THAI BINH, Vietnam (UCAN) -- Whenever a person with leprosy dies here, five men spend several hours finding a place to dig a grave in a 108-year-old cemetery.

Father Huynh expands a century-old cemetery for leprosy patients in Thai Binh province, by filling in half of the lake next to it.

“Many times we dig up remains of dead people because they have been buried without coffins or headstones,” Bui Van Son told UCA News.

Son and the other men, who are children of leprosy patients, provide grave-digging service for patients from the state-run Van Mon Center for People with Leprosy in Thai Binh province’s Vu Thu district, 110 kilometers southeast of Ha Noi.

The center, erected by foreign missioners in 1900 and confiscated by the government after northern communists defeated colonial French troops in 1954, sits 500 meters from the cemetery.

Son said they “feel guilty” digging up dead people’s remains and know that doing this could cause the men health problems and pollute the environment. But in the future, he noted, they will use a new section of the cemetery.

Father Joseph Marie Mai Tran Huynh, who provides pastoral care for the patients, told UCA News he extended the cemetery by filling in half of the 3,000-square-meter lake next to it. Over years, rain had caused the cemetery land near the edge of the lake to erode and fall away, exposing coffins and bodies, he explained. So he extended the cemetery by building a wall out into the lake where the water was not too deep and filling in the area with soil.

Once this was done, the 61-year-old priest, pastor of Thai Sa and Tra Vy parishes, leveled the new 1,500-square-meter section, planted trees and put in a cement path. Construction started last November and was finished in April, but Son and the other men must wait a while yet before their work gets easier.

According to Father Huynh, the ground needs one-to-two years to firm up before they can use it for burials.

The priest, who has served the parishes and the center since 1992 from his base in Tra Vy, said Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Ha Noi asked a charity in Singapore to fund the US$15,000 project.

As additional funds allow, Father Huynh plans to transfer old, abandoned graves without headstones as well as plant trees and build a path in the old section of the cemetery.

Maria Pham Thi Mui, a leprosy patient who has lived at the center since 1955, told UCA News patients who died used to be buried without headstones, because their relatives abandoned them.

That changed during the past 10 years, she explained, because patients now donate 60,000 dong (US$3.60) each to a fund they run. They use money from the fund to buy gifts for those who get seriously ill, or to buy incense, candles and a headstone for those that die, she explained. The government provides free coffins for dead patients.

Mui, 77, from neighboring Nam Dinh province, said she hopes that after her death, “I will be buried in the new cemetery and my grave will have a headstone.” Her relatives rarely visit her, she added.

Father Huynh also built a funeral house at the cemetery. Even though he lost the use of his legs in a fall, he visits the leprosarium every week. He administers sacraments and celebrates Mass for Catholic patients in the chapel.

Local patients told UCA News they had few opportunities to attend liturgical services at the center between 1954 and 1992, when Father Huynh started visiting.

They said the priest has repaired the chapel, has built toilets and kitchens, and gives them beds, blankets, mosquito nets, clothes, food and even money. He also gives scholarships to 108 children of patients.

Doctor Bui Huy Thien, the leprosarium’s director, told UCA News he appreciates Father Huynh’s latest project, which consoles leprosy patients at the end of a life filled with hardship. The general public still stays away from them, so few people from outside the leprosarium attend patients’ funerals, he noted.

The director said 1,000 patients from 21 provinces, including 359 who need intensive care, live here in northern Vietnam’s biggest leprosarium.

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