Why Asia responds little to the Gospel message, asks Card Filoni

Rome, 16 April 2013: Why Asia responds apparently little to the Gospel message, while on the level of service in education, service to the poor and the defense of human rights the Church enjoys the highest esteem? Asked Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, while inaugurating an International Conference "Listening In Asia, the ways of the faith societies and religions of tradition and modernity" in Rome, on Monday. The 3-day conference from 15 to 17 April is being held at the Pontifical Urbaniana University.

He said he spent almost twenty years of his thirty-two year of service to the Holy See in the Asian continent from the Middle East, the Indian Sub-continent, the Far East, passing through countries with a Muslim majority, Hindu-Buddhist, Confucian and Christian. But he never found a fully satisfactory answer to the question he raised. Citing the famous Japanese Shusaku Endo’s novel, Silence, the Cardinal said, he found an answer, with regard to evangelization in Japan, very interesting but not entirely satisfactory.

Citing Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia (1999), Cardinal Filoni said that the Pope began writing the document: "The Church in Asia sings the praises of the" God of salvation " for choosing to initiate his saving plan on Asian soil, through men and women of that continent. It was in fact in Asia that God revealed from the beginning and he completed his plan of salvation ". In Manila, the pontiff, January 15, 1995, said: "As in the first millennium the Cross was planted on European soil, in the second millennium of the Americas and Africa, in the third millennium there is hope and a great harvest of faith in this vast and vital continent ".

Cardinal Filoni hoped that the Congress in some way, shows light on "the paths of faith" in Asia with a look of "Society and Religion", and "Tradition and modernity" which ‘perhaps will allow us to make our service more appropriate to the Gospel’.

Source: VR Sedoc