It is also a sign of the Holy Father's commitment to making the Consistory truly global and to reaching out beyond the European foundations of the Church to the world.

It gives Hong Kong three Cardinals — a rare privilege for any diocese — as Cardinal-elect Chow takes his place alongside Cardinal John Tong and the courageous 91-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen.

For these reasons, his appointment is welcome and should be celebrated by Hong Kong Catholics.

And the fact that Pope Francis has appointed Hong Kong's Bishop Chow as the new — and latest — Chinese Cardinal, rather than Beijing's Archbishop Li, the head of the Catholic Patriotic Association, shows that there is still recognition within the Vatican of Hong Kong's certain uniqueness. This is welcome.

However, Cardinal-elect Chow is no Cardinal Zen or a Cardinal Kung.

The Vatican's motivation for conferring the red biretta on his head raises some alarm bells.

From everything I have heard from Hong Kong Catholics, Chow is a good, spiritual and pastoral leader.

When his appointment as the city's bishop was announced, I welcomed it because I understood that while he was unlikely to be a vocal cheerleader for democracy; at the same time he was unlikely to be Beijing's stooge.

He appeared to be the compromise candidate acceptable to all — to pro-democracy Hong Kongers, to the pro-Beijing camp, and to ordinary Hong Kong Catholics.

I was hopeful that he would have the right mix of pastoral skills, wisdom and spirituality.

Over the past six months, however, it has become clear that — perhaps under pressure from Beijing, local Hong Kong authorities, the Vatican and the overall circumstances, or perhaps as a result of his natural instincts — Chow has taken a worryingly soft, conciliatory, compromising approach towards the Chinese Communist Party regime and its crackdown in Hong Kong.

To be frank, I never expected Chow to speak truth to power with the bluntness and boldness of Cardinal Zen.

But nor did I expect him to visit Beijing and return, calling his flock to show their patriotism.

True patriotism — love of country — is something most of us would accept.

But you have to be naïve to not realize that in today's China, an official call to "love your country" is easily confused with loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party regime — especially in Hong Kong today, with the so-called oaths of patriotism, which public servants are required to swear.

Cardinal Zen — whose Episcopal motto is Ipsacuraest ("He cares about you," from 1 Peter 5:7) — received his red biretta in 2006 from Pope Benedict XVI, who also appointed Cardinal Tong six years later — whose motto is Dominus Pastor Meus ("The Lord is my Shepherd").

Back in 1979, Pope St John Paul II created Shanghai's Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-mei a Cardinal in pectore. His motto was Ut Sint Unum Ovile Et Unus Pastor ("That there may be one fold and one shepherd").

Chow's Episcopal motto is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam ("For the greater glory of God").

All four mottos are of course deeply inspiring.

But while it is clear that Cardinal Zen was honoured for his commitment to justice and human rights, Cardinal Kung was recognized for his 30 years in jail and his lifelong commitment to religious freedom.

Even Cardinal Tong — although he was milder-mannered and more inclined to compromise — called for the release of Chinese Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo and all underground clergy in jail in China in his Christmas message in 2010.

It is unclear where exactly Hong Kong's new Cardinal Chow's conscience and voice lie.

On the evidence, it would seem that his red biretta is an affirmation of or reward for his soft stance towards Beijing, which is a break from the legacy of Zen, and Kung in particular, which is in keeping with the Vatican's current approach.

So what is the Vatican's approach? It appears to be a policy of appeasement and kowtow.

The Vatican-China deal signed in 2018, renewed in 2020, and again in 2022 — each time in extraordinary secrecy, with no transparency, scrutiny, or accountability — has bought the silence of the Holy Father over grave atrocity crimes and human rights violations in China and amounts to the Reichskonkordat of today.

In summary, it has resulted in a situation where a Pope who speaks out more often than many of his predecessors on injustice and persecution in one corner of the world or another — almost every Sunday as he prays the Angelus — is yet continuously and conspicuously silent over one very large part of the world.

Pope Francis is the first pontiff in the past several decades not to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

He has said almost nothing — and nothing meaningful — on the genocide of the Uyghurs, and been silent in the face of the dismantling of Hong Kong's freedoms, forced organ harvesting, and the persecution of Falun Gong and Christians in China.

He has said nothing of significance that could be reassuring to Taiwan.

The latest, and perhaps worst, example of Rome's kowtowing to Beijing is the news last week that Pope Francis has confirmed the appointment of Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai.

This appointment was made by Beijing, without consulting Rome, in total violation of the Vatican-China agreement earlier this year.

This is at least the second violation of the agreement by Beijing, following the illicit appointment by China of an auxiliary bishop in Jiangxi, in a diocese not recognized by the Holy See.

That drew a mild complaint from the Vatican, which accused Beijing of breaching the agreement.

But the news that Pope Francis now confirms the Shanghai appointment is a hammer blow to any thought that the Vatican might be waking up.

Instead, it is an indicator that Rome's kowtow policy will continue.

I know that within the body of Church teaching, there is room for interpretation and there is a need for a wide range of charisms.

We need those like Cardinal Zen and Cardinal Kung who stand up uncompromisingly for human rights and justice, and we need others — perhaps like Hong Kong's new Cardinal Chow — who pursue justice through dialogue.

Justice and peace go together. Dialogue and reconciliation have a key part to play, alongside truth and accountability. But what we can never do is have one without the other. To lose any one of these is like amputating a limb.

I pray Chow's Episcopal motto will lead to new heights for Hong Kong. But I tend to think that the motto of Myanmar's Cardinal Bo — Omnia Possum in Eo ("I can do all things in Him) — is a bit more ambitious.

There is only one place to genuflect: at the altar of God. Rome should never be genuflecting at the gates of Zhongnanhai.

• Benedict Rogers, a human rights activist and writer, is the co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, and Senior Analyst for East Asia at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a rights organisation specialising in freedom of religion or belief.
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

Hai also invites them to attend Christmas parties at his home and enjoys their frequent visits. Many of them are his old fellow inmates.

"We attempt to build up harmonious relationships with one another and heal previous sharp divisions between Catholics and Buddhists," he said.

In 1963, Buddhists in Hue, started to stage protests against the South Vietnam government led by the late Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was assassinated at the end of that year. At first, they struggled for Buddhist activities and later for political goals.

