Catholics in Asia must do more to 'promote a culture of peace

(March 28, 2012) Disarmament, inculturation and dialogue with other religions must be among the top priorities for the Church in Asia, a leading bishop told lay Catholic delegates from across the Asian Continent recently. Today’s complex societies are marked by a dramatic increase in military spending, with a total of US$900 billion spent annually on armaments, said Archbishop Felix Machado of Vasai, in India. “There is an urgent need to commit ourselves to pursue a general and total disarmament through the promotion of a culture of peace,” he added. Archbishop Machado noted the close link between military spending and a lack of human development, leading to “frustration which in turn leads people, especially young, to take recourse to terrorist-type activities.” The archbishop pointed out the dangers of fundamentalism, with its refusal of “the radical differentiation of the sacred and secular.” The prelate also noted that the pressure of globalized consumerist culture and of secularism, both tending to confine religion to the private sphere, often spark “resistance” in the form of a “resurgent, militant assertion of religious value and identity.” As a response to the complex challenges of today’s societies, Archbishop Machado invited lay Christians to focus on witness, promotion of human dignity, interfaith collaboration and inculturation, as tools to spread the Christian message. Archbishop Machado also called on Asian Catholics to do more to root Christian faith in Asia’s cultures. The process of inculturation should not be seen as an “abstract encounter between two systems” but rather as a “dialogue between two groups of people.“ Christians everywhere need to be encouraged to live their own local culture, which once penetrated by the faith of the Church will become transforming and evangelising experience for all others around them,” said Archbishop Machado.