MACAU (UCAN) -- The Macau Catholic Church has set up an office through which pilgrims visiting one of Asia's oldest dioceses can hire trained guides.

The office, which Bishop Jose Lai Hung-seng of Macau opened and blessed on April 22, operates under the Catholic Laity Association of Macau. It has two people on staff, but one works part time.

Full-timer Anna Leong Yung-keng told UCA News the office can assist individuals or groups who wish to make pilgrimages to Macau. It will help the local Church promote pilgrimages more effectively and allow pilgrims to gain a greater understanding of Macau's religious culture, she said.

The office will also train volunteer guides, according to Leong, a member of the laity association. She explained that by training volunteers to be parish tour guides, she hopes to expand this "meaningful work" of evangelization.

In 2002, the association launched a free guide service for pilgrims after training some volunteers, mostly Catholics, in basic tour-guiding skills. By the time the service ended in early 2006, it had assisted about 30 pilgrimage groups, mainly from Macau or Hong Kong, about an hour's jetfoil ride away.

Leong explained that volunteers had their own jobs and did not always have time to guide pilgrims. This personnel shortage led the laity association to suspend the service.

After having served as a volunteer, Leong thought it would be a pity if the local Church could not seize the opportunity to promote Catholic culture, especially after Macau was listed as a World Heritage site in 2005.

The "historical center of Macau" includes several Catholic churches and ruins, but Leong said ordinary tour guides "understand little about the Catholic Church, thus their explanations are often misleading and inaccurate."

Recalling her experience as a volunteer pilgrimage guide, she said she "felt lighthearted and satisfied after each tour, and was eager to search for more information about the Macau Church to enrich the next tour."

Leong left another job to work at the new office. But she wanted to enhance her knowledge and skills, so she took a course at the government-run Macau Institute for Tourism Studies and obtained a tour-guide license.

Ao Wai-lan, a religion teacher at a Catholic school, told UCA News many youths know little about the history of Macau or religions, and lack a sense of belonging to their society. Because of this, she encourages her students to join pilgrimages to learn the local history and early missioners' deeds.

A local Catholic woman surnamed Chio, who joined a pilgrimage guided by Leong in 2005, told UCA News that after the tour she "understood more about the (Macau) Church's historical background." This prepared her to introduce Macau to youths from other countries during the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, she said.

The pilgrimage guide office has scheduled a 20-hour training course for Catholic volunteers from mid-May to June on topics such as guiding skills, local Church history, church decoration and liturgy, lives of Catholic saints and how to lead prayers.

The service is available only in Mandarin and the Cantonese dialect for now, but Leong says she hopes to offer English guide services by 2008.

Lao Un-bing, secretary of the laity association and a volunteer with the new office, is taking an intensive English course for tour guides.

To defray operational costs, each guided tour of six churches costs 500 patacas (US$62) a day. Two weeks' advance booking is required.

According to Father Pedro Chung Chi-kin, vicar general of Macau diocese, the office can operate for at least two years with support from the diocese and funding from Bishop Lai.

Macau, a Portuguese colony for five centuries until it reverted to China in December 1999, had been a gateway for foreign missioners and traders entering mainland China from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Physically it has an area of only 27.5 square kilometers.

The diocese, erected in 1576, has 22 churches and chapels served by about 20 diocesan and 50 missionary priests. Its 20,000 Catholics are mainly local Chinese or Macanese, of mixed Chinese and Portuguese descent, and Filipinos.

(Accompanying photos available at here