LA VANG, Vietnam (UCAN) -- Many local Religious and lay Catholics volunteered long hours to provide clean water, accommodations, health care and other services for half a million pilgrims at the Vietnamese Church's recent national Marian congress.

About 300,000 pilgrims join a Eucharistic procession during the 28th Marian Congress of the Church in Vietnam held Aug. 13-15.

Deacon Pierre Nguyen Thai Cong told UCA News he and Sacred Heart postulants in his charge sold 23,000 liters of bottled water. Their community is based in Hue city, 60 kilometers south of the national Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang.

"We did not intend to make a business of it. We wanted to provide clean water to pilgrims at low prices," the Sacred Heart deacon said. He and 15 postulants set up three selling points at the 210-hectare Marian shrine in Quang Tri province, 600 kilometers south of Ha Noi.

Half a million pilgrims attended the 28th national Marian congress, held Aug. 13-15 to celebrate the feast of the Assumption. Fifteen archbishops and bishops, and 550 priests concelebrated Masses, heard confessions and led Eucharistic adoration during the congress under the theme Mother Mary, Educator of the Faith.

Cong, 34, said his group sold 1.5-liter bottles for 6,000 dong (US$0.36) each and 7.5-liter bottles for 30,000 dong. His community produced the bottled water. The deacon noted that they sold out their water on the afternoon of Aug. 14, so many pilgrims had to buy bottles of water at prices three to five times higher from nearby shops.

According to him, the shrine could not provide enough water from wells there to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, so "our service helped pilgrims cut their expenses."

After drinking the water, pilgrims could then use the empty bottles to carry water from the shrine's Marian well as a present to their relatives or friends, he said. Local people consider water from the well as holy water that can heal their diseases.

Cong said they would donate the money from their water sales to the local Church so it can build more facilities at the shrine. In June the government returned close to 14 hectares of former shrine land, effectively tripling the land available for Church use from 65,000 to 210,000 square meters.

Some Sacred Heart postulants told UCA News they distributed bottled water free of charge to ethnic-minority pilgrims, disabled or elderly people.

Teresa Vu Thi Mien, a pilgrim from the northern diocese of Thai Binh, told UCA News she had bought two 1.5-liter bottles of water for 15,000 dong each from a shop before she met the Sacred Heart brothers. She saved 45,000 dong buying five more bottles from them, she added.

Mien, 53, said she had used all the water she carried from home, since the temperature hit 39 degrees Celsius under cloudless skies. And she had to pay 30,000 dong for a meal and the same amount to use one of the makeshift bathrooms along the roads or at local houses, which she considered expensive.

Some people from the area told UCA News local people set up 700 small restaurants, boarding houses and souvenir shops outside the shrine. Some of these entrepreneurs sold food at high prices without observing hygiene and even sold unclean water to pilgrims, they claimed.

Father John Le Quang Quy, an organizer, said Catholic health-care workers from a Catholic clinic in Ho Chi Minh City and state-run hospitals treated 20 people with diarrhea from unhygienic food or water. They also treated 1,000 people for sunstroke and other health problems, he added.

Father Quy, pastor of Tri Buu, added that the local Church provided pilgrims with 500 tents for free at the shrine. Anywhere from 40 to 200 people stayed overnight in each tent, he added. Many pilgrims brought their own tents, while others rented accommodations from local people outside the shrine.

Some volunteers who spoke with UCA News during the congress said 2,500 local lay Catholics and novices from Religious congregations volunteered to collect garbage, ensure security of the shrine and pilgrims, watch for pickpockets, clear the way for Eucharistic and Marian processions, and assist disabled and elderly people. They added that volunteers typically worked from 3:30 a.m. until 11 p.m.

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