Tha Rae Catholic Village

In the early 1880s, Catholicism was spreading into Isan, the north-east of present-day Thailand, from the left bank of the Mekong. In 1881, two missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, Constant Prodhomme and Xavier Guego, reached Ubon Ratchathani. A few years later, around 1885, a community of new Christians took shape at Ban Kham Koem, three or four kilometres from the town of Nakhon Phanom, and several priests came to settle there. These first Christian nuclei thus formed along the river and in the hinterland, around missionaries from Europe and faithful who often came from the opposite bank.⁹

It was within this movement that Tha Rae came into being. The village was not an isolated mission post: it belonged to a network of communities which, within a few decades, built up a local Church straddling Siam and Laos, and of which it would later become one of the centres.

The founding dates back to 1884, a date on which all accounts agree. The French missionary Xavier Guego, whom the inhabitants called ‘Keko’, led a few Catholic families who had been living in central Sakon Nakhon to the northern shore of Nong Han Lake. Some twenty families, around a hundred and fifty people, crossed the lake in a small boat and on bamboo rafts, then settled on the far shore, where the village stands today.⁵

These founders were some hundred and fifty Vietnamese Catholic immigrants fleeing persecution in French Indochina. At the outset, then, stood a small group of Christians in search of a place to live out their faith.¹¹

The memory of the crossing remains at the heart of the village’s identity. It gives the present cathedral its shape.⁵

A year after the founding, in 1885, the village received its first parish priest, Father Joseph Combourieu. His name remains linked to the school he opened a few years after his arrival.⁵

The institution has come through the century. It is the forerunner of Saint Joseph School, Tha Rae, which today takes pupils from nursery to the end of secondary school. The educational tradition does not stop at the village boundaries: young people from Tha Rae still leave to study at Catholic schools in Bangkok or abroad.¹⁷

At the end of the 19th century, the Church reorganised its missions in the region. On 4 May 1899 the Apostolic VicariateA missionary jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, entrusted by the Pope to a bishop who governs it in his name, pending the possible establishment of a diocese. of Laos was created, a missionary territory entrusted by the Pope to a bishop who governs it in his name. The vicariate covered both north-eastern Thailand and Laos, and its seat was established at Ban Nonseng, or Nong Saeng, in Nakhon Phanom Province. Tha Rae was then merely one parish among others.¹²

On 21 December 1950, the vicariate was divided on either side of the border. The Thai part became the Apostolic Vicariate of Thare, which took its name from the village. Its first bishop, Claudius-Philippe Bayet, belonged to the Paris Foreign Missions Society. This change made Tha Rae the centre of a Church henceforth organised within Thailand alone.¹²

Three years later, in 1953, Michael Mongkhol On Prakhongchit became the vicariate’s first indigenous bishop.¹⁶

In 1960, the vicariate took the name of Thare and Nonseng, thus uniting the names of its two historic seats. On 18 December 1965 it was raised to the rank of archdiocese, that is, the principal diocese of an ecclesiastical provinceA grouping of Catholic dioceses placed under the authority of a principal archdiocese, governed by an archbishop., governed by an archbishop. In 2020 its territory covered the provinces of Kalasin, Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom and Sakon Nakhon, with some eighty parishes. Catholics form a small minority there, of the order of a few tens of thousands of faithful within a population of more than three million.¹⁶

Tha Rae remains the heart of this Church. It was in its cathedral that Mgr Anthony Weradet Chaiseri was consecrated Archbishop of Thare and Nonseng on 15 August 2020. The village where a few families had come ashore in 1884 has become the seat of the archdiocese.¹⁸

Tha Rae lies north of Nong Han Lake, not far from the boundary of Nakhon Phanom Province, some twenty kilometres from the centre of Sakon Nakhon along the Sakon Nakhon–Nakhon Phanom road. Administratively, the village forms a subdistrict municipalityIn Thailand, the first tier of urban local government, established at subdistrict (tambon) level. within Mueang Sakon Nakhon District. It is now regarded as the old quarter of Sakon Nakhon.¹⁴

