Asian Bishops urged to push dialogue for peace, reconciliation

Oct 27, 2022

BANGKOK: Churches in Asia need to persuade dialogue with religions for establishing peace and reconciliation in the region, experts told a gathering of Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) in Bangkok on Oct. 20.

Some 175 bishops and delegates from 29 Asian nations were discussing 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 golden jubilee celebrations.

“Every jubilee calls for metanoia. Let us challenge ourselves to let peace-making be the new evangelization,” said FABC president Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, who heads the Church in Myanmar.

Violent suppression of people’s clamor for democracy and freedom continues in Myanmar after the military junta deposed a democratically elected government in 2021.

The Church needs to “be reactive and become an agent of peace,” Cardinal Bo 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, highlighted the key moments in the Asian Church's journey of dialogue with religions.

Chia praised the Church in Asia as an “example of a Church of dialogue” and said it is also a “learning Church.”

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, analyzed the “political and economic trends driving Asia today.”

Authoritative governments, the people’s power movement, and the effects of corruption on democracy and high industrialization are among Asian social realities, he said.

He 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, 2013 apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis on evangelization.

“Realities are more important than ideas,” Father Lobo said and added the reality of agape—love of God of humans and humans' love for God—as the fundamental principle of the papal exhortation, on which every initiative can be built.

He also stressed the Church’s need to have a dialogue with other cultures and religions and added it must be characterized by openness to truth and love.--ucanews.com