They supported communist forces and fought against the US-backed southern government led by the late Catholic President Nguyen Van Thieu until communist forces seized control of Saigon, the south's capital, in April 1975.

As a result, the conflict aroused deep hostility between Catholics and Buddhists who kept a wary eye on and discriminated against one another for a long time, Hai said.

The 81-year-old, who has five children and 14 grandchildren, said many Catholics and Buddhists, including monks, were sent to jail and re-education camps by the communist government after the country was reunified in 1975.

They had no choice but to share food, tend to one another and live in harmony in the hope that they could survive and return home. Hai, who spent 18 months in a labour camp for having worked as a village official for the former South Vietnamese government, said he and old fellow inmates often hark back to their years in prison to sympathize with one another.

He said he is appreciative of the Buddhist inmates who saved him two times while at the camp. He got lost in a forest while collecting bamboo shoots and spent a night alone there. He could not find his way back to the camp until Buddhist inmates found him.

They also looked after him while he was suffering from malaria.

"Many followers of the two religions became close friends after they experienced hard times in the aftermath of the war," he said, adding that they had put the past behind them, respect their differences and live in peace.

An elderly priest, who used to serve as a chaplain, said countless religious facilities were confiscated and religious activities were restricted by the government.

The septuagenarian priest said many Catholics and Buddhists struggled together for religious freedom and rebuilt good relationships with one another by paying goodwill visits to one another during Christmas, Vesak and the Tet Lunar New Year.

He said since the government started revisionist policies and opened the door to the international community in the late 1980s, foreign NGOs have carried out development projects and followers of the two faiths are given opportunities to work together for the common good.

Sister Consolata Bui Thi Bong of the Daughters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception said Catholic and Buddhist nuns in 2001, for the first time, worked together to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among local communities and care for sufferers in Thua Thien Hue province through Nordic Assistance to Vietnam, a project funded by Norwegian Church Aid.

Sister Bong, head of the Catholic HIV Coordinating Committee, said although the project ended years ago, nuns from the two religions still continue their humanitarian services by caring for HIV/AIDS patients, working with victims of natural disasters, taking care of Covid-19 patients and training people in making herbal medicine.

Thich Nu Bich Chan, a nun from the Buddhist HIV Coordinating Committee, said they work with 200 patients and 112 orphans whose parents died of the disease.

She said Catholic and Buddhist volunteers also hold funerals and pray for the dead according to their creed.

"Active cooperation in giving material and spiritual support to people in need is an effective way to bring followers of different faiths closer together," Sister Bong, a former superior of the congregation, said.

Sister Mary Bui Thi Anh said during the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of Catholic and Buddhist volunteers took care of patients at field hospitals, quarantine centres and clinics.

She said they worked harmoniously together and lent patients who were sunk in gloom and depression emotional support and great comfort and consequently many patients recovered and left the health facilities.

Lovers of the Holy Cross Sister Clare Tran Hoang Linh, from a community in Quang Tri province, said they worked with Buddhist nuns to dispense emergency aid to villagers whose crops were washed away during unseasonal floods in April. They offered 10 tonnes of rice and instant noodles to 800 households in Hai Lang and Trieu Phong districts.

"People, most of them Buddhists, were pleasantly surprised to see Catholic and Buddhist nuns together on boats, a moving image they caught after a gap of two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic," she said.

"We visit pagodas and have parties during the Vesak festival while Buddhist nuns also visit and offer us flowers at Christmas. We live in peace, treat one another as close friends and work for people's happiness."

• Thua Thien Hue is a UCANews.com reporter.
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

Prior to the pandemic, girls' enrollments in school had seen significant improvements in Asia. But with the pandemic, those gains have been wiped out.

UNESCO estimates that about 24 million learners, from pre-primary to university level, are at risk of not returning to school following the education disruption.

Almost half of them are found in South and West Asia besides Africa.

Asia was doing well prior to the pandemic, having brought down the number of girls out of school from 30 million to 15 million in the last two decades.

Almost all Asian countries with the exception of Pakistan and Timor-Leste had fared well by sending girls to schools.

In fact, with more girls in schools, Asia had posted decreasing trends in child marriage prior to the pandemic.

With the pandemic playing spoilsport, it will be difficult to sustain the tempo.

With an estimated 200,000 more girls experiencing child marriage in South Asia in 2020, the figures are expected to skyrocket as the ordeal from the pandemic is still lingering in many Asian nations.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is mulling raising the marriage age from 18 to 21 for girls, but the move has proved difficult to implement in a country of 1.3 billion people.

A parliamentary panel report, which focused on the empowerment of women through education, observed the probability of more adolescent girls opting out of school permanently is high.

The report said that girls away from school will end up doing household tasks and providing childcare due to the economic hardships of their families.

Though the panel has recommended targeted scholarships, conditional cash transfers, provision of bicycles, access to smartphones and hostel facilities to woo girls back to school, going by India's track record in looking after the welfare of its marginalized, these sops may remain only on paper.

In Vietnam, the legal age to wed is 18, but UNICEF said one in 10 girls is married before that age. Tying the nuptial knot early is mainly prevalent among ethnic groups in the communist country.

Asia is known for its migrant workers.

But the pandemic caused job losses and many are stuck at home.

When family members are hit by Covid-19, the onus of looking after patients falls on girls. So at home, care responsibilities have dramatically increased for girls who were forced to skip classes due to their ethnic minority status.

The cost of school fees was identified as a major barrier to girls' education in Asia.

With a bleak economic future awaiting their parents combined with existing attitudes that devalue girls' education, more girls are being taken out of school forever in Asia.

University students are most affected due to the tuition costs related to their studies.

Pre-primary education comes next.

While Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and to a greater extent India are on track to achieve gender parity in primary education, Pakistan and Afghanistan are woefully lagging.

Those girls who will be spared the tyranny of early motherhood have already assumed the new role of child labourers.

These young hands are going to do more harm than good to the existing labour market in Asia which is facing the problem of plenty as the pandemic rendered many migrant workers jobless.

This excess supply of girl labourers will further reduce the bargaining power of men and women working in unorganized sectors such as construction and garment-making.

At home, these girls become an easy target for family violence.

Heightened calls to helplines were reported in Singapore, Malaysia and India after the pandemic hit.

