Under the Pol Pot regime, the Church lost everything: bishops, priests, men and women religious and catechists. Since the 90s it has emerged from the catacombs and is slowly growing in numbers as well as
in social commitment.

Monday, April 14, 1975, was an overcast afternoon. From his window, Father Joseph Chhmar Salas watched as people with their few belongings fled from the ferocity of the Khmer Rouge. He had recently returned from Paris where he was on sabbatical, after having received a letter from Bishop Yves Ramousse asking him to return. Leaving the seminary of the Missions Étrangers in Paris he had no illusions, “I’m going to Cambodia to die there,” he said to his brothers but he obeyed the bishop and immediately returned to the country. Foreign missionaries had left the country. It was necessary to have a bishop in the country who could continue the mission of the Church.
Since the capture of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge was imminent, his episcopal ordination was brought forward. There was already a curfew in force in the city so he was consecrated that same evening and appointed coadjutor bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh.

Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas, coadjutor bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh. He died in a forced work camp of the Khmer Rouge. He was the first Cambodian native bishop. File archive

Three days later, on April 17, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and evacuated the entire population, including the sick, the elderly and the children. The genocide began which would cause one million seven hundred thousand deaths, including that of the new bishop. All the leaders of the Catholic Church and evangelical pastors were either killed or died of starvation under Pol Pot. All churches, convents and cemeteries were systematically razed to the ground.
Pol Pot’s regime fell in 1979 but the Church was forced to continue to exist underground. Only in 1990 did the first faint glimmers of religious freedom begin to appear and the first outdoor acts of worship were held despite enormous difficulties.
The Church, however, was still under strict surveillance. Each community had to draw up a monthly report and the local authorities sometimes asked for a list of the Christians. In 1993, the new Constitution also granted freedom to non-Buddhist religious denominations. In March 1994 diplomatic relations were established with the Holy See and the Council of Ministers approved the statutes of the Church in 1997.

The Cross of Mons. Salas
However, the Catholic community does not forget the horrors of persecution and the death of so many Christians and every year, on June 17, the small community of Catholics living in Cambodia remembers the Christians who testified to Christ by giving their lives in the years when the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge oppression raged: Monsignor Joseph Chhmar Salas and 34 priests, lay people and catechists, Cambodian, Vietnamese and French missionaries, for whom the Cambodian Church opened the diocesan phase of the beatification process in 2015.

Monsignor Olivier Schmitthaeusler, MEP, Apostolic Vicar of the capital Phnom Penh. (Photo: Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh)

During the commemoration last year which was held in Taing Kok, in the centre of the country, where Monsignor Salas had celebrated the Eucharist until his death in 1976, Monsignor Olivier Schmitthaeusler, Apostolic Vicar of the capital Phnom Penh recalled: “Every year the Church is called to celebrate this anniversary. Earthly life is a time to give glory to God on Earth and the testimony of the martyrs guides us on the way.” Monsignor Schmitthaeusler noted that the cross given to Monsignor Salas during his pastoral ordination on September 14, 1975, three days before the start of the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge, has been preserved and handed down over time.
After his death, his mother kept it and later entrusted it to Monsignor Emile Destombes, Apostolic Vicar of the capital from 1997 to 2010, who in turn handed it to him.

A Church that touches the heart
Cambodia has just over 17 million inhabitants and around 95% of the population is Buddhist. Monsignor Olivier Michel Marie Schmitthaeusler explained: “The small Church of Cambodia is in some way a laboratory of evangelization in a Buddhist world that has fully adhered to the process of secularization brought about by globalization, a bit like the Asian dragons.” He indicated how the Church should be, to reach out with the new evangelization: “A Church that touches the heart, a simple Church, a hospitable Church, a praying Church, a joyful Church.”

The Catholic Church in Cambodia has 14 native priests and around 150 foreign missionaries. (Photo: Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh)

Monsignor Schmitthaeusler indicated how to “Build our Church, a sign of the Kingdom of God”, in ten points: “Spiritual life: we are born of God and sent into the world; communion among us; inclusion for all: everyone is welcome; forgiveness: a sine qua non condition for moving forward; a heart that listens and loves in action and in truth: charity in action; true and direct dialogue at all levels: religious, institutional, social; concrete presence in society; the integral formation of just and virtuous men and women; the heart of a father and mother: the Church is a family… a giant tree with a huge heart; be creative: the Gospel is new every morning”. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow: the Church is 2000 years old and it has roots that nourish ours today and prepare the future – recalled Mgr. Schmitthaeusler -. No one is indispensable, we are mere worthless servants who offer more love and life and who can withdraw discreetly knowing that others continue this service of announcement and peace; the Church was, the Church is, the Church will be”.

