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EDITORIAL Synod for Asia puts our faith at
crossroads
Roman Catholicisms worldwide demographic
balance shifted from north to south during the second half of the 20th century,
almost certainly altering the course of church history.
When the Second Vatican Council opened in 1962, most of the
worlds Catholics lived in North America and Europe. Entering the new
century, most Catholics will live in South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania,
where the fastest growing local churches can be found.
It has taken Roman Catholicism nearly 20 centuries to become true
to itself -- to become catholic, a global religion.
For centuries, Christianitys richest theological advances
have come out of the Near East and Europe. Today, the rich, new thought is just
as likely to emerge from South America, Asia or Africa.
Call it the browning of our faith.
The implications are monumental, yet difficult to imagine.
For starters we Western Catholics will need to adjust our
thinking, our vision, if we are to live as sacramental examples to the wider
human family.
Our vision will have to be matched by our actions. As global
awareness increases, we must confront issues of injustice around the global
family table. Our changing awareness should find it intolerable that starvation
stalks a third of the human population and another third lives at subsistence
levels. No longer can we turn a blind eye to sinful inequities in world
resource ownership or distribution.
As for the church, as institution, our Western church leaders will
be required to take risks to share more widely the process of decision-making.
Asian Catholicism must grow from Asian soil through Asian faith perspectives.
The traditional Western model of church structure must accede to new models for
a new era in Catholic history.
Now comes the Synod for Asia. It opens in Rome this month. This
synod comes in the wake of two others, synods for Africa and for America.
However, this will be the most unpredictable of the three. Bishops and national
conferences are bringing varied concerns to the gathering. But perhaps most
important of all, this marks the first time Latin rite Asian bishops from the
Far East will mingle with non-Latin rite Asian bishops from the Near East for
organized and extended dialogue. Their shared stories, emerging out of vastly
different histories but similar aspirations, could play a role in shaping the
face of Catholicism on the Asian continent in the decades ahead.
Called by Pope John Paul II in 1994 in his apostolic letter,
Tertio Millennio Adveniente (The Coming of the Third Millennium), this
future-oriented synod rightly focuses attention on the worlds largest
continent, home to more than half the human family.
Although hundreds of thousands of words have been written in
preparation, they could all amount to nothing once the synod convenes. A
careful reading of the Vaticans initial synod document, the Asian
bishops responses to that document and the Vaticans response to
those responses reveal two diverse dynamics and two different paths for the
future of church life in Asia.
The Vatican emphasizes the New Evangelization, stressing the
unique role of Jesus Christ in human history, culminating in a call to
conversion; the Asian bishops begin with patterning life upon the example of
Jesus the servant, and hold that proclaiming Jesus to people of other faiths is
best achieved through dialogue and through standing with the poor. The Vatican
speaks of the promotion of Catholic truth to all; the Asian bishops stress
living as disciples of Christ, even as a small flock. The Vatican emphasizes
Jesus as Savior to all, and the Catholic church as the principal vehicle of
human salvation. The Asian bishops speak of Jesus as liberator, and God as
creator and Spirit, allowing wider overtures to the other great religions of
Asia. The Vatican preaches revealed truth as leading to light; the Asian
bishops seek an integral religious expression, freedom from sin but also from
everything that limits the human capacity.
While important differences of perspective on key church matters
are evident here, public confrontation appears unlikely. It is not the normal
Asian way. More likely, the Asian bishops will patiently explain themselves,
listen attentively and return to Asia -- to proceed as they feel the life of
faith requires. In the final analysis, Asian forces, including social, economic
and ecclesial circumstances, are shaping the church there. In a phrase, they
live there; the West does not.
Another way of putting it, given the timing of the synod and the
dynamics of ecclesial realities, the importance of this synod may have more to
do with the next conclave -- with electing the next pope -- than it has to do
with the shaping of any particular document to emerge from this meeting.
Admittedly, it is misleading to speak of the local churches of
some 50 Asian nations as an entity. They happen to share a continent, but their
histories, circumstances and needs are as different as any local churches
anywhere. However, the convening of an Asian synod does help to
focus attention and imagination. To gain from this synod, we, North American
Catholics, need to listen carefully to what the Catholics of the East are
attempting to tell us.
If we take the time, we may end up more informed and more
sensitive to Asian needs and aspirations. If, on the other hand, we fail to
take the time, we may find it increasingly difficult to relate to the East,
overlooking a unique opportunity to cross the global bridge these Asian
Catholics provide for us.
The documents of the Asian bishops conferences, gathered by
UCA News, the Asian Catholic news service, reveal the following common Asian
church concerns:
- The Asian bishops speak of growing economic hardships. They
remind us their churches are poor.
- They speak of the onslaught of massive new economic disruption,
a widening gap between rich and poor as consumer-driven economics take hold in
Asia.
- They speak of being vulnerable witnesses of the faith. While
Catholics make up 41 percent of Europe, 46 percent of North America, 88 percent
of South America, Asian Catholics comprise less than 3 percent of Asia, and in
many Asian countries less than that. Only in the Philippines are Catholics in
the majority.
- They speak with Asian pride. They are proud that Jesus was an
Asian. They are proud that the great religions were all given birth in Asia.
They recognize that the handprint of God can be found in all of Asias
religions. After all, Asian Catholics all claim ancestors, family and friends
who are Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims. They say that to seek religious truth in
Asia is automatically to be in dialogue with followers of other faiths.
- They tell us to pursue harmony and to avoid confrontation. The
Western mind may favor abstract distinctions, but personal relationships, the
concrete here-and-now, matter most for Asians. Scholastic thought is foreign,
even mysterious, to most Asians.
- They remind us it is a painful historical fact that Catholicism
entered much of Asia (Korea was self-evangelized) coupled with
Western colonialism and Eastern subservience. The scars linger. They remind us
that these historical circumstances make it difficult to explain themselves and
their love for their church to Asians of other faiths. History continues to
color their evangelizing efforts.
- They say they embrace their Trinitarian faith as they stress
the challenges of its incarnational spirituality -- focused on Jesus Christ and
enlivened by the spirit of love.
- They say their sense of church and theologies and liturgies --
their being Catholic -- must finally grow from Asian soils, Asian experiences
and Asian circumstances. These, they tell us, require Catholicism in Asia to be
humble, to be in dialogue, to be a servant church and to live and preach
Christianity through example.
- They say that Asia has much to offer the West if the West is
willing to listen.
- Finally, they say that to achieve their dynamic vision of
church, for Catholicism to be successful in Asia in the third millennium, they
need trust and space, the ingredients of true collaboration, beginning with
effective episcopal shared decision-making.
The people of God have good reason to take heart as we approach
this synod, becoming more cognizant of the East. In the many tens of thousands
of words written by Asian hands in preparation for this synod, one finds the
clear and confident and hope-filled voices of the Asian sons and daughters of
Second Vatican Council Catholics. These are Catholics eager to shoulder the
challenges of Christian faith and to make differences with their lives.
We need to walk hand in hand with them to usher in a new era of
Catholicism, the global era of faith.
National Catholic Reporter, April 17,
1998
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