May 29, 2026

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Born in Myanmar, Deacon Thu’s priestly dream will come to life in archdiocese

Deacon candidate Khaing Thu, center, smiles at transitional Deacon Gaten Armstrong of the Archdiocese of Mobile, Ala., on Oct. 25, 2025, outside the Archabbey Church of Our Lady of Einsiedeln in St. Meinrad prior to the Mass in which Thu was ordained a transitional deacon for the archdiocese. Deacon candidate Timothy Khuishing stands at left. (Photo courtesy of Saint Meinrad Archabbey)

By Sean Gallagher

Wherever transitional Deacon Khaing Thu has lived, he has found a welcoming home in the Church.

That happened when he was child in his native Myanmar, where he made friends among the religious sisters and seminarians at the cathedral parish in his hometown of Loikaw.

And it’s been the same in Indianapolis, where he moved in 2011 with his family when he was 11. They fled as refugees from religious and ethnic discrimination in Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.

Almost as soon as he and his family arrived, they were warmly welcomed at St. Mark the Evangelist Parish on Indianapolis’ south side.

Though only 26, Deacon Thu has experienced many transformational changes in his relatively short life. Through it all, the Catholic faith has been a steady center for him. It’s no wonder, then, that serving the Church has long been a desire close to his heart.

“I’ve been drawn toward the priesthood since I was young,” he said in an interview with The Criterion.

If he and his family had stayed in Myanmar, though, he doesn’t know if following that call would have been possible.

A decade after they moved to Indianapolis, Myanmar’s military seized control of the country in a coup and has ruled it repressively ever since. Many seminarians there, Deacon Thu said, have had to forgo priestly formation because of the unrest in Myanmar.

“If I had stayed in my home country, … I don’t know where I would be right now,” he said. “But God called me here. And now I’ll be a priest.”

God’s providence led Deacon Thu halfway around the world to follow his dream of becoming a priest. That dream will come to life at 10 a.m. on June 6

at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis when Archbishop Charles C. Thompson will ordain Deacon Thu, Deacon Sam Hansen and Deacon Timothy Khuishing as priests for the Church in central and southern Indiana.

Drawn to the Church in Myanmar and Indianapolis

Htoo Thu, Deacon Thu’s sister, knew back in Myanmar that her younger brother was different from most children.

When other kids in their neighborhood were playing mischievous games, her brother had something else in mind for fun.

“The games that Khaing would set up would be him saying his own Mass,” said Thu, a resident physician at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis and a member of St. Mark. “He knew the order of how things went. He would make all of the neighborhood kids be his Massgoers.”

His love for his Catholic faith as a child often drew Deacon Thu to the cathedral parish, which he described as “a second home for me.”

“Whenever I got bored at home, I would ride my bike up to the parish and just hang around,” he said. “I already knew the religious sisters there. They also had minor seminarians that were in residence next to the parish. They were sacristans who taught us how to serve. I made friends with all of them.”

Although the young 11-year-old Khaing loved living his budding faith in Loikaw, he soon had to say goodbye to the city because of the religious and ethnic discrimination his family faced there.

“It was very painful to leave all of that behind,” Deacon Thu recalled. “I had a lot of dreams, homesickness, even now, you know.”

The sadness he felt in leaving Loikaw eased over time as the members of St. Mark made him and his family feel at home there.

“They reached out to us and were interested in who we were, about our culture and everything that we brought as Burmese immigrants,” Deacon Thu said.

Over the years, the seeds of that initial welcome blossomed for him into a deep spiritual relationship with the south side faith community.

“The people there aren’t just people that I see every Sunday, and then I forget about them,” Deacon Thu reflected. “They made us feel part of the community. They are a visible sign of the invisible reality of all of us being the body of Christ.”

That deepening of his faith at St. Mark and his dreams of the priesthood were nurtured by now-retired Father Todd Riebe, whom Deacon Thu described as “a spiritual father” for him when he served as the parish’s pastor from 2012-17.

“Every time I saw him, I saw the joy of Christ in his smile,” Deacon Thu recalled. “He was available and open to the needs of the people. His presence helped people see that Jesus was acting in the Church through him.

“I wanted to be like him.”

Indeed, Father Riebe recalled how, when Deacon Thu was a student at St. Mark School, he knew exactly what he wanted to do for its career day when students were asked to dress up for the job they wanted to have when they grew up.

“Khaing came and borrowed a clerical shirt from me and wore it to school,” Father Riebe said.

The retired priest is looking forward to the ordination of Deacon Thu and Deacon Khuishing, who was also a member of St. Mark when Father Riebe was pastor there.

“It makes me proud, like a father must feel toward his sons,” he said.

‘A man that loves Jesus’

Jeff Traylor is also proud of both transitional deacons. He served as director of campus ministry at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, when both were students there and helped them in their discernment of their vocation. That was also the case with Deacon Hansen, a classmate at Roncalli with Deacon Thu.

Now the chief operating officer of the Indianapolis-based Catholic Concepts business, Traylor is also a St. Mark parishioner and was familiar with both of its deacons before they came to Roncalli.

Traylor said that Deacon Thu was always up-front about his interest in the priesthood.

“He didn’t hide from that,” Traylor said. “He knew there was discernment and that it was a long process. But he wasn’t afraid to talk about it.”

Traylor has kept in contact with Deacon Thu during his eight years of priestly formation and is confident that he will be a good priest.

“In every great priest that I’ve ever known, you can see the love of Jesus Christ just flowing out of them,” Traylor said. “That’s what I see in him. He’s just a man that loves Jesus. I can see it in him in every conversation that I have with him, in his smile, in his demeanor, in the things that he wants to talk about.”

For his part, Deacon Thu said his time at Roncalli helped him “grow in my relationship with God” and “deepened and strengthened my discernment process.”

Roncalli has a long history of nurturing vocations to the priesthood. Deacon Thu recalled how at every all-school Mass there, seminarians who were Roncalli graduates would be included in the general intercessions.

“In all of those times I was praying for them,” he recalled, “it got me to think that one day I might be in among those who were in formation.”

Traylor is looking forward to the ordination on June 6 of the three young men whom he knows well and journeyed with in their faith while they were at Roncalli.

“The amount of pride that I have for the three of them is overwhelming,” said Traylor with emotion.

After pausing, he continued.

“Every ordination that I’ve ever been to, I get emotional,” Traylor said. “This year, I know it’ll be waterworks. But it’s because I’ve been able to see this process. And to know that I may have had some sort of influence on that has been incredible.”

A dream becoming reality

Deacon Thu also looks to his parents when explaining the roots of his vocation and how it’s been supported over the years.

He spoke of the influence of the deep faith of his father, Victor Luizi Kolo, also noting that he lived for some years working in Malaysia while his family lived in Myanmar.

Deacon Thu’s mother, Judith Yee Yee Win, was raised as a Buddhist and was received into the Church after she married her husband. Because his father was away for so long, Deacon Thu credited his mother as “the one who raised me in the faith. Looking back, it’s thanks to her that I am where I am now.”

When the family moved to Indianapolis, Deacon Thu saw in a new way his father’s dedication to his fellow Burmese Catholics.

In a 2022 interview with The Criterion, he described how his father helped build a community of Burmese Catholics at St. Mark, driving one carload after another of them to the parish for Mass.

“My father taught me the importance of community, relationships and how we humans need to cling to each other and support each other in order to thrive and live fully as we are created to be,” Deacon Thu said at the time. “He taught me through his actions by stepping up to be a leader of the Burmese community and serving them in many ways.”

Deacon Thu will show himself a leader for Burmese Catholics and all the faithful on the day after his ordination when he celebrates a Mass of Thanksgiving at

St. Mark.

“That’s something that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid,” he said. “Every time I went to Mass, I imagined myself as a priest. And that is going to become a reality. That joy, that excitement is something that I cannot express in words.”

‘Sharing in the work of the priesthood of Christ’

That leadership will continue on July 1 when Deacon Thu will begin ministry as parochial vicar of St. Michael Parish in Greenfield and St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Fortville. He has served at both faith communities as a deacon since last December.

Deacon Thu’s sister Htoo is confident that her brother will thrive as a priest. Humorously calling him a “perfectionist,” she said that this quality has made him a “good planner.”

“When you’re a priest, you have to be good at planning—planning Masses, planning programs, planning events for parishioners, planning his own activities in life,” Thu said.

At the same time, she knows that a priest’s plans often need to be changed quickly in the busy and often unpredictable life of a parish.

“As much as he’s a planner, he also has the quality of triaging needs and tending to what is most important at that moment,” Thu said.

Deacon Thu gave credit to Father Aaron Jenkins, pastor of St. Michael and St. Thomas, for helping him learn how to meet the many demands of pastoral leadership.

“Father Aaron has been a great role model for me, especially in administration and in practical things about running a parish,” he said.

Deacon Thu looks forward to sharing in priestly ministry and fraternity with Father Jenkins and the other priests who serve the Church in central and southern Indiana.

“Sharing in the work of the priesthood of Christ is not my work. It is the work of Christ,” Deacon Thu said. “We are all striving to do the same thing. So, I look forward to sharing support for each other.”

Deacon Thu’s humility came forth when he spoke about being drawn into the work of Christ as a priest.

“It is an honor that I don’t deserve,” he said. “But I’m being given it because God wants me to bring his love and mercy to the people—to the community that has fed me, especially, but also everyone else who God is trying to reach out to through me.”

(For more information about a vocation to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, visit HearGodsCall.com.) †

More about Transitional Deacon Khaing Thu

Age: 26

Parents: Victor Luizi Kolo and Judith Yee Yee Win

Home Parish: St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis

Education: St. Mark School, Roncalli High School, Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary and Marian University, all in Indianapolis; Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad

The Criterion