Back
to Vietnamese Missionaries in Taiwan Home PageHumanity is advancing towards the third millennium, but Christ is known only to a small minority in Asia.
This year, people are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights; its value was strongly emphasized in the Message of the Holy Father John Paul II for World Day of Peace this year. The Holy Father is now calling us to make a detailed and meticulous evaluation of the human rights situation in the vast and diversified Asian continent and, at the same time, to identify in a reasonable way what must be the Church's specific contribution to the promotion and development of human rights.
This Synod, important for the future of evangelization in Asia, wishes to write a new page in its history. But in order to write, one must follow the rules of grammar and have an alphabet. Where do we find them?
In his address to the United Nations, the Holy Father stated that "the universal moral law written on the human heart is precisely that kind of 'grammar' which is needed if the world is to engage this discussion of its future" (5 October 1995, n. 3). Recently, the Holy Father also showed us that "the Cross is the first letter of God's alphabet". On the Cross, Jesus helps us interpret the complex realities of our existence in Asia.
Wherever people live in poverty and are exploited and oppressed; wherever women, young people and children are exploited by prostitution and sexual tourism, Jesus is once again wounded in his body and his heart. Wherever the fundamental right of religious freedom is denied, wherever numerous restrictions are imposed on religious life, Jesus is once again crucified and abandoned among our brothers and sisters. Wherever social and political corruption and discrimination towards migrants, minorities and human working conditions exist; wherever land is unjustly monopolized, wherever natural resources disappear because of unnecessary destruction; in a word, according to a popular saying in Asia, "where the big fish eat the little fish", Jesus is crucified and abandoned.
The Church in Asia is sent by the Spirit of the Lord "to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Lk 4:18-19). The defence of human rights demands a persevering commitment.
We appreciate that ongoing education in human rights promotion in the Church's social doctrine is broadcast by Vatican Radio, and especially by Radio Veritas Asia, every day in 24 Asian languages. We encourage the creation of justice and peace commissions that give the local Churches the opportunity to interpret this "Gospel of charity" in Asia's difficult religious and cultural situation.
During the years when I was deprived of freedom, I experienced the most devastating hardship and temptation: that of being abandoned. It was then that the mystery of the Cross became the light which gives meaning to suffering united with Jesus crucified and abondoned. In the darkness, the hymn O Crux ave spes unica brought me the liberating force of the paschal mystery.
Back
to Vietnamese Missionaries in Taiwan Home Page