Church in Asia points to the future of Catholic mission

Oct 14, 2024

By Jonathan Y. Tan
At his first general audience after the September visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore, Pope Francis thanked God for his trip to Asia, which he said was his dream as a "young Jesuit" that he was able to realize as an “old Pope.”

Addressing the gathering on Sept. 18, he said some Catholics are “still too Eurocentric” in their understanding of the Catholic Church.

But “the Church is much bigger — much bigger than Rome or Europe —  and, let me say, much more alive in those countries,” Pope Francis said referring to his experiences in the four Asian nations.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Pope Francis has made seven visits to Asia, covering 13 nations South Korea (2014), Sri Lanka and the Philippines (2015), Myanmar and Bangladesh (2017), Thailand and Japan (2019), Kazakhstan (2022), Mongolia (2023), as well as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea (in Oceania), Timor-Leste, and Singapore (2024).

One common thread running through all seven of Pope Francis’ pastoral visits to Asia is his marvelling at how Catholics in these post-colonial Asian nations are thriving and growing in the midst of much diversity of cultures and plurality of religions, not by being a clone of colonial European Catholicism, but by localizing and contextualizing their Catholic faith.

As Pope Francis has observed, the Church is “more alive” in Asia, where almost two-thirds of the world’s population call home. However, the myriad and deep-rooted diversity and plurality of ethnicities, cultures, philosophies, and religious traditions challenge the Church. These diverse traditions are intimately intertwined with the daily lives of millions of Asians and nourish their present spiritual needs.

The Vietnamese American theologian Peter Phan sums it up saying that “it is in Asia that the question of religious pluralism is literally a matter of life and death,” and more importantly, “the future of Asian Christianity hangs in the balance depending on how religious pluralism is understood and lived out.”

The Asian bishops have recognized this challenge and the Federation of Asian Catholic Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), since its establishment some 50 years ago, has sought to work within the diverse pluralism of the Asian milieu, eschewing all forms of religious exclusivism, and perceiving religious pluralism as an innate and unique aspect of the Asian socio-religious landscape.

For the FABC, the question is how the Church in Asia could be at home within the diversity and plurality of the Asian milieu. “We do not ask any longer about the relationship of the Church to other cultures and religions. We are rather searching for the place and role of the Church in a religiously and culturally pluralistic world” (Theses on Interreligious Dialogue, art. 0.8).

This comes as no surprise because many of the Asian Catholic bishops themselves have been born into, and are living amidst, such rich diversity and plurality. The Indian Jesuit theologian, Michael Amaladoss notes that the Asian Catholic bishops accept Asian religions as “significant and positive elements in the economy of God’s design of salvation” because they have “a living experience of other religions.” In other words, they and their fellow Christians have non-Christian family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

At the same time, many of these Asian Catholic bishops also have first-hand experiences of communalism, nationalism, and fundamentalism that reject such diversity and plurality and are seeking to impose their narrow vision through coercion, harassment, and, at times, violence. As a result, the FABC holds diversity and pluralism as the core of what it means to be Asian because, in the absence of such diversity, there is no room for the Gospel in Asia.

The FABC subsequently developed this nascent dialogue with Asian religions into its well-known triple dialogue, such as a dialogue with religions, cultures, and poverty. For the FABC, dialogue is “an integral part of evangelization” (BIMA II, art. 14) and an “essential mode of all evangelization” (Message of the 1979 International Congress on Mission, art. 19).

Besides, the FABC considers dialogue as “a true expression of the Church’s evangelizing action” (BIMA II, art. 14). More particularly, “dialogue is ecclesial: it is the very being and life of the Church as mission” (Theses on Interreligious Dialogue, art. 3.3).

In essence, the FABC asserts that “Mission will mean a dialogue with Asia’s poor, with its local cultures, and with other religious traditions” (FABC V, art. 3.1.2).

More importantly, the FABC underscores the role of dialogue as a tool to build unity and harmony in the face of conflicts. “In an Asia marked by diversity and torn by conflicts, the Church must in a special way be a sacrament — a visible sign and instrument of unity and harmony (FABC V, 4.2).

Asian bishops have recognized the importance of mission as dialogue in response to the challenges of ongoing religious strife, racial-ethnic violence, and political conflicts that have devastated many parts of contemporary Asia.

Proclamation without dialogue runs the risk of aggressive proselytism, which plays right into the hands of religious fundamentalists and zealots who are looking for convenient excuses to crack down on Asian Christians.

As far as the FABC is concerned, the Asian Church will have “to discern, in dialogue with Asian peoples and Asian realities, what deeds the Lord wills to be done so that all humankind may be gathered together in harmony as his family” (FABC V, 6.3).

Finally, FABC VII (2000) reasserted their preference for the “witness of life” as the Asian way of proclaiming the Christian Gospel in Asia. “Asian people will recognize the Gospel that we announce when they see in our life the transparency of the message of Jesus and the inspiring and healing figure of men and women immersed in God” (FABC VII).

Through its theology of triple dialogue which integrates intercultural, interreligious, and liberative dimensions of witnessing, the Asian Catholic bishops of the FABC have provided the theological framework for this transformation of Catholicism from a Eurocentric faith planted by colonial-era European missionaries to a vibrant and truly universal global Catholicism.

In doing so, the Asian Catholic bishops have articulated the Asian Church as an example for Catholics in other parts of the world, who are heeding Pope Francis’ call to discover new ways of witnessing to their Catholic faith in their increasingly diverse and pluralistic societies in other parts of the world.

As Europe and North America become increasingly culturally diverse and religiously pluralistic as a result of transnational migration, the lived experiences of Asian Catholics and the triple dialogue of the FABC could provide a way forward for moving beyond a Eurocentric expression of the Catholic faith to embrace a global Catholicism that is vibrant and thriving amidst diversity and plurality.--ucanews.com