BANGKOK (RVA News): “The synodal process is Holy Spirit-inspired, an irreversible process, and an axial missionary moment for Asia,” Charles Cardinal Bo of Yangon, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference [FABC], on November 24 when he presided at the concluding Mass of the 28th FABC-OSC [Office of Social Communications] Bishops’ Meet in Bangkok, Thailand.
This year’s Bishops’ Meet, which ran from November 20 to 24, saw 30 participants from FABC member conferences Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore, Cambodia-Laos, India, Indonesia, Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, and associate member Hong Kong.
Vatican News reported that Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, and Nataša Govekar, director of the dicastery’s Theological-Pastoral Department, joined the five-day event.
Ruffini spoke on the topic, “Communication in the Synodal Church,” and expressed the Holy See’s desire to engage in mutual support with local Churches.
He recalled that the synodal Church is more about building relationships than about the mere transmission of communication, Vatican News reported.
The synodal process is Holy Spirit-inspired, an irreversible process, and an axial missionary moment for Asia
Cardinal Bo
The head of the communications dicastery said that the Church is a community of evangelising disciples and emphasised that Christians are called to be missionaries in the digital era.
Concelebrants at the November 24 Mass were Father William Larousse, the assistant secretary general of the FABC, and Father Peter Choy Wai-man, vicar general of Hong Kong.
In his homily, Cardinal Bo elaborated on the relationship between communication and living the pope’s’ call for a synodal Church. He said that like the Samaritan woman, “who rushed back to the village proclaiming the Good News with great vigour,” the “Asian Church must communicate the memorable encounter with Jesus journeying with us.”
He noted that the digital world has “shrunk the missionary field,” offering a great opportunity to tell Christ’s gospel, meaning it is always “crucial” to live as Christ’s witnesses in contemporary culture.” However, it is necessary “to first know the culture.”
The cardinal stressed that “digital missionaries” must carry out the mission in the digital environment, while helping “the rest of the community, including pastors,” understand its dynamics.
Our communicating mission must include cleansing the Holy Spirit’s temple, which is the human person, restoring his or her dignity, evangelising the digital space, healing the wounded world, building communion, and leading people to God
Cardinal Bo
Communication must provide “safe spaces for sharing,” but it must also be “spiritually life-giving” and one that promotes “care as well as concern for one another and the common good,” he continued.
Echoing Pope Francis, Cardinal Bo reminded the participants of the Bishops’ Meet “to be always present,” stressing that “people like the youth may not come to Church, but the Church needs to be present where they are.”
He said, “Our communicating mission must include cleansing the Holy Spirit’s temple, which is the human person, restoring his or her dignity, evangelising the digital space, healing the wounded world, building communion, and leading people to God.”
The “new energy unleashed by emerging technologies” must be “the Church’s ally in building God’s Kingdom of peace, justice, human dignity, and fellowship,” Cardinal Bo concluded.
Ruffini told Vatican News, “…from Asia, from the East, let’s say, we can learn a lesson: that Eastern culture knows how to understand that everything is united, how to see beyond appearances.”
He invited Church communicators to engage with social media in hopes of building personal encounters.