In Vietnam, domestic violence has doubled since Covid-related measures were introduced.

Education was the last resort for many Asian girls to lead a respectable and meaningful life.

What they need is a compassionate treatment to help them wade through the new normal.

The tiny Catholic Church in Asia, which claims to have pioneered modern education in most Asian nations, could play a vital role to change the fate of Asian girls and society itself.

But that can happen only if the hierarchy becomes aware of the challenges to the mission.

• Ben Joseph is a journalist of more than two decades of experience. Ben worked with leading publications like the New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, Business Standard, Times of India and Muscat Daily. He writes about Asian politics and human rights issues.
• First published in UCANews. Republished with permission.

This troubling rise may signal that another wave of Covid-19 is rising in countries just coming out of their own omicron shadows.

Hong Kong now reports the world's highest death rate from the disease.

Hospitals are overwhelmed and the surge is fuelling a mental health crisis and leading to suicides, particularly among elderly residents.

Mainland China is also seeing major outbreaks in metropolises like Shenzhen and Shanghai, putting millions of people under lockdown and halting production in major international manufacturing centres.

These outbreaks are testing China's stomach for its zero-Covid approach to the pandemic, a costly but effective approach where entire cities grind to a halt to control outbreaks.

In South Korea, once hailed as a pandemic success story, case counts have broken a new record with daily reported infections topping 600,000.

Australia and New Zealand, which had previously held cases to enviably low levels, have also seen new spikes in recent weeks. The list goes on: Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Setting its own agenda

There are some common factors among these outbreaks.

The biggest one is that the virus itself has changed.

The mutations in the omicron variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, first detected in November 2021, make it the most contagious version of the virus known to date and allowed it to evade immunity — both from vaccines and from previous infections — better than other variants.

Many of the earlier omicron waves were caused by a sub-variant known as BA.1.

Another omicron sub-variant known as BA.2 is even more transmissible and is now driving a distinct spike in new cases.

However, there are also variables that make each of these outbreaks unique, namely how leaders in these regions deployed their public health strategies — testing, contact tracing, travel restrictions, vaccination — and when they relaxed them.

The good news is that most Covid-19 vaccines are just as protective against severe disease caused by BA.2 as they are against BA.1. And omicron causes a lower rate of hospitalisations and deaths among vaccinated people compared to other variants.

As the world enters the third year of the pandemic, these surges are a tough lesson about the perils of complacency.

But for countries watching from afar that may be on the cusp of another round of infections, the latest series of outbreaks abroad also offer policy lessons on the best ways to dampen Covid-19's worst effects.

How Hong Kong ended up with the world's highest death rate from Covid-19

Hong Kong, a dense city of 7.4 million people, saw daily new Covid-19 cases climb above 66,000 this month.

The per-capita death rate reached 37 per million residents and one fatality per 20 infections, very high compared to rates among developed countries.

It's a stark shift from how well Hong Kong weathered much of the pandemic, building on its experience with other coronaviruses like the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Hong Kong has also maintained strict border controls.

Visitors face a 14-day quarantine requirement with location-tracking wristbands when they are allowed to enter the city at all. City health officials also maintained a robust contact tracing system.

That cases are surging now is partly a function of the recent emergence of BA.2, but also because governments are starting to relax.

As a result, Hong Kong went long stretches during the pandemic without any cases at all and with life largely continuing as normal.

"We had a period of about six months without a community outbreak of Covid in Hong Kong in the second half of 2021, but I think it was inevitable that an outbreak would occur sooner or later," said Benjamin Cowling, chair of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong's public health school, in an email.

What's changed now is that the BA.2 sub-variant, which is driving the current wave of infections, is very, very easy to contract.

Viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, are prone to mutation.

The more people they infect, the more likely it is that they will change, and some of those changes can make the virus more transmissible, cause more severe illness, or better evade the immune system. (A variant is a category of a virus with a distinct grouping of mutations. But if two strains of a virus have only a handful of differences between them, they may be classified as sub-variants like BA.1 and BA.2.)

BA.2's reproductive number — how many other people each infected person goes on to infect on average — is around 10.

With stringent public health measures like social distancing, frequent testing, and quarantining, the reproductive number dropped to 2 or 3, "which is a very substantial reduction, but not enough to prevent an outbreak from occurring," Cowling said.

As long as the virus's reproductive number says above 1, it will continue to spread. But BA.2's raging transmission also means that it quickly runs out of people to infect, leading to a sharp rise and rapid decline in cases. Continue reading

Historically, filial piety played an important role when families were large, pension schemes unavailable and life expectancy was around 50 years old.

Today, however, families in east and southeast Asia are much smaller, divorce rates and rates of non-marriage are increasing, and fewer adult children are living with their parents. These demographic shifts are nowhere more apparent than in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Also, people are living much longer. By 2030, the UN estimates 60% of the world's older population (60+) will reside in Asia.

Families can only do so much

In the midst of these demographic and cultural changes, Asian governments continue to promote the idea families should be primarily responsible for the care of older family members.

But for many adult children, the pressures to fulfil the demands of filial piety are immense. Those who are unable to provide care because of work demands or their own family responsibilities often find it emotionally difficult to put their parents or grandparents in institutional care.

Research has shown even hiring a live-in domestic worker is associated with negative self-esteem among adult children. Care-giving for older parents can therefore become a harrowing journey requiring time, money and in-depth knowledge of the health and social care systems.

Because of these challenges — as well as the rapidly ageing populations in many Asian countries — we are being forced to think creatively about how to improve community care for older people who don't have around-the-clock family support.

Asian countries are at the forefront of this research out of necessity. But many of these strategies can easily transfer to other parts of the world — and in some cases already are — despite any cultural differences that may exist.

Why integrated care is the way forward

The average Singaporean born in 2020 can expect to live 84.7 years, the fifth-longest life expectancy in the world. By 2030, approximately one-quarter of the population will be aged 65 and above.

At present, the mandatory retirement age in Singapore is 62. The old-age dependency ratio — the number of working-age people available to support one older person — has decreased from 13 in 1970 to four in 2020.

This is why the Singaporean government has made it a priority to come up with new solutions for aged care.

One solution is the provision of integrated care.

