Lay Catholics in Asia have been likened to a “sleeping giant”, held back by too many commitments within the clerical structures, the Asian Laity Congress in Seoul has been told. It is now time to awaken them to their specific mission, which is to live in the world like a leaven, transforming it, showing the diversity of their life of faith so as to arouse admiration and questions in those who are non-believers, participants told the Congress, according to an AsiaNews report.
An authoritative support for this thrust towards the world was founding the intervention of Archbishop Josef Clemens, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, AsiaNews says.
Archbishop Clemens also called for the implementation of the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici, 22 years after its promulgation.
But the contributions that have aroused most interest were those of the first two Asians to speak to the Congress.
The first, Mgr. Dao Dinh Duc, a professor at the Seminary in Xuan Loc (Vietnam) emphasized that any commitment of the Church that does not include the mission ad gentes (to non-Christians) is not a true ecclesial commitment. This commitment is borne mainly by lay people, who live in daily contact with the world. What is to be feared, he said, is to have lay people who “are only in the structures of the Church and are insignificant in society”.
The second person, the first Asian layman to make an address, was Jess Estanislao, who was actively involved in the world of politics, as a member of the Philippine government and former entrepreneur.
Among the signs of a “new approach” in the commitment of the laity, Bishop Martinus Situmorang of Padang, Indonesia, cited two instances: a rural school in his diocese, founded by the laity without any “cue” from priests, the commitment of a Christian businessman who wants to structure his mines giving a better and more dignified life for its miners.
SIC: CTH/AS