Catholic youth in Asia are living under the influence of globalization, urbanization, and virtual reality, yet they want to keep their traditions alive. However, it is not easy to be confident that they are succeeding. On the contrary, the reality is not unlike that of the Amazon region, where their traditions are as precarious as a lantern in the wind in the face of neoliberal capitalism and its globalizing forces, which commoditize everything, including humans themselves, and push them into endless competition.
Adding to the challenges faced by young people in Asia is the control and repression of religion in socialist countries such as China, Vietnam, and Laos. In a youth education program held in an Indo-Chinese country by a youth organization recently, education on topics related to human rights and democracy like freedom of expression, mobilization and having a religion, were not even a consideration from the outset. The need to relocate events due to local police control is a common challenge in such an authoritarian country.
However, placing all the blame for the difficulties on the government does not fully capture the reality. Under the control of the colonial power and its tyrannical regime, the local church in the region was not on the side of its people, but rather a few of collaborators of colonialism has contributed to the fact that Christianity has remained a minority religion for a long time in the country and Asia as a whole.
In a different context, I am reminded of Pope Francis’ September 2023 visit to Mongolia, when he greeted the Chinese people by calling them “noble ones” and wished them, particularly Chinese Catholics, to be “good Christians and good citizens.” This was no mere platitude, nor was it an impromptu greeting. Rather, it looked a deeply held desire of the pope from a Latin American country with a long history of colonialism and dictatorship.
The pope’s call to the Chinese faithful to be “good citizens” in a country groaning under communism could easily be misinterpreted. But it is also possible that Pope Francis was implicitly calling for more religious freedom for the Chinese government, while at the same time telling the faithful that Catholicism can only take root if they show themselves to be “good citizens” who are committed to the common good of Chinese society, especially the poor. In this sense, the pope’s use of the phrase “good believers and good citizens” is indeed wise.
What is important here is that being a good believer and a good citizen go hand in hand, and if the latter is reduced to a background or decoration in favor of the former, this wise statement will end within religion and within the walls of the church. True democracy must be embodied by good people of faith and good citizens in their concrete, everyday lives, and all religions, including Christianity, must actively embrace and support this. In this way, the churches can become “the spirit of the world,” echoed in Vatican II, reforming society while reforming themselves*
