(left to right) Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual Friar Marco Tasca and Bishop Friar Vincent Long Van Nguyen

We have news for you from Australia and Rome too. Conventual Franciscan Friar Vincent Long Van Nguyen is now Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia. Pope Benedict XVI appointed Friar Vincent to this position.

Currently living in Rome where he works as Assistant General for the region of Asia-Oceania, Friar Vincent will return to Melbourne at the end of this month to take up his new ministry. His ordination ceremony is scheduled to take place on June 23 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

Friar Vincent’s life story is an interesting one. A native of Vietnam, he arrived in Australia on a refugee boat with his family. The year was 1980 and the family wanted to escape the clutches of Vietnam’s communist regime.

Three years after arriving in Australia, Vincent entered the Order of Friars Minor Conventual and began studying for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest on the second last day of 1989. After completing his licentiate in Christology and Spirituality at the Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure in Rome he returned to Australia where for 11 years he worked as a priest in Victoria and New South Wales. Soon he will be back in his adopted homeland to serve its people once again.

(Source of all related images on webpage and homepage: Conventual Franciscans.)