Sunday Mass. “To listen to the Word of God”. Photo: Photo: Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh)

Looking forward to the Jubilee Year of 2025, Mgr. Schmitthaeusler invited the Cambodian Catholic community to listen to the Word of God: “To prepare for the Year of Jubilee, 2025, which will be a year of mercy and grace from the Lord, let us take time to pray. Prayer is the foundation of all things, the foundation of conversion, the foundation of our vocation through listening to the Word of God, the foundation of every activity of the Christian community.”
Currently, the Catholic Church in Cambodia has 14 native priests and around 150 foreign missionaries who provide pastoral service in more than a hundred parishes throughout the country.
There are three ecclesiastical districts: the Vicariate of Phnom Penh and the Apostolic Prefectures of Battambang and Kompong Cham, and overall, there are around 20,000 Catholics. (Open Photo: Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh)

François-Xavier Demont/MEP

The onset of industrialization brought about the brutal decomposition of rural Cambodian families since poverty and indebtedness led to the emigration of an unskilled workforce from the countryside especially to the capital, Phnom Penh.

The first clothing factories started up here and were followed by many others. They are run by Chinese, South Korean, Bangladeshi and Singaporean businessmen attracted by the country’s low labour costs, which compensate for the same unskilled workers. The establishment of these factories have had a significant impact on the country’s economy but the social impact is negative, due to lack of employee training. Another area which has experienced considerable growth of unskilled labour, is the construction sector.
The notable development of tourism at the Angkor site offers employment opportunities to a large number of hotel and restaurant staff. However, although most of these employees have gone to school they can barely read and write.

Many young people are unemployed and unskilled. CC BY-SA 2.0/ mark Sebastian

Most of them are young, some of them started working as minors to help their parents in the villages because families are, more often than not, heavily in debt. This situation is unprecedented in Cambodia because, culturally, parents take care of their children until marriage. However, in the last decade, children, especially girls, have gone to work outside the family circle thus becoming the primary breadwinners of their families and parents.They become independent and make choices which the family group cannot control, something unheard of in the Cambodian tradition. Another new and disturbing phenomenon is emigration.The government has not really taken stock of these situations and their consequences for the economic development of the country in the medium and long term.
The global Covid epidemic caused a brutal and forced contraction of the Cambodian economy. Vaccination campaigns and attempts to revive the global economy have not led to a return to the growth the government had hoped for. Unemployment rates are high as are the number of unskilled workers. Cambodians’ desire  to be part of the global community is stronger than ever, after the disaster created by the The Khmer Rouge’s Cultural Revolution, which almost annihilated the country, but  it did not take away the people’s will to live. Torn between tradition and modernity, between nationalism and openness to a world without economic and cultural borders, Cambodians still want to get an education, be consumers and enjoy life.

Hun Manet, Cambodian PM since 2023. Photo: Office of Prime Minister

Another big challenge for the government is the enormous interest people show for social media, yet more proof of the desire to be part of a modern world. Through political action and management of the economy, the government must allow everyone to live with dignity according to their needs and aspirations, accepting a plurality of opinions.
Elections last July were overwhelmingly won by Hun Manet who became new prime minister, taking over from his father Hun Sen who had governed since the end of the war, for forty years. In the Land of Smiles, however, Hun Sen’s shadow still hovers noticeably in the background, opposition (such as the Party of Glowing Candles) is systematically dissolved. China, for its part, is increasingly omnipresent in all respects, which will certainly pose problems in the future (debt, sovereignty, etc.), but this allows Cambodia to enjoy a degree of independence from European and American demands regarding human rights.
Everything is interconnected! The country is getting richer, and now has a real middle class, but there are many people left behind by economic growth. (Open Photo: Phnom Penh city.123rf)
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Still traumatised by the bloody Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia is struggling to recover its economic strength, which is leading to a real social “cultural revolution” for the seventeen million inhabitants
of the Land of Smiles.

Cambodia is one of the oldest empires in the world. Throughout its history, it has been marked externally by wars with neighbouring empires and internally by clan struggles for power. However, the country has retained its national identity to this day. The succession of monarchs of the Khmer Empire was not strictly hereditary but governed by palace revolutions, hatched by members of clans more or less close to power.

