together for their own services, but as part of another church, not as a separate parish, he said.
The community is growing rapidly because immigration is ongoing and because Burmese Catholics from around the nation are moving to Tulsa to be part of a parish that worships in their native tongue. It now has about 80 families, many of them with small children.
The Rev. Robert Kim Pu, a Burmese Catholic priest who came to the United States from Myanmar to serve the parish, said most of his parishioners are Zomi people from Chin State in northwestern Myanmar, an isolated mountainous region near India.
Chin State is an island of Christianity in a 90 percent Buddhist nation. Most of the Zomis are Protestant; about 30 percent are Catholic.
They fled their homeland because of religious persecution, he said.
“In Burma they were not allowed to get a good education and good jobs,” he said. “Our Buddhist friends advised us to change our religion to Buddhism, and then we will get those jobs and get promotions.”
Kim Pu said the Zomi people are happy to be in Tulsa because here they can find work. They are part of a larger Zomi community in Tulsa. Most of them live near Oral Roberts University and many worship at about a dozen Protestant churches of various denominations.
Father Steve Lian, who preached the homily at Sunday’s service, said before the service that Catholics in Myanmar last year celebrated the 75th anniversary of French missionaries bringing Catholicism to their region. He said Protestant missionaries from the United States brought Christianity to Chin State much earlier. Lian is a native of Chin State.
He said he is living in St. Louis to further his education and will return to Myanmar.
Brankin said Bishop Edward Slattery asked him about five years ago to be the chaplain for a group of about 25 Burmese Catholics who were meeting at that time in a room at Holy Family Cathedral downtown.
As the community grew, he said, they needed more room and their own parish so they could develop a sense of community. The bishop suggested they move into a building that once housed Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, a parish of Mexican immigrants. Since the Mexicans left the building to join a larger Hispanic church, it was used for a variety of purposes, and then stood empty for years.
“It required quite of bit of renovation,” Brankin said.
The building was consecrated in the fall of 2012, and the Burmese congregation has been meeting there since.
Brankin continues to serve the parish and is learning enough Zomi to hear confessions and to help in other ways.
“I don’t know enough Zomi to preach,” he said. “Every time I open my mouth, they start giggling and laughing.”
Deacon Kevin Sartorius, executive director of Catholic Charities in Tulsa, which has helped Burmese refugees resettle in Tulsa, said transportation to church, work and other places is a challenge for some of the Burmese Catholics. He said funds are being raised to purchase a van that can help with that problem.
Bill Sherman 918-581-8398
bill.sherman@tulsaworld.com
Original link>>>Diocese fo Tulsa has nation's only Burmese catholic parish
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