Like many developed economies, aged care in Singapore has become increasingly fragmented. Today, an older person typically has specialists for each organ and may visit a general practitioner, a doctor in a polyclinic, a hospital or a traditional healer over the course of a year. None of these health records are integrated.

Thus, older people are seen as a sum of parts — and this not only affects the efficacy of their care, but also their quality of life.

The World Health Organisation has recognised the limitations of this kind of fragmented care and last year launched the Integrated Care for Older People framework for countries dealing with rapidly ageing populations. This framework promotes people-centred and integrated health services for older persons via a seamless network of families, communities and health care institutions.

In its ideal form, integrated care allows older people to "age in place", that is in their own homes. Older people can have their health and social care needs satisfied without having to be institutionalised, which decreases the need for government spending on institutional aged care.

Previous research has shown older adults who "age in place" are happier and have a higher quality of life than those in institutions.

In order to achieve an integrated care system, there has to be an alignment of goals across players in the health and social care systems.

In Singapore, this ethos has taken hold in the last decade. In 2009, the government established an Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), which acts as a central repository of information for older adults and provides them with referrals and placements with health and social services.

For example, older people can contact the AIC to obtain referrals for things like dementia daycare or rehabilitation services.

The idea is to provide older people with medical and social support when they need it, but not to take them out of their communities.

Bringing nurses to residents in their communities

At the same time, community health and social care services are being ramped up and new models of care are being tested in order to achieve a truly integrated care system.

One example of a new model of care that is being piloted is a program called Care Close to Home (C2H). In this model, a registered nurse and health care assistants are situated in communities and provide health and social care to residents living in the area during weekdays.

Residents are encouraged to seek help from the C2H team if, for example, they have an asthma attack or a non-serious fall. In most cases, the nurse can manage the situation.

Again, the goal of this system is to manage people's health and social care needs at home to reduce frequent hospitalisations and entry into nursing homes.

The importance of these kinds of community health and social care services is recognised at the government level in other countries, too.

China, for example, is currently experimenting with different models of community health services to achieve an integrated care system. Japan has invested heavily in the training of geriatricians and the development of community care services.

In the next decade, the models of health and social care for older adults must be re-imagined like this to support ageing populations.

Integrated care is the way forward — this is the best solution for maintaining a high quality of life among older adults. We can no longer rely on the family as the primary support system for older adults.

• Angelique Chan is Executive Director of the Centre for Ageing Research & Education, Duke-NUS Medical School, National University of Singapore.
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

Many admit that Asia's honeymoon with the West has come to an end as Asian nations are predicted to recover faster than elsewhere in the post-coronavirus world.

The worst-hit countries in Europe, such as the UK, Italy France and Spain, along with the US, have failed their people as death tolls from the coronavirus have surged to tens of thousands.

Their superior healthcare systems and social welfare built on high-tech technology have suffered an irreparable beating while humble Asia has withstood the crisis with its head held high.

Asian students who used to flock to temples of knowledge in the West have started to believe that Asia has arrived after it weathered the storm better than the wealthy West.

Look at the US, where the blame game is still on, while the UK could not even save its prime minister from falling victim to the pandemic.

Financial consultancy firms have already pressed the panic button on Western countries.

"It does make sense to tilt your portfolio towards China or towards Asia generally because the virus is moving from that region ... to the West, where it is unfortunately not yet contained," said Andrew Harmstone, a senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley, recently.

While central banks in the US and Europe are running out of tools to contain the economic fallout from the disease, many Asian economies learned a hard lesson from previous crises and successfully built strong sovereign balance sheets.

The Asian central banks have more room to use monetary policy to kickstart their economies.

Advantage Asia

Severe contagious outbreaks are not new to Asia. The new coronavirus has often been likened to the SARS epidemic in 2003, which greatly affected China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore and other Asian countries. They deployed all their energies to cushion their people and societies.

Governments in the region copied China's response to the outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was arrested after emerging there late last year.

Meanwhile, in the West, anger and despair have spilt over to the streets over governments' failure to respond strongly when the situation was clear and called for a clear-cut medical and social strategy.

When the New Year started on a sad note, parts of East Asia were a scary place to be. The coronavirus was rapidly spreading across mainland China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and beyond. Many foreign nationals began to flee the region.

Now that the table is turned on the West, Asia has emerged as one of the safest places in the world.

With the notable exception of Japan and Singapore, Asian governments have reported a steady decline in new cases and have eased lockdown measures. However, the situation in the West remains dire.

Too slow to act

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently admitted that steps to implement life-saving social distancing measures faced "a lot of pushback" in the early stages of the outbreak in the US.

The European Union's chief scientist resigned over the slow implementation of preventive measures.

By February, many things about the new virus were widely known — its severity and ability to spread quickly and lethally - and yet countries in the West failed or refused, to act and a general sense of complacency prevailed.

In the US, a nationwide social distancing norm was implemented on March 16 even though the country's first case was reported much earlier.

The UK too dragged its feet and lockdown and stay-at-home orders were put in place in late March, a gap of two months after the first case was reported.

Asian countries, however, acted swiftly. Despite not being a member of the World Health Organization, Taiwan nevertheless put in place a world-class response. Singapore also earned kudos for its response.

Superior healthcare

Most European countries have health systems that are better funded than their Asian counterparts. The US is the pioneer of modern medicine. The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is considered the best in the world.

Citizens in these countries have access to better healthcare and enjoy a high standard of living and purchasing power due to increased government and private investments. Besides, government initiatives promote medical insurance.

Special incentives from government agencies in the form of grants and research and development funding encourage people to hit the path of innovation to make public health more efficient.

Emerging tech trends like 3-D printing, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology were first to hit the road in these countries. They added more sheen to well-established healthcare systems.

Fitness-savvy millennials and their health-conscious parents became the driving force to make healthcare systems in the West superior.

Before the coronavirus wreaked havoc, Asians were looking at the West with wonder. However, having managed to keep the coronavirus at bay, the trend has reversed in Asia's favour.

Academic excellence

According to reports, the top study destinations for Asian students were the US, UK, Germany and Australia.

With over 370,000 students in the 2018-19 academic year, China sent the largest number of students to the US for 10 years in a row. Over the past decade, the number of Chinese students enrolled in American colleges has more than trebled.

India, second after China, has 250,000 students in the US. It is reported that there are 1.1 million foreign students in the country.

