Dr Paul Hwang / Director of ALL Forum
Organizer: Asian Lay Leaders (ALL) Forum
Local Organizers: Research and Training Center for Religio-cultural Community (RTRC), Communal Life of Love and the Unity of Mountain People Foundation (CLUMP), IMCS Asia Pacific
Venue: International Youth Training Center (IYTC) Chiang Mai
Theme : Women, Great Spirits, and Intercultural Citizenship Empowering Harmony between IP and Urban Communities for the Sustainable Future in Asia
In Asian context, it is natural that the ALL Forum’s programs put more stress on religious plurality and dialogue among religions and cultures in the continent. Asian Christian youth are living in a complex situation, being part of a minority religion and having such diverse religious traditions including those from Indigenous Peoples’ (IPs) communities and various local cultures. They have experienced and even suffered from denying their own cultures. Sometimes, they feel a sense of guilt because some of their families are a tribe’s leaders or shamans and related to IPs’ traditional religions prescribed as ‘superstitions’ which is not in uncommon.
For this reason, ALL Forum needs to ensure and inspire young people that their religious and cultural traditions are a gift, not evils that threaten Christianity, and that deepening their faith embraced by Catholicism can help them become a good citizen based on the intercultural and multicultural spirituality too. Laypeople are the ones who live their daily lives specifically, so in this sense lay spirituality is of everyday spirituality. Everything revealed in our daily lives is God’s presence, and it does not ask for discrimination among religions. Cultural diversity is something we must care for, preserve, and accept as gift, so that we can be enriched by them as experiences of the Great Spirit of God among all of us. Not religious dualism nor discrimination, but the abundance of various religious traditions in Asia, is what Catholicism means to be and what should be significant feature of universal church. Such diversity flowing throughout Asia is a main source that can provide rich theological ideas and spiritual inspiration to the world churches. These terminologies of religio-cultural diversity not from theory but people’s lives themselves, lay spirituality based on daily life, and intercultural citizenship which embraces Western citizenship or civility culminated in modernity for the betterment of the world including the church, and adult-faith development through which Christians are to be flourishing or blooming not only being survived are the keywords needed to be put as overarching ideas for all the programs of ALL Forum.
Arrival/ Introduction (25th March, Sat)
Day 1 (26th, Sun): Opening Mass / Mutual Engagement (Filed visit)