Cambodia political map.123rf

The history of kingship is similar to that exercised in other kingdoms of the world. The sovereign by divine right must protect his subjects, like the father of a family. Belonging to the social group takes precedence over the individual. The use of appellatives in social relationships illustrates the predominance of the group over the individual, it shows the position of each person within the group and the respect that the younger one owes to the older person he meets. The use of personal pronouns marks a recent evolution in society and language. Appellations and qualifiers or honorifics mark the rank in society and social class of the person you are speaking to. Throughout its history, Cambodia has remained a rural country. Its economy was based on agriculture, and up until the late 1990’s there was a limited number of cities.

Families are attached to their land and cultivate it from generation to generation. Pixabay.

Families are attached to their land and cultivate it from generation to generation, it is a simple and dignified line of work.  The social body gives meaning and regulates the lives of family members. Each family is led by one of its members, whom everyone must respect. Each person contributes to the life of the family according to their age and working capacity. Children have no responsibilities; they learn by watching the elderly work, education in schools is not considered a priority. From puberty, they begin to do their share of work but are declared “unmarried”, which is the the word used in the Khmer language equivalent to “celibate” or “not yet married” and are still under the yoke of the family. From the day after their wedding, they will take a full part by right in family life: their mission will be to have children and participate in agricultural work. Respect and exemplary behaviour are the pillars of family life and those who do not respect these values disgrace themselves. Apsara dance. (Illustration: Pixabay)
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Pol Pot’s regime caused one million seven hundred thousand deaths, devastating families and the entire country.

Being a French protectorate brought no significant changes in Cambodian life or economy except for introduction of more formal rules for civil registration and education.
Thus, the pagoda monks retained responsibility for primary schools but were required to obtain state teaching diplomas to professionalise and improve the quality of the education provided.
The administration was developed by the protectorate: centralised from the capital Phnom Penh and transmitted to the respective cities of the provinces. It was not able to prevent a form of cronyism between users of administrative services and the officials responsible for them, thus corruption was allowed to take hold. The rise in poverty, after the end of the protectorate and the political challenges of corrupt power, led Cambodia to civil war with the coming to power of the leaders of the movements grouped under the name of Khmer Rouge.

A plaque at the stupa/monument to mark the formation of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation monument on 2nd December 1978 in Kratie Province. Shutterstock /AlanMorris

The Chinese-inspired Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 had the same devastating effect as the cultural revolution in China. From a human, social and economic point of view, the death toll from the deadly violence associated with the Maoist ideology that animated the Khmer Rouge cadres devastated whole families and the entire country.
In 1979, Vietnam, then politically affiliated with the former USSR, ended the Khmer Rouge regime by sending its army into Cambodia with the help of dissident officers of the Khmer Rouge regime. The Vietnamese military officially left the country after the signing of the Paris Agreement in 1991. It was only from that year on that the country gradually regained its sovereignty and saw its economy slowly recover. As a first step, many non-governmental organizations, financed by the United Nations and donor countries, helped the country and the government in the work of reconstruction. The results of these actions are mixed.
While many development programs have had significant results, others have led to the diversion of funds into the country’s power circles and the spread of corruption.

Cambodian families who had been displaced lost everything. Pixabay

Cambodian families who had been displaced lost everything: their marital status, family members, land, homes, properties, property titles, etc. They were unable to reclaim anything of their pre-Civil War possessions. The watchword, which became law, was: “First come, first served”. This made it possible to generate, without faith or law, the movable and immovable heritage of a well-informed family, which had so far been a source of conflict. The economy, although growing at an impressive annual rate, started from a very low base. Everything had to be rebuilt: the country’s electricity grid and, first and foremost, access to and distribution of drinking water. The education and training of children and young people was a difficult topic. By taking responsibility for education as a whole, the government centralized its administration.

The quality of schools and the motivation of teachers in urban centres and in the areas surrounding the capital have created a gap with rural areas. Pixabay

The pagodas lost responsibility for primary schools: teachers became state officials. All intellectuals had been eliminated by the Khmer Rouge regime and professors had been arrested and killed in large numbers. The government has had to appeal to people of goodwill who are poorly educated and demotivated due to low wages and rather limited material conditions of education. The quality of schools and the motivation of teachers in urban centres and in the areas surrounding the capital have resulted in a gap with rural areas.
In recent years the government has paid more attention to the quality of teacher training and its distribution across the country.
However, the final dropout rate for pupils is still significant, as poor families take on large debts for their children’s education. Young people leave school too soon, to go to work. At the same time, we are seeing the emergence of an educated middle class in cities. (Open Photo: The former S-21 Security Prison, now Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. CC BY-SA 4.0/Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)
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