The COVID-19 outbreak will cause a huge shift in student intake.

In March, several US universities moved classes online and asked students to vacate campus housing. Classes over video conferencing apps such as Zoom have become the new normal.

In Australia, where the fall semester starts in late February or early March, more than 107,000 Chinese students — 56 per cent of the total Chinese student population — are still outside Australia and unable to return to resume classes.

"This is the worst possible time for Australian education providers because it comes at the very start of our academic year," said Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia.

A new report predicts that more Asian students are likely to pursue higher education in Asian universities in the coming years.

Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and China will occupy the places once held high by the US, UK, Germany and Australia.

European social model

Poor Asians often admired the tight social welfare net in force in almost all Western nations. The catchphrase "European social model" promoted social justice and social cohesion.

The welfare state in Europe has resulted in thriving economies, livable and trustful societies and efficient polities that have grown in strength to face all sorts of demographic, economic, financial and political challenges.

Regardless of their differences, the social welfare models in all these Western countries were designed to protect people against the risks associated with unemployment, parental responsibilities, healthcare, old age, housing and social exclusion.

Now the greatest health crisis in a century has shifted the focus of the world from the West to the East.

• Richard Fang First published in La-Croix. Republished with permission.

The outbreak of COVID-19 and its subsequent dissemination across the globe has left a shock wave of disbelief and confusion in many countries.

Accompanying this wave has been a spike in racist terms, memes and news articles targeting Asian communities in North America.

Asian Americans report being spit on, yelled at, even threatened in the streets. There has been a recent stabbing in Montréal and increased violent targeting of Asian businesses.

Asian Americans reported over 650 racist attacks last week according to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. These incidents demonstrate rising racism against Asian communities in North America.

History tells us this is not the first time that fear of disease has led to outbreaks of anti-Asian racism.

Underlying prejudice against Asian communities has been a staple feature of North American society since the first Chinese workers arrived in the mid-19th century.

Looking back at these outbreaks of discrimination is a sobering lesson of the consequences of racial labels for disease.

Increased racist rhetoric by politicians, like President Donald Trump's erroneous use of the term "China Virus" for COVID-19, is often the first step to racialized violence.

Trump recently agreed to stop using the racist label, acknowledging in series of tweets (@realDonaldTrump): "It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States … the spreading of the Virus … is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form."

But more than 100 years ago, white spokespeople in North America had labelled Chinese people as "dangerous to the white," living in "most unhealthy conditions" with a "standard of morality immeasurably below ours."

Since then, white settler resentment of Chinese presence has consistently boiled over into outright racism and violence. Seminal work by Peter S. Li, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Saskatchewan, highlights such incidences throughout Canada's history, while historian Roger Daniels explores the rise of anti-Asian movements within the United States.

Indispensable Chinese labour

The gold rush of the mid-19th century attracted many prospectors to the West Coast of North America.

Chinese immigrants arrived alongside those from Japan, the United Kingdom, Europe and elsewhere.

Although the majority of prospectors travelled south to California, large prospecting encampments developed in British Columbia.

When B.C. joined Canadian Confederation in 1871, the Canadian government initiated a system to recruit and attract Chinese labour to supplement the growing requirements of building the Canadian Pacific Railway. Thousands of Chinese workers were hired and arrived by boat.

Many factors contributed to their departure from China, but in Canada, they were indispensable workers that helped complete the railroad, working at minimal pay compared to their white counterparts.

Indeed, the fact that Chinese workers could be exploited for cheap labour was exactly why Canada's first prime minster, John A. MacDonald encouraged Chinese immigration.

Chinese communities thrived in the growing cities of the West Coast, setting up businesses and finding employment in laundries, grocers and labour camps, as well as in domestic service, especially as cooks.

The railway was completed in 1885, seemingly ending the continued need for good but cheap Chinese labour.

The rise of anti-Asian racism

Around this time, white communities were growing disgruntled at the presence of Asian settlers in the cities. In 1880, the Anti-Chinese Association of Victoria submitted a petition to Ottawa against "the terrible evil of Mongolian usurpation" in Canada. The 1882 passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the US soon led Canadian officials to consider similar measures.

"Chinese quarters are the filthiest and most disgusting places in Victoria, overcrowded hotbeds of disease and vice, disseminating fever and polluting the air all around."

In 1884, the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration was established, to determine the impact of Chinese presence in Canada. The commission held hearings in British Columbia, San Francisco and Portland, to gather evidence from witnesses — over 50 people from among the police, government, physicians and the public. Only two of the witnesses were Chinese.

The witness accounts reveal how underlying race prejudice has long formed the basis of North American attitudes towards China.

Blame for disease

The Royal Commission report concluded:The "Chinese quarters are the filthiest and most disgusting places in Victoria, overcrowded hotbeds of disease and vice, disseminating fever and polluting the air all around."

Yet the commissioners were aware that such conditions were derived from poverty, and that the overcrowded slums could occur just as easily among "any other race" that was similarly impoverished.

Despite this, both the public and many politicians continued to connect disease with race.

The Chinese were consistently accused of being carriers of infection. In the Royal Commission report, it was a common belief that syphilis, leprosy and especially smallpox were "communicated to the Indians and the white population" from Chinese communities. This, despite the fact that at the time China legally required inoculation for all its citizens, and the physicians interviewed by the commission declared having "never seen a case of leprosy amongst them."

By 1885, Canada had passed the Chinese Immigration Act which placed a "head tax" on all Chinese immigrants.

Quarantine officers at the ports were ordered to inspect all on board of Chinese origin, stripping down and examining any Chinese person suspected to be sick. Over the next 20 years, recurring smallpox epidemics were erroneously blamed on Chinese communities.

Such sentiments were accompanied by violence. In 1886, anti-Asian riots broke out in Vancouver, resulting in violent attacks on Asian workers. Similar riots occurred again in 1907, after the formation of a Canadian branch of the American Asiatic Exclusion League in Vancouver. The group organised public, inflammatory speeches against the "filth" of British Columbia's Asian residents. On September 7, 1907, a mob violently attacked Asian shops and homes in Vancouver's Chinese and Japanese quarters.

These historical incidents of discrimination clearly demonstrate how the language of disease is often encoded with underlying racial prejudice.

