Vietnamese chaplain understood how to engage his community
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Father Vincent Kien Nguyen, who served as chaplain of Hawaii’s Vietnamese Catholic community for about 10 years, died in Orange County, California, on Jan. 14. He was 66 years old and a priest for 30 years.
“I remember Father Kien as an excellent pastor,” said Father William Kunisch who was pastor at the time of the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, where the Vietnamese Catholic Community congregates and worships.
“He was ‘seasoned’ in the sense that he really understood how to engage people in ministry,” Father Kunisch told the Hawaii Catholic Herald in an email.
“He had the Vietnamese community firing on all cylinders: a great religious education program for children and youth, summer camping trips for young adults, retreats and days of recollection for adults, fun celebrations like the Vietnamese Holy Martyrs Feast Day and Tet, and beautiful liturgies with the best trained lay ministers and servers,” he said.
Father Nguyen was born on May 10, 1952, in Bui Chu, Vietnam, into a devout Catholic family. He began his studies for the priesthood in 1964 in a minor seminary in Chau Doc and continued his formation from 1972 to 1979 at Long Xuyen Seminary.
According to the Vietnam Catholic Federation in the United States, the seminarian Nguyen crossed the border from Vietnam to Malaysia in 1980 and settled in the United States in 1982.
He continued his seminary training in 1984 at St. Joseph Seminary in Mountain View, California. He moved to Taiwan in 1986 to study theology and was ordained a priest on Aug. 13, 1989, in the Diocese of Tien-Chu.
Father Nguyen returned to the United States in 1993 to work at St. Patrick Parish in San Jose, California, later renamed the proto-Cathedral of Our Lady of La Vang serving the Vietnamese community.
He came to Hawaii in 1998 to be chaplain of the Hawaii’s Vietnamese Holy Martyrs Catholic Community at the co-cathedral. He was incardinated into the Diocese of Honolulu on Feb. 24, 2004.
Under Father Nguyen, the Vietnamese community was the most over-achieving “parish” in the diocese’s “With Grateful Hearts” capital campaign,” raising 324 percent of its goal.
“It was an amazing success!” said Father Kunisch. “They did it all and they did it well because Father Kien was a great pastoral leader.”
Father Nguyen was also the spiritual director of a very active Vietnamese contingent of the Legion of Mary.
Father Kunisch recalled walking past the Vietnamese community’s pastoral council meetings and noticing that “they always had good attendance and they seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves while they discussed the agenda.”
“I wondered why my pastoral council meetings weren’t like that,” Father Kunisch said. “Then Father Kien told me the secret: he always opened a couple bottles of wine for the meeting!”
“I learned so much from him,” the priest said. “Working with Father Kien and the Vietnamese community was definitely one of the best parts of ministry at the co-cathedral.”
Father Nguyen served in Hawaii until 2015 when he retired on the mainland.
Father Nguyen’s funeral was celebrated Jan. 19 at St. Barbara Church in Santa Ana, California. He is inurned at Good Shepherd Cemetery, Huntington Beach, California.
A memorial Mass was said at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu on Jan. 17.
