Giorgio Bernardelli

Back from the WYD in Lisbon, the Asian nun chosen by Pope Francis among the president delegates of the October Assembly tells AsiaNews about her expectations for the Synod: "Living in a country where we Christians are a minority has taught me to listen, to try to understand, to pray to understand where the Spirit is guiding our conscience. And to understand that before anything else we must love everyone like Jesus." Archbishop of Tokyo Msgr. Kikuchi: "Proud and grateful for the role assigned to you."

Pope Francis made the announcement at the end of the final Mass in Lisbon. For Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul, this fulfils a wish he expressed to AsiaNews a few months ago, to a country that has fewer and fewer young people because of a very low fertility rate. The Korean Church has already started this journey, bringing more than a thousand young people to Portugal.

The list of participants in the 16th Ordinary General Assembly in Rome next October was announced today. Momoko Nishimura, a consecrated woman from Yokohama, is one of nine delegates who will chair the work. Bishop Stephen Chow of Hong Kong is one of Pope Francis’s picks. Unlike 2018, no official Catholic bishop will come from mainland China.

On June 27 and 28 philosophers, jurists and economists from Beijing, Shanghai and Mumbai at the Vatican for a discussion on the Development Goals set by the UN. Prof. Riccardo Pozzo, among the organizers of the workshop, explains its meaning to AsiaNews: "Kant's perpetual peace functional to industry and trade in the 21st century is no longer enough. We need deeper foundations to seek together."

Drafted following the worldwide consultation launched in 2021, the document presented today at the Vatican will guide the work of the assembly next October. Some of the many questions to be discussed are inculturation, the role of women (including in the diaconate), the relationship between interfaith dialogue and persecution, and the concrete synodal ways to exercise authority in the Church. What matters though is to develop a method to walk together.

Father Fabio Favata is a PIME missionary and trained psychologist, whose doctoral thesis focuses on how seminaries in mainland China train candidates to the priesthood. Despite declining vocations and major difficulties, building a future is still possible.

The text was officially made public today. It contains the reflections of Asian Bishops' Conferences brought to the assembly held last October in the Thai capital. Nine emerging challenges have been identified in Asian societies, from the role of women to digital technologies, from urbanisation to trends that undermine the family. The Church is called to tackle such questions in the light of the Gospel, but also by choosing the path of true inculturation.

Hong Kong’s bishop accepted the invitation from the Archdiocese of Beijing. The last visit by a Hong Kong bishop, Mgr John Tong, was in 2008 for the Olympics, but on that occasion the latter was not allowed to meet Archbishop Li Shan of Beijing, who now heads the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. The visiting delegation will include Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha, who in 2019 was very close to young Hong Kong protesters crushed by the China’s national security law.

Two years after the military coup, Ashin Mandalarlankara, a Theravada Buddhist monk, speaks about his experience. Currently enrolled in Rome’s Angelicum university, he is studying interfaith dialogue and exchange with people from other religious traditions at the John Paul II Center. In his country, people are suffering and want the religious not to stop “at words but translate all this into concrete actions” for peace.

Christmas in Ulan Bator, described by Card. Giorgio Marengo - chosen by Pope Francis in the last consistory. The prelate leads a Church that was born just 30 years ago in the steppe and counts a total of 1,400 faithful. "The coal scandal has exasperated people at an already difficult time. Christmas wish from Mongolia: to discover that this Child is born to take ever deeper roots among us as well."

Religious Zionists want to legalise even those small settlements that Israeli law itself deems illegal. Administrative authority in the West Bank’s Area C, which is under Israeli control but largely inhabited by Palestinians, is now in settlers’ hand. The first goal is to rebuild Homesh, one of the settlements Sharon evicted in 2005.

Consecrated by the Apostolic Prefect of Battambang, Fr Enrique Figaredo Alvargonzales, the church dedicated to Saint Teresa of Avila, was built in a Christian village thanks to the work among the poor of a French missionary before the Khmer Rouge. For Fr Kristofia Todjro, a PIME missionary from Togo, the elderly have guarded the faith; the challenge now is not to lose young people.