"Viruses know no borders and they don't care about your ethnicity or the colour of your skin or how much money you have in the bank," said Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation's health emergencies programme.

Yet language can easily spark discrimination in times of fear, with dire consequences.

• Paula Larsson is a doctoral student at the Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, University of Oxford and her piece is republished from The Conversation with permission.

Speaking to Crux, Adul Smanyaphirak, a Muslim living in Bangkok, said that for Thai people generally, "the pope's visit is a great honor."

Though the visit will be especially meaningful for Christians, the majority of whom are Catholic, "You will be surprised when you see how all Thais pay respect to him. I mean all Thai religions," Smanyaphirak said, adding that each of Thailand's religious communities "live together with respect." Read more

Across the region, people continue to flee conflict and political persecution and have sought to make new homes with varying degrees success or failure. For some nations the numbers are overwhelming

In this series, UCAN reporters explore the situation facing refugees displaced by ongoing fighting between Islamic militant groups and government forces in Mindanao. Recent fighting in the province of Sulu has displaced some 20,000 people but this represents a fraction of the refugee population in Southeast Asia.

An unknown number of people have fled from the Philippines into eastern Malaysia — estimates run from the tens of thousands and higher. There, undocumented and uncounted, living an area with porous sea borders, they are Southeast Asia's latest group of forgotten refugees from a decades long conflict existing on the edges of society and the focus of this series.

Yet they are just the latest group in a region where so many are now living away from their homeland, many in a stateless condition with limited access to education and decent health services beyond those aid agencies can provide.

In Thailand, the U.N. Refugee Agency reports that more than 560,000 people live in situations of statelessness, as refugees and asylum seekers, or in refugee-like situations. Small numbers of them include Christian Pakistanis, Syrians, Chinese and Iraqis, among others.

The vast majority, however, come from Myanmar, where a range of conflicts have seen hundreds of thousands fleeing over several decades. Approximately 100,000 people live in nine camps on the Thai-Myanmar border. They are mainly people of Karen, Karenni, Burmese and Mon ethnicity, who initially arrived and were placed in camps during the early 1980s after fleeing conflict in southeastern Myanmar, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Continue reading

Sources

• UCA News
• Image: Frontier Myanmar

Sri Lankan Redemptorist Fr Vimal Tirimanna told the first pan-Asian conference of Catholic moral theologians, held in Bangalore, India, last month, that fresh approaches are required.

Theologians have failed to take seriously indications from the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences about living in a specifically Asian context, Fr Tirimanna said.

The FABC has promoted a threefold dialogue with Asia's poor, cultures and religions to help the Church discover its identity and forge bonds of unity and build community.

Fr Tirimanna teaches theology in colleges in Sri Lanka and Rome.

He said the inclination by Asian theologians to the classical Western framework is "obvious if one were to glance through the syllabuses of Asian seminaries and other theological institutes where moral theology is taught and studied".

"Even in their writings, the majority of Asian moral theologians seem to be locked inside the Western classical framework of moral theology."

The "classical European theology", he explained, perceives faith as a body of truths and dogmas and uses philosophy to explain them.

Asian theology, on the other hand, starts with experience of the faith and analyses concrete situations with the help of sociology, psychology and anthropology, along with Asians resources.

What matters to the bishops in Asia, Fr Tirimanna said, are the daily experiences of their people rather than "purely abstract theological concepts".

Fr Tirimanna expressed the hope that moral theologians in Asia would work towards a genuinely Asian moral theology.

Such a theology would, among other things, seek to understand issues like suicides of farmers, starvation deaths, pollution and gang war killings.

Interfaith marriages are an "unavoidable reality" in multi-religious Asia, posing both opportunities and challenges for evangelisation in the region, he said.

He wants theologians to help the Church find "pastoral ways to protect the faith" of Asian Catholics who enter into such marriages.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Redemptorists International

In January, Francis will return to visit Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and a trip to Japan — where the pope wanted to go as a young priest — is reportedly under consideration.

"I must go to Asia," the pope said a year ago as he returned from a visit to Brazil, adding that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, never traveled there during his eight-year pontificate.

Now Francis will get his chance, and Asians will have their first opportunity to see their new pope up close.

But more than evangelizing missions or personal pilgrimages, the Asian trips also highlight Francis' push to globalize and reform a Catholic Church that is still very much centered on what happens in Rome, and anchored in a European mindset that is accustomed to the privileges of a majority status and often preoccupied with matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical politics.

Asian Catholicism, by contrast, is younger, less rooted in the surrounding culture and less interested in looking to the Vatican for answers to every question.

While 130 million Asian Catholics represent only 11 percent of all Catholics worldwide, the church in Asia is growing faster than any place else except Africa, and almost half the population of Asia is under 25.

In fact, Francis is going to South Korea to take part in Asian Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree that will draw young people from 29 Asian countries.

Asian churches also benefit by being so distant from the Vatican, and from the internecine concerns of the Roman Curia.

For example, bishops in Asia are often freer to tell Rome when they disagree with certain policies or decisions and they have a better chance of Rome letting them do their own thing — a dynamic of decentralization that Francis says he wants to encourage. Continue reading

Sources

• Huffington Post
• Image: South China Morning Post

The multi-award winning Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson, displays a relationship that unfolds between two Americans - a middle-aged man and a younger woman - when they meet in Japan.

Portrayed against the backdrop of Tokyo's metallic and Perspex landscape, Lost in Translation is the story of two people desperately searching for different things and hoping they can find them in one another.

But they don't, and they are left at the end of the film with a lonely emptiness both had sought to escape. They are ships that pass in the night, never noticing each other apart from what they want from each other. It is the portrayal of a relationship that isn't to be.

Each is saying to the other in their own misguided way: "Look at me!" They do not engage with each other or listen, but instead just seek to attract the notice and attention of the other.

Sometimes I think Catholics are like this couple in the way we engage with God.

My faith, all about me

What we want from our faith is all about ourselves rather than God or the faith community we share.

We can have, as Catholics, just as we do in our ordinary relationships every day, a single-minded focus on our needs, what we have sacrificed, what hurt we have endured or what splendid things we have done in our care or service of others. It's all about me!

And, as a result, we tire of God and we protect ourselves against other people.

