San Jose, USA - It wasn't the voice of God that summoned Mai Thanh Luong to church every Sunday as a youngster in his native Vietnam. It was the voice of his mother: persistent, unyielding, non-negotiable.
"My mom influenced me in a very concrete way. She dragged me to church at a very early age," Luong recalled, unable to stifle a chuckle. "I slept right through, but it became a custom."
Six decades later in 2003, Luong became America's first and only Vietnamese-American bishop. As auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Orange County, Calif., Luong, 65, is the Catholic spiritual leader of the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.
At a time when priesthood ranks in the United States have been shrinking - down 26 percent from 57,317 in 1985 to 42,528 in 2005 - the number of Asian-Americans in seminary schools is growing, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
And while exact numbers by ethnicity are not available, church officials say Vietnamese and Filipinos comprise the largest segment of the Asian seminarian population. Indeed, from Australia to Canada, where their numbers are in abundance, Vietnamese priests have been dubbed "the new Irish."
"If you ask any father or mother what they want their child to be," said Luong, "if they're Catholic, they will say a priest. In our culture, we think highly of priests, it's very deeply rooted."
Fewer than 2 percent of American Catholics are Asians or Pacific Islanders, but make up 12 percent of U.S. seminarians. That's up from 9 percent five years ago: from 313 out of 3,474 in 2000, to 397 out of 3,308 seminarians in 2005, according to CARA.
Justin Le, 33, of San Jose came to the U.S. in his late teens and hopes to be ordained in three years. Le remembers his mother taking him to different churches in Saigon each week allowing him to sample the aura and aromas emanating from each cathedral. At home his family worshiped together.
"The family was where my faith grew," Le said.
About 10 percent of Vietnamese in Vietnam are Catholic, with most others practicing Buddhism, Confucianism or ancestral worship.
"When the family leans strongly toward a direction," said Le, "children tend to follow, in the business world or spiritual."
For years, church leaders have been anxiously monitoring the dwindling number of priests-in-training. Two factors are often blamed: the pursuit of consumerism over spiritualism and the scandalous revelations about priests abusing minors.
From 2000-2005, the number of seminarians in the U.S. dropped 5 percent, with whites falling from 69 percent to 65 percent. Black seminarians increased from 4 percent to 5 percent; Hispanics held steady at 15 percent.
The noted rise of Asian-American priests seems to lie in the cohesiveness of the immigrant family and the central role of Catholicism in Asian cultures. From family prayers to the prominence of the crucifix and Madonna - sometimes on front lawns - religion is part of everyday life.
No wonder that when a child announces his intention to become a priest, it can be a cause for celebration bestowing the whole clan with a blessed social rank.
For Asians, Bishop Luong said, "Religion defines the meaning of being human, and that is definitely different from the Western concept of religion. My family instilled in me the seed or germ that blossomed as I journeyed through life."
The student profile at St. Patrick's Seminary and University in Menlo Park, Calif., reflects the demographics playing out nationally.
At St. Patrick's, which draws up to 100 seminary candidates from 16 dioceses throughout Northern California, Asians are the leading racial group on campus, at 43 percent, with Vietnamese and Filipinos comprising 84 percent of all Asians on campus.
Like his friend Le, Andrew V. Nguyen is finishing his fourth year of seven at St. Patrick's. Growing up in San Jose, Calif., Nguyen joined his church's choir and actively participated in parish activities.
"It was the community," said Nguyen, "that led me to the priesthood."
Le and Nguyen are among the seminarians overseen by Father Mark Catalana, vocation director for the Diocese of San Jose. Of the 22 seminarians in the diocese, 9 are Vietnamese; 6 Filipino; 3 white; 2 Hispanic; and 2 Korean.
To provide foreign-born priests with broad cultural exposure, after ordination they are assigned to English-speaking communities. Many, like Father Phan The Luc, the 45-year-old pastor at St. Patrick's Church in San Jose, Calif., return to lead Vietnamese parishes, more comfortable worshiping in their native tongue.
Thirty years ago, new Vietnamese refugees only had English Mass to attend. Many daunted by the language barrier stayed home. Today, Sunday Vietnamese services at St. Patrick's are standing-room only - two Masses on Saturday and five on Sunday.
"There's a tremendous realization that there's great needs for ministering to different cultures here," said Father Gerald Brown, Rector and President of St. Patrick's Seminary. "Immigrants need ministers who come from the immigrants' cultures."
Because the ways of the church go back centuries with changes coming only with Vatican approval, ethnic priests remain bound by the same rigid, ceremonial parameters and duties. Cultural flairs might be seen on special occasions, such as Father Luc at St. Patrick's donning a yellow robe with red stripes to lead Mass, a tribute to the old flag of Vietnam.
While Asian priests may not fundamentally change the church, Western norms have changed them: U.S. trained Vietnamese priests have adopted a more Westernized relationship with their flock.
"In Vietnam, when you saw a priest, you were terrified," said Minh Le one recent Sunday following a Vietnamese service at St. Patrick's Church in San Jose. "Everything they asked you, you answered, `Yes, Father.'"
In America, she said, priests are more social and even solicit opinions from, congregants.
"Priests are closer to us, there isn't that great a separation between them and us," said Le, a 35-year-old mother who works as an accountant in San Jose. "We can talk more freely with them."
Growing up, seminarian Andrew Nguyen remembers community gatherings in Saigon where "priests eat at separate tables."
"Here," he said, "they want to assimilate themselves with the community."
Youth services at St. Patrick's Church hold much laughter between priest and children, interspersed with song and sermons.
"Here, young people raise very challenging questions," said Justin Le. "That's good, because to question is to find the truth."
The increasing diversity is also slowly changing the faces at the top. In addition to Bishop Luong, there are two other Asian-American bishops: Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius Wang of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who became the country's first Asian-American bishop in 2003, and Oscar Azarcon Solis, who in 2004 became the first Filipino-American bishop.
"You will see more of our national leadership incorporate people from Asian cultures," said Brown, president of St Patrick's Seminary. "These are the first three but there will be more."