Roman Catholic Church in Laos

The Catholic Church in Laos is a religious minority . She has been working in Laos since the beginning of the 20th century. Around 45,000 Catholics live in Laos, less than 1% of the population. Only a few of them come from Laos itself, most of them come from Vietnam . They live mainly in the urban agglomerations of the Mekong River in the central and southern regions of the country.

There are 23 Catholic parishes in Laos. One of the oldest is the Sacré-Cœur parish in the capital Vientiane , whose parish church was built in 1928. The number of Catholic religious was 118 in 2003. There is a Catholic seminary in Thakhek .

Laos is one of the countries in which one can speak of an oppression of the Catholic Church. The situation is correspondingly difficult. To this day there are no dioceses in Laos, but only four Apostolic Vicariates in Paksé , Savannakhet , Vientiane and Luang Prabang . In Luang Prabang, the Vicar Apostolic was expelled from the region in 1975 and church property was confiscated by the state. In 2003, the Catholic Church in Luang Prabang was allowed to buy back a piece of land on which it built a church in 2005. Now one tries to get a residence permit for the Apostolic Vicar.