We overpower what God or other people might ask or want of us; we maintain a relentless focus on our measured contribution and ourselves; we keep away from anyone or anything that might upset the calm and disciplined world we create and control.

And love passes us by - love of God and love of others.

The death of our faith and our love

As with the two would be lovers who pass as ships in the night, our faith dies and even our love dies for lack of nourishment.

This is the intimately personal level at which we can warp and distort our humanity as well as our Christian faith and all that it holds as a means to grow. It happens almost unconsciously even as we keep telling ourselves we are only doing what seems natural. But we aren't.

Therein lies the ambiguity: apparently good things - loving, serving, believing, worshipping - end up being bad things that distract and destroy.

And there's something else that complicates this surprise even further.

Life: what we put in, and the worlds we inhabit

Life cuts both ways and our lives do not simply amount to what we put into them or do with them, inspired or misguided as the contributions may be.

The worlds we inhabit - families, workplaces, hobbies, interests, friends, what we see and read - also shape who we are and what we become.

Those influences can enhance or distort us - as individuals, communities and nations, as believers and as Catholics.

All of us are parts of cultures that set the terms for how we grow or decline as human beings, as communities, as nations and as a Church. Rendering the Christian message in words, symbols and structures that communicate across cultures is never easy.

What began in Israel two millennia ago was interpreted by Greeks and structured by Romans. Then, 1,500 years after Jesus, all that was challenged when Christianity moved out of its European comfort zone into Asia and then Africa.

In Asia, Christianity got a mixed reception - some were attracted, many repelled it and some sought to exterminate it. The vast majority remained indifferent to what appeared to be a culturally alien import.

Today, the ambiguities of such "culture contact" are no less pressing. The Catholic Church in most parts of Asia is a minority community.

Yet its communities and leaders recognise the need for many adaptations to local customs and practices if the person and message of Jesus is to be intelligible in cultures far removed from anything Jesus and the early Christians could be expected to appreciate.

Framing the gospel message

Framing the message in a language and through symbolism that can be grasped by those not familiar with the Greco-Roman culture that Christianity adopted to explain itself is not all that happens when Christianity localises or "inculturates".

The cultures to which Christianity reaches for language and symbols also transform elements of the message not often anticipated or even consciously recognised.

At times, absorbing a local culture that may be common even to hundreds of millions of people can have the desired effect of sharing the message.

But, often unconsciously, elements of particular cultures can contribute to massive distortions of the Christian message.

Historical examples abound - from popes who ordered torture and executions as ways of defending the Catholic faith to Catholic communities who hated and killed Jews because they allegedly were responsible for killing Jesus.

Some cultural absorption and adaptation is necessary, as is evident in the way Catholics celebrate sacraments. The Passover, the use of water in baptism and the use of oil in several sacraments, are obvious instances of the employment of pre-existing symbolism to express Christian beliefs.

Distorting the Christian message

However, there is the use of cultural and political forms developed from European historical models that are today simply anachronistic, such as the monarchical papacy and the titles used by cardinals and bishops.

And then there are cultural adoptions that are downright sinister and a contradiction of the Gospel, some of them operating in Asia. Many Asian societies have inherited cultural patterns of respect, organisational hierarchy and the allocation of status that come from cultures developed long before the Gospel was preached in them.

Yet, and presumably unconsciously, Catholics, especially clerics, can model patterns of authority and social status that owe more to the native culture than the Gospel. Because Confucian societies may place clerics on a special pedestal as learned and superior beings, the clerics can come to see themselves as authoritative and significant people who don't need to seek out and serve the needy and the humble.

In Buddhist and Hindu cultures, religious people can be seen as "special" and otherworldly rather than engaged in the world of everyone else, with its pains and uncertainties.

Hiding in a status and suffocating the Gospel are easy traps to fall into in any culture unless there is the circuit breaker of an objective look at our behaviour in the light thrown on it by the person and message of Jesus.

Otherwise, hypocrisy reigns. The ambiguity of people who are falsifying the faith that they believe themselves to be the successful embodiment of is not far from the ambiguity of two people who think they're in love with each other but haven't really met.

Michael Kelly SJ is a Jesuit priest and the executive director of UCA News.

Source: UCA News

Image: UCA News

The "First Church" was that of the original disciples and the generations that followed them, centred on the Mediterranean and making the first missionary advances into lands and cultures outside of Israel.

The men and women of that First Church bequeathed to us many treasures: the New Testament, the core elements of our worship, our philosophical and theological systems and our commitment to engage in dialogue with the religions, philosophies and cultures of the world.

From Euro-centric to a truly worldwide Church
The missionary endeavours of those early centuries led to the development of the "Second Church," centred in Europe. It was the Church of mass Christianity. Societies and cultures were shaped by the Christian commitment of rulers and people. The "outside world" of non-belief was geographically and psychologically remote and marginal to daily life.

When it was encountered, it was often as an enemy, but always as an object of proselytisation. We still live in that Church, but increasingly find ourselves moving in a new situation, a new Church, the Third Church.

This new Church has no geographic centre because it is worldwide. The statistics tell the story. In 1910, 80 percent of the world's Christians lived in Europe and North America. Today, a century later, the majority of us live in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with less than 40 percent of us in the West. In just five years between 2004 and 2009, the number of Catholics in Asia increased by nearly 11 percent.

The missionary thrust from Christ through the first and second Churches has carried us beyond borders of races, nations and cultures. For many Catholics, perhaps the first inklings of change came during Vatican II when photos of the world's bishops showed faces from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

What is distinctive about this Church? Western Christians usually do not even notice how deeply their Christianity has been shaped by religious traditions and cultures that pre-dated the preaching of the Gospel in Europe. So too are the Churches of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific being shaped by religions and cultures that preachers of the Gospel encountered there.

That means ideas of God, of holiness, of worship, of community, of ministry — of everything that makes a Church — are gradually becoming radically different from what has been "normal" for more than a millennium and a half. Cherished and time honoured traditions and formulations of faith are being called into question.

The Third Church: New styles emerging
The Third Church lives in the midst of varied beliefs or unbelief, with little or decreasing political, social and cultural power. This is leading to new styles of worship, of theologising, of community, of evangelisation.

Since Christians of the Third Church, especially in Asia, are often a powerless and sometimes persecuted minority in their societies, they tend to view the role of the Church and its institutional forms from a different perspective from that of the West, where the Church is only now beginning to lose political, moral and intellectual power.

Asia's Christians face questions that Western Christians have not faced in centuries, if ever. As they struggle to find answers to new questions, some of those answers will appear inadequate to those who faced and answered different questions. Some will actually be inadequate, as inadequate as Western theological formulas and practices.

Our theology of the Trinity, for example, may take unforeseen directions as Indian Christians try to explain what we believe about God using Indian rather than Greek philosophic modes of thought.

The Third Church and the West: Joy and fear
On various levels, people in the Churches of the West (which are still in charge) have had mixed reactions to the coming of the Third Church. Sometimes, there is rejoicing that the Holy Spirit is working in new ways in new places. Sometimes, there is fear of the unknown and a refusal to allow others to make their own mistakes as the West made its own.

Much of Catholic history since Vatican II can be read as a series of attempts to protect the Second Church from the changes that are coming with the Third Church. Many times, the phenomenon is ignored. But, love it or fear it, a new Church is being born. It will take several lifetimes, but eventually Christianity throughout the world will be different.

Yet, as the characteristics of this Third Church gradually but with increasing momentum develop, we continue to live in varying degrees within the Second Church. The result is a tension within the People of God, within our institutions and within ourselves.

The tensions in the period of overlap between the first and second Churches gave birth to creative and enduring ways to be Church (notably monasticism). Likewise, the transition period in which we live will, under the Holy Spirit, give birth to now undreamed of ways to be Church.

Centuries from now we will be looked upon as the early Christians of what will in the future be the normal, everyday way to follow and proclaim Christ. We may be envied for having lived in an exciting time of transition. We will be misunderstood. We may be vilified for getting so much wrong and bequeathing structures and ways of thinking, acting and worship that seem constricting and short-sighted. We will be grist for whatever may be the equivalent of doctoral dissertations.

Anyone who believes that God is at work in the Church should be aware of what is happening. We must pay attention to the Churches throughout the world, learning from them and praying with and for them. Reading and visiting (in some places this might only entail crossing town to a different neighbourhood) are important tools.

It would be a shame to miss one of the biggest events in the history of Christianity because we thought the way we have been is the way to be.

Fr William Grimm is the publisher of ucanews.com and is based in Tokyo

Source: UCA News

Photo: UCA News

Yates says she expects her PhD to take three year to complete but hopes it will motivate other New Zealand Pacific Islanders to study and travel abroad. Read More

"I think papal trips are always good," the pope was quoted as saying during the flight back to Rome after a week in Brazil.

Pope Francis, however, said there is still "nothing definite-definite," but added that he will "tell you what I'm thinking."

The pope is set to travel to Cagliari in southern Italy on September 22 to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria. On October 4 he will go to Assisi for the feast of St. Francis.

He said he also hopes to fulfill an idea proposed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who suggested they meet in Jerusalem in 2014 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's meeting with Patriarch Athenagoras.

Pope Francis also said "it is possible to go to Asia," although he said "this is all up in the air."

"A trip to Asia must be made, because Pope Benedict didn't have time to go to Asia and it is important," he said.

"I think it is possible to go to Asia, even if everything is still up in the air," he added. "I have received invitations to go to Sri Lanka and to the Philippines."

The Philippines officially invited Pope Francis immediately after his inauguration Mass last March.

Sources

UCA News

Catholic News Service

Image: ANSA/TELENEWS/CNA

Its president says people who have not experienced persecution firsthand "cannot fully understand what it means to receive threats against your life, to have your house destroyed, your own rights violated and your loved ones taken away from you and imprisoned; and all this because of your faith in Jesus Christ".

Continue reading

(It turns out that the movie got the French slightly wrong. It's actually just the "Royal Cheese," but the point's the same.)

Although director Quentin Tarantino is nobody's idea of a Christian evangelist, there's nevertheless a missionary insight here: Whether we're talking about cheeseburgers or eternal salvation, the same product often has to be packaged in different ways for different audiences based on the languages they speak and the cultural worlds they inhabit.

That, believe it or not, is a way of introducing a report from the Oct. 7-28 Synod of Bishops in Rome on the new evangelization.

Whatever its defects, a synod is always a kind of graduate seminar about the realities of life in a global church, bringing together bishops and other church leaders from every nook and cranny of the planet. The opening week of this one has been devoted largely to surveying what works and what doesn't in terms of Catholic evangelization in various parts of the world, and some distinctive regional accents have already emerged.

To be sure, a bewildering variety of points are always made in the opening stages, and not all the voices from a given region are singing from the same hymnal. In broad strokes, however, here's what some leading Catholic voices seem to believe is required to make the church relevant in their neighborhoods:

• Asia: humility, simplicity and silence
• Africa: ministering to people scarred by poverty and violence
• Latin America: taking cues from what's already working, such as popular piety and small Christian communities (often called "base communities")
• Europe and the States: sound doctrine and sacramental practice as an antidote to the influence of a largely secular culture Read more

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Catholic Sun

Conference organizers barred access and refused comment to journalists attempting to cover the event.

A letter posted by the Federation's Office of the Clergy in January invited "cardinals, archbishops, bishops and formators" to convene in Bangkok from November 14-19 to discuss "letters from different quarters of the Church that pedophilia has already become a considerably serious problem in Asia."

Father Lawrence Pinto, executive secretary of the Office of the Clergy, told ucanews.com on November 18 that the conference, titled "The Impact of Pedophilia - Crisis in the Church in Asia," was closed to journalists and advised not to attempt to visit the venue, King David Hall on the campus of Assumption University.

A staff member of the FABC added that the seminar was "closed door" and that Fr Pinto did not want media to attend.

"Let us not be complacent that pedophilia is a problem of the West or the other continents of the world; it is equally prevalent in many countries in Asia," the letter stated.

The Church in Asia is bound "to take drastic and immediate measures to contain this issue of child abuse within the Church circles, and to deal with it squarely, without delay, before it will go out of hand like it has done in the other countries in the world," the letter added.

The letter further noted that the issue was "important and urgent" because "many a priest, religious sister, including bishops and formators are not aware of what in reality is pedophilia, and what it does to the child-victim."

Source

• ucanews.com
• Image: Dalje.com