In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis boldly asserts the threat to our contemporary world as “dark clouds over a closed world”. He powerfully portrays the reality of “shattered dreams” in his vivid depiction.
In his latest title, My Chinese Dream: Bridging East and West – Hopes, Challenges and Opportunities, Kin Sheung Chiaretto Yan confidently presents his vision by skillfully highlighting the connections, disparities, and prospects between Chinese and Christian civilisations.
The author, an academic with expertise in comparative and intercultural studies of Chinese and European civilisations, examines how these two civilisations can be compared. With 28 years of experience in China, the author provides an insightful analysis.
He adopts a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, combining areas of theology, philosophy, ecology, politics, economics, and cultural-religious dialogue to understand the two age-old civilisations.
Chiaretto also makes great strides in creating an essential perspective for understanding Pope Francis’ pontificate. The book discusses the potential approaches towards promoting a culture of encounter and dialogue while acknowledging the distinctiveness of different civilisations, specifically the Chinese and Christian civilisations.
The book provides the reader with broad understanding of the intercultural and interreligious dialogue between Chinese and Christian civilisation, past, present and future, demonstrating positively the motto of Sima Qian, the Great Historian of China.
Commenting on Chiaretto’s book, Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., Editor in Chief, La Civiltà Cattolica, wrote: “Pope Francis encourages a culture of encounter, committed to fraternity for peace. He repeatedly expresses his love for the Chinese people and culture. This book reflects well the Holy Father’s thoughts on “encounter.” Yan’s personal encounter invites readers to a “voyage of discovery” to the unknown and to discover, after all, we can be a gift to one another and appreciate each other’s positive values, paving pathways to fraternity and peace.
Writing the foreword to the book, Monsignor Piero Coda, Secretary General of Pontifical International Theological Commission, observed that “Today the future of humanity can no longer be thought without China, as if this had ever been possible. A civilisation that is present on the stage of history as an example of arrogant and extraordinary human performance for all to see. Not only because of its population size and the relevance of its millenary civilisation but also because of the irrepressible and vital creativity that it currently manifests. China has put the Western world on the defensive in terms of political and economic strategy, often pushing it to adopt the ancient and now unthinkable dialectical model of the “clash of civilisations””.
Chiaretto’s title, which is published by Claretian Publications in Macau, will be launched at Talentum Bookshop on Waterloo Road in Hong Kong at 2.00 pm on March 9. SE
Kin Sheung Chiaretto Yan is visiting professor at the University of Saint Joseph – Macau, and the National Seminary of Catholic Church in China. He holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and is the author of Evangelization in China: Challenges and Prospects (Orbis Books, 2014), and Seasons for Relationships (2018).