The landscape remains largely agricultural. Most inhabitants make their living from rice farming, and the lake the founders once crossed is now a place for leisurely outings: boats take visitors out on it and restaurants have opened along its shores. The village thus keeps a dual character, that of a rural Isan community and that of a small town whose architecture recalls other horizons.¹⁴

What strikes one first on walking the streets are the houses. Tha Rae ranks among the best-preserved European-style provincial centres in Thailand. Its French Indochinese-style houses stand out for their arcades, balconies and windows. Among these old buildings, several are in a Franco-Vietnamese style, and there is also a Franco-Vietnamese colonial mansion.¹¹

This architectural vocabulary recalls the proximity of French Indochina, across the Mekong, and the Vietnamese origins of part of the population. This imageIn Thai Buddhism, a devotional representation of the Buddha, most often a statue, venerated as an object of worship. of the old village now travels beyond the province: for the Thai film ‘Tha Rae: The Exorcist’, an old church was recreated for the sets.⁹

In Tha Rae stands the Cathedral of St Michael the Archangel, a Roman Rite church and seat of the Archdiocese of Thare and Nonseng. Its silhouette evokes a boat. The choice is not decorative: the form was intended in memory of the ancestors and their crossing of Nong Han Lake. The community’s principal monument thus inscribes the story of its founding in its very architecture.⁵

The cathedral is not the only place of worship. Tha Rae has four other, smaller churches. Yet St Michael’s remains the place most frequented by the elders. Its reach now extends beyond the local community: for the 2025 Holy YearA jubilee year of the Catholic Church during which the faithful are invited to go on pilgrimage to designated churches., the jubilee year during which Catholics are invited to make pilgrimages to designated churches, the cathedral was among the jubilee churches.⁴

Tha Rae had more than ten thousand Catholics in 2018 and some fifteen thousand around 2021, making it the largest Catholic settlement in a country where the members of this Church number around three hundred and eighty thousand. This population is heir to a long-standing mingling of peoples. It includes descendants of Vietnamese, Chinese, Lao and Thai people, as well as of regional groups such as the Nyo, the So and the Phu Thai.³

Several of these families originally shared a marginal position. Among them were uprooted populations, former slaves, and even people accused of being phi popIn Isan beliefs, a malevolent spirit believed to possess the living; people accused of harbouring one could be cast out of their community., malevolent spirits. Led by the French missionaries, these people from very diverse backgrounds formed the community.⁸

Religion structures the village’s time. Every morning, at around six o’clock, the children go to Mass. On Saturday evenings, at around seven o’clock, there is an offering of flowers, and on Sundays the faithful go to church for confession and the sacraments. Over the course of the year, the four major celebrations of the Catholic calendar set the rhythm of community life.¹

This practice is nonetheless part of a local culture that blends Catholic and Buddhist elements.²

Tha Rae’s cohesion can also be read in its economy. The village has no bank branch, public or private. A Catholic credit union, managed by a community committee, takes its place and holds considerable funds.⁷

The village was long known for the dog-meat trade. Some inhabitants claim that this business was highly lucrative and did not suffer from the 1997 financial crisis.⁷

The inhabitants call their village the ‘land of stars’ because of their Christmas celebrations. The star procession is inspired by the Star of Bethlehem, which, in the Gospel narrative, guided the Magi to the infant Jesus. For three days, houses are covered in decorations and thousands of spectators come to watch the parade. Floats bearing illuminated stars make their way through the village at nightfall, while boats decked with stars sail on Nong Han Lake.³

The festival mobilises the whole community. Priests, religious and volunteers take part in organising the Christmas programme. The procession began in 1982.²

Tha Rae is a secondary cultural tourism destination in Sakon Nakhon Province. During the health crisis, when visitors disappeared, the community rallied to bring them back.²

In 2025, the Tourism Authority of Thailand took a further step by including the procession, under the name Sakon Nakhon Christmas Star Parade, in the Signature Event Thailand programme. The festival was then presented as a five-day heritage festival, from 20 to 24 December, with the illuminated star floats setting off at six in the evening and returning at eight. The celebration born in a north-eastern parish now takes its place among Thailand’s cultural showcases.¹⁰