On Aug. 1, 2009 history happened for the archdiocese at St. Bernadette Parish, Randolph when Father Linh Tuan Nguyen became the pastor of the parish. With Cardinal O’Malley’s appointment of Father Nguyen to the parish, he became the first son of Vietnam to be so assigned in the archdiocese.

A native of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Father Nguyen comes from a beautiful land and family with deep connections to the Roman Catholic faith there. His family responded to the preaching of early missionaries and in the early 1800s they became Catholics -- among the very first in the area.

His family emigrated to the United States to escape the religious persecution inflicted by the Communist regime in Vietnam. They settled in Dorchester and specifically at St. Peter Parish where there is a flourishing Catholic Vietnamese community.

An alumnus of Cathedral High School, he attended U-Mass Lowell and then St. John’s Seminary. Cardinal Law ordained him to the priesthood at Holy Cross Cathedral on May 27, 2000.

Since that time he has served as parochial vicar in several archdiocesan parishes: Immaculate Conception, Weymouth; St. Catherine of Siena, Charlestown; St. Mary, Charlestown; St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena, Charlestown; St. Joseph, Holbrook; and most recently at St. Bernadette, Randolph where he moves up in responsibility as pastor.

With a variety of older and newer ethnic groups and an especially vibrant Catholic Vietnamese community, the parish will welcome a man whose roots are in an ancient faith and an ancient land, nevertheless thriving in a new land.