Taiwan's ambassador to Vatican baptized a Catholic
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

ROME, April 26, 2006  (www.catholicnews.com)   --  The Taiwanese ambassador to the Vatican was so impressed with seeing "an inner peace and happiness" in the Catholics he met while living and working in Rome that he decided to convert to Catholicism.

Ambassador Tou Chou-seng was baptized Catholic during an April 17 Mass in his parish Church of St. Eugenio in Rome. The 20th-century church is run by the personal prelature of Opus Dei, and Spanish Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez, head of Opus Dei, presided over the Mass and baptism.

The 64-year-old diplomat told Catholic News Service April 19 that he was "very happy" about becoming a part of the Catholic Church and feels he has been given a brand new life.

He said the decision to convert was "a long-time process, a meditation, a discovering (of) the truths about Catholicism."

Many factors -- beginning with his appointment as Taiwan's ambassador to the Vatican -- came together over the years to put him on the path toward Christ, he said.

That appointment was "a divine grace," a gift from God as it exposed him to the many documents and teachings of the church as well as to the pope's homilies. He also met large numbers of Vatican officials, men and women religious, and lay Catholics though his diplomatic work in Rome.