Headquarters Missouri, United States | Founded 1953 | |
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Congregation of the mother co redemptrix
The Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix (abbreviated CMC; Vietnamese: Dòng Đức Mẹ Đồng Công or simply Dòng Đồng Công) is a religious institute within the Roman Catholic Church. The institute is dominated by men of Vietnamese extraction. The unofficial title Co-Redemptrix in its name refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Congregation maintains a monastery in Carthage, Missouri, which hosts an annual Marian Days pilgrimage, the largest Roman Catholic festival in the United States. Of the institute's 228 members, about 120 reside in Carthage.
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History
The Congregation was founded in 1953 by the Most Rev. Dominic Maria Trần Đình Thủ, CMC, in Vietnam.
Before 1975, the congregation was relatively small in Vietnam, overshadowed by the Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, and Redemptorist institutes, among others. In the United States, however, virtually all Vietnamese Roman Catholics are aware of the Congregation. Just before the Fall of Saigon in 1975, 185 clergy – about half of the Congregation – left Vietnam as boat people and arrived in the United States at Fort Chaffee. Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, then Bishop of Springfield–Cape Girardeau, sponsored the priests and brothers, inviting them to buy a vacant Oblates of Mary Immaculate seminary, Our Lady of the Ozarks College in Carthage, for $1 for use as their U.S. monastery and shrine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In 1978, the Congregation organized the inaugural Marian Days at the shrine. Around 1,500 Vietnamese Catholics from the Carthage area participated.
Controversial Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục died at the monastery in 1984.