As the three-day Asian continental assembly on synodality concluded in Thailand on Sunday, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, secretary general of the general secretariat of the synod, told delegates from the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) that “the Church of Asia has a lot to give to the world”.
He added: “If we do not serve the world, nobody will believe in our proclamation of the Gospel.”
This was the fifth of seven continental assemblies for the universal synod. It included delegates from 23 of the FABC's 29 member states.
Themes discussed included the call to embrace new pathways, living synodality, decision-making, priestly vocations, appealing to youth, supporting the poor, religious conflicts and clericalism.
The delegates met in a pastoral training centre of Bangkok archdiocese came from 17 episcopal conferences and two episcopal synods, and included six cardinals, 23 bishops, 28 priests, four women religious and 19 lay people.
The recurring image of the “tent” ran through the synod. The “yurt” is a tent used as a home by the nomadic peoples of Central Asia and in Mongolia and can also serve as a place of worship, while a tent was also seen as “a place of refuge” in places of violence, disorder and suffering.
Catholic communities in Asia were urged to “widen the space of their tent” to extend it to the needy and marginalised, whether or not they are Christian.
The final Sunday liturgy was presided over by Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon and President of the FABC.
In his homily, he suggested that Lent contains an acronym that can lead toward synodal conversion: L for letting go, E for encounter, N for neighbourliness and T for transformation.
The continental-level synod is part of the process leading towards the Synod of Bishops on Synodality at the Vatican in October
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