After a long journey beginning as a young boy living in a presbytery in Vietnam, Fr Tai Pham is the first priest to be ordained for the Archdiocese of Sydney in 2025.
Held at St Mary’s Cathedral on 31 May and presided over by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, the richly symbolic ordination ceremony also celebrated Fr Pham’s faith, family and cultural heritage.
The new priest formally accepted his calling in front of a congregation at the Mass including his parents, siblings and extended family, clergy, parishioners, and the wider community.
Conducting the opening words and blessing in Vietnamese, the archbishop set the tone for a multicultural ordination, which featured key figures from Fr Pham’s life and saw the presentation of several relics of early Vietnamese martyrs.
The first reading was conducted by Vietnamese seminarian Huy Tran, and the second, in her native tongue, by the newly ordained priest’s sister, Tessi Pham.
The crowd in the full cathedral was overjoyed to see their community leader be ordained, erupting into applause after the ordination rites.
In his homily, Archbishop Fisher listed seven ways in which Fr Pham would be different after priestly ordination, even though he would look and act much the same.
Some of these reasons include him serving his community rather than being served, being transformed spiritually, and being a part of a team of 400,000 Roman Catholic priests around world.
“The scriptures say priests are taken from among the people and set apart from their fellows,” the archbishop said.
“‘Behold, I am doing a new thing with you,’ God says to our ordinand today.”
Towards the end of the Mass, Fr Pham addressed the worshippers, beginning with a story about his nephew asking him when he would be a priest, and concluding with how he can now say he is one.
Speaking of his upbringing, he said his uncle the late Fr Anthony Nguyen was a great inspiration in his spiritual formation, and that of the rest of his family.
Giving a brief overview of his life to date, Fr Pham mentioned he had been travelling on a path towards marriage and career when called to priesthood, and said he is “still surprised” he passed the entrance exam to enter the seminary in Vietnam.
“On this first day of my priesthood, I humbly ask you, please pray for me that the Word of God may become my joy and the source of my life, and that, like our Blessed Mother I may serve with a priestly heart full of love, mercy and truth,” he said.
After the Mass and more than another hour imparting his blessings to a long queue of the faithful, Fr Pham with his parents Truong and Trung Pham, and two of his siblings Tessi and brother Trong, spoke to The Catholic Weekly.
Fr Pham said he was “grateful to God for everything” as the weather, following weeks of severe conditions, was “lovely” and so many people had attended his ordination.
“Today, they all surprised me because people come from different places,” he said.
“Even when I gave my first blessings, I realised I did not invite many of them, but they all turned up for me to be with me on this special day.”
Despite feeling a “stranger in this country” on his arrival in 2018, since serving placements in various parishes he has gotten to know the Australian people and they have confided in him, he said.
“I’m so grateful for their trust and for their generosity,” he said.
“For me as a deacon and now a priest, I have carried their stories, their life into my prayers and my ministry.”
He said he was also lucky his parents could be there to see him get ordained, as both travelled from Vietnam to attend, and his brother and sister came from Melbourne.
Speaking on behalf of her family, Tessi Pham said they “feel deeply emotional and overwhelmingly proud” of Fr Pham.
“His unwavering faith and knowing that he answers the divine calling move me,” she said.
In a statement translated by her daughter, Fr Pham’s mother said she was deeply affected by her son’s new role and that she was happy the Mass and ordination ceremony were “profoundly pious.”
“It’s great to have a son be a priest of Christ and to serve the church,” she said.
Still thinking of his uncle, Fr Pham said he was thankful to Fr Nguyen for “his support, his love, and his great example.”
“I always thought that when I become a priest, I will pray for him, he will be the first person I pray for during the first Mass,” he said.
Later in June Fr Pham will travel to Vietnam to celebrate Mass in his home parish.
From there, he will go on pilgrimage to Rome, returning to Australia in July to begin his priestly ministry in Sydney.
Fr Pham praised Archbishop Fisher for his role in the Mass, particularly when he spoke Vietnamese, something the priest said was a complete surprise.
He said a fellow priest, cathedral Master of Ceremonies Fr Ben Saliba, had told him the archbishop had a surprise for him and showed him the relics of Vietnamese missionaries which were presented at the end of the ordination Mass, but did not tell him about Archbishop Fisher’s intention to deliver the opening and closing blessings in Vietnamese.
“He did very well, very well, and surprised me, he never told me,” Fr Pham said.
“I’m so grateful for that, he showed he loved me—not by words but by actions.”
