On April 14, 1975—50 years ago—the Catholic Church celebrated the episcopal ordination of a priest. Such a special event for the ecclesial communities had a profoundly spiritual and tragic significance, one that witnessed the descent of the Cambodian people into a pool of blood, but also of great witness.
He was the first Cambodian priest to receive the responsibility of a bishopric for his people. A historic event that could have meant great joy and indescribable pride in the history of evangelization among the noble Khmer people. However, four days later, on April 17 of that tragic year, the city of Phnom Penh would witness the arrival of an army made up mostly of children and young people, armed and grim-faced, pointing their weapons at the population of a city terrorized by fear. The nightmare of Pol Pot’s regime—the Khmer Rouge regime—had begun.
Five years of bombing, displacement, and death between 1970 and 1975 were not enough. Cambodia seemed doomed to a cycle of violence and the disappearance of an entire generation. The Maoist regime would be in power for only four years, but it would be enough to torture, shoot, and destroy 1.7 million Cambodians. Religions were abolished, and temples, pagodas, and mosques were converted into barracks or weapons depots, if not blown up. The Cambodian Catholic Church, like other religions, was persecuted; Cambodian clergy and thousands of lay people were killed or enslaved in agricultural concentration camps; foreign missionaries were expelled from the country, although many of them suffered martyrdom.
Joseph Chhmar Sala was born on October 21, 1937, in Phnom Penh. Following his call to the priesthood from a traditional Catholic family, he was sent to France as a seminarian and ordained in 1964 by Simon Chhem Yen and Paul Tep Im Sotha. Back in Cambodia, he was assigned to work at the Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang but returned to France to pursue further studies when his country entered the Second Indochina War, known in the West as the Vietnam War.
The following years were very difficult for Cambodia and the Catholic Church. After the 1970 coup d’état, Cambodia plunged into conflict and was subjected to intense bombings that affected Indigenous communities in the north of the country and southern Laos. The Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement began to grow due to the displacement of terrified peasants and the idea that they were supposedly fighting in defense of King Norodom Sihanouk. The end of the Indochina War was marked by the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops in April 1975, which paved the way for the unification of Vietnam under Hanoi’s command and the capture of Phnom Penh by Pol Pot’s armed group.
The Cambodian priest, Joseph Chhmar Sala, a student in Paris, was summoned back to the uncertainties of his homeland. One imagines the humble Cambodian priest—obedient, hopeful, and smiling—accepting a cross that held all hope for a future for his Church. Many Cambodians hoped that the new regime would indeed herald the beginning of peace and the reconstruction of their country. Surely, the macabre plans of a group of extremist intellectuals—who would literally wipe out cities, markets, banks, and schools, shoot anyone who wore glasses, destroy religions, and enslave all Cambodians—had not crossed their minds.
The new bishop of Cambodia, the first Cambodian bishop in the history of evangelization, was taken hostage by the Khmer Rouge after April 17, four days after his episcopal ordination, and sent to an agrarian concentration camp at the site known as Traing Kork Pagoda in Kampong Thom province. It is unknown how Bishop Joseph died there. The most plausible theory is that he died of fatigue, like many Cambodians. Today, a hut remains where he apparently spent his last hours of life—alone—around September 1977. Today, it is a place of pilgrimage for Catholic faithful and also of appreciation for Cambodians in general, in memory of this humble Cambodian priest who accepted the cross of Christ with such courage and hope, like at least 33 others who were martyred by the Khmer Rouge regime.
May the martyrdom of Bishop Joseph Chhmar Sala and his fellow martyrs always be a seed of the Gospel in the noble Cambodian land. Fifty years after his episcopal ordination—which coincides with the rise of the terrible regime—may the Cambodian Catholic Church be a sign of peace, hope, and reconciliation.
Father Albeiro Rodas Inca Moyachoque, SDB, serves as the rector of Don Bosco Technical School in Kep province, Cambodia, and fulfills the role of Social Communication Delegate at the Don Bosco Foundation of Cambodia. Being a Native South American, Father Albeiro embarked on his missionary journey to Asia in 1999.
