“Catholic News since 1935” (http://www.catholic.org.sg)
“Pope: Gospel must be shared in ways that resonate with Asian soul”
Archbishop Nicholas Chia of Singapore and bishops/archbishops from Malaysia and Brunei meet with pope in “ad limina” visit.
VATICAN CITY – The Gospel must be presented in Asia in ways that resonate with “the Asian soul” so that it will not be perceived as a foreign import or confused with secular ideals from the West, Pope Benedict XVI said.
“By speaking the truth with love, you can help your fellow citizens to distinguish the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of materialism and relativism,” he said in a Jun 6 audience with 11 archbishops and bishops from Malaysia, Archbishop Nicholas Chia of Singapore, and Bishop Cornelius Sim of Brunei vicariate. The pope also met with each bishop privately later. The bishops were on their “ad limina” visit to the Vatican, a series of consultative meetings made approximately every five years.
The pope said Asia represents fertile ground for evangelization since “the peoples of Asia display an intense yearning for God”.
“If the faith is to flourish, however, it needs to strike deep roots in Asian soil, lest it be perceived as a foreign import, alien to the culture and traditions of your people,” he said.
The pope gave St. Paul the Apostle as an example of an “outstanding teacher and courageous witness to the truth of the Gospel” in missionary lands. Like St. Paul, the bishops “are called to present the Christian faith in ways that resonate with the ʻinnate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soulʼ so that people will welcome it and make it their own”, he said, quoting Pope John Paul IIʼs 1999 document “Ecclesia in Asia” (“Church in Asia”).
But he said it was important the Gospel message was “in no way confused … with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment”.
The Enlightenmentʼs “dictatorship of positivist reason”, which tries to exclude God from the public arena, must be resisted while its promotion of human rights and freedom of religion should be welcomed, the pope said.
By fostering the Christian understanding of the universal character of human rights, the bishops would be carrying out “an important task of evangelization, since this teaching forms an essential aspect of the Gospel”, he said.
The pope noted that not all the territories offer the same degree of religious liberty and cited “serious difficulties in promoting religious instruction in schools” as an example.
The pope encouraged the bishops to continue their commitment to interreligious dialogue and proclaim the “unfathomable riches of Christ”.
By engaging in open and honest dialogue with Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus – who make up the majority in their countries – the bishops can get the Gospel message across to more people and “help to promote a unified vision of the common good”, he said. The pope said he believed that would help promote freedom of religion and social harmony among different ethnic groups, which in turn would foster peace and the common good.
Pope Benedict urged the bishops to show particular concern for their priests, which he said would inspire new vocations. “I am aware that there are some regions where it is rare for the people to see a priest and others where the people have not yet heard the Gospel,” he added.
In this context, he emphasized the importance of “the formation of the laity” and assured “catechists, both lay and religious”, he prayed for them and appreciated “the enormous contribution” they make to their Christian communities.
Earlier, Archbishop Murphy Pakiam of Kuala Lumpur, president of the Bishopsʼ Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, expressed the joy of the bishops at meeting the pope and thanked him for his “wise decision” in reinstating the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue as a separate office.
He described the local churches as built on a model of communion, beginning with Basic Ecclesial Communities. They also give special attention to families and hospitality to immigrants and refugees, he said. Malaysia currently hosts three million migrants, mostly from Asia, the archbishop told UCA News in Rome.
Catholics, though a tiny minority in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, “are recognized by peoples of other faiths as a balanced and well-organized group who are respectful of other religions”, he told the pope.According to local church information, 60 percent of Malaysiaʼs 27 million people are Muslim and three percent, about 900,000 people, are Catholic. More than 70 percent of Bruneiʼs 358,000 people are Muslim; registered Catholics number about 5,000, but most of the 20,000 Filipino workers also are Catholics. The 174,000 Catholics in Singapore form 3.9 percent of the 4.5-million population.
Archbishop Pakiam told the pope Christians in Malaysia, as elsewhere, are “experiencing the encroaching restrictions that a particular stream of Islam is advocating”. But this has produced “unexpected fruit”, he said, in the banding together of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Taoists.
“Our stance has been to build bridges with Islam, but defend oneself against those who abuse its name.”(Sources: UCAN, CNS, VIS)
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