Pope speaks to bishops from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei

(June 6, 2008) The Gospel needs to strike deep roots in Asian soil in order to flourish, or else it will always be regarded as a foreign import and alien to the culture and traditions of the people. This observation was made by Pope Benedict XVI on Friday when he addressed 14 bishops from Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Bishops from the 3 south-east Asian countries, who form a single bishops’ conference body, are on their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican, a series of consultative meetings made approximately every five years. Pope Benedict called on the bishops to present the Christian faith in ways that resonate with the “innate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soul” so that people will welcome it and make it their own. He told them that by speaking the truth in love they can help their fellow citizens to distinguish the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of materialism and relativism. “While resisting the “dictatorship of positivist reason” that tries to exclude God from public discourse,” they should welcome the true conquests of the philosophy Enlightenment – especially its stress on human rights and the freedom of religion and its practice. “By stressing the universal character of human rights, grounded in the dignity of the human person created in God’s image,” Pope Benedict said, “you carry out an important task of evangelization, since this teaching forms an essential aspect of the Gospel.”
Acknowledging that the degree of religious liberty is not the same everywhere in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, the Pope urged the bishops to engage in open and honest dialogue with followers of other religions in order to help their fellow citizens recognize and observe the natural law “written on their hearts” by clearly articulating the truth of the Gospel. While promoting a unified vision of the common good, the Pope said dialogue will help foster growth in religious freedom and greater social cohesion between members of different ethnic groups for the peace and well-being of the entire community.