BANGKOK (UCAN): “Every jubilee calls for metanoia [spiritual conversion and transformation]. Let us challenge ourselves to let peace-making be the new evangelisation,” Charles Maung Cardinal Bo Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences [FABC] president, said on October 20 during the federation’s general conference.
The Church needs to “be reactive and become an agent of peace,” Cardinal Bo, the bishop of Yangon, Myanmar, said without referring to any country in particular.
He presented Asia as a country of great opportunities, optimism and survival and said the Church should “initiate dialogue, advocate for equality” and “stand up to power with empty hands” to “fight for peace.”
The meeting also heard experts stressing inter-religious dialogue, which the FABC has been persuading since its inception in 1970.
Edmund Chia, a former FABC official and professor of theology at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia, highlighted the key moments in the Church in Asia’s journey of dialogue with religions praising it as an “example of a Church of dialogue” and said it is also a “learning Church.”
Every jubilee calls for metanoia [spiritual conversion and transformation]. Let us challenge ourselves to let peace-making be the new evangelisation
Cardinal Bo
Lawrence Chong, a consulter to the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, spoke about “inter-intra religious dialogue” for young people as a way to build bridges.
The Church’s leadership should trust the youth, develop its capability for the youth, and create opportunities for involvement and dialogue with them.
Edmund Terence Gomez, professor of political economy in the Faculty of Economics and Administration at the University of Malaya, analysed the “political and economic trends driving Asia today.”
He noted that authoritarian governments, the people’s power movement, and the effects of corruption on democracy and high industrialisation are among Asia’s social realities.
Gomez told the bishops that the key to understanding geo-political constructs in their countries is to seek answers to two questions: who is the state, and where does power lie?
Jesuit Father Bryan Lobo, dean at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, spoke about ways of building bridges in the context of inter-intra religious dialogue, particularly in the light of Evangelii Gaudium [Joy of the Gospel], the 2013 apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis on evangelisation.
“Realities are more important than ideas,” Father Lobo stressed, adding the reality of agape—love of God of humans and humans’ love for God; selfless, self-sacrificing love—as the fundamental principle of the papal exhortation, on which every initiative can be built.
He also pointed to the Church’s need to engage in dialogue with other cultures and religions and added it must be characterised by openness to truth and love.
Some 175 bishops and delegates from 29 Asian nations discussed the geopolitical and social shifts impacting the continent and the need for dialogue, peace, and reconciliation during their general conference as part of the FABC’s golden jubilee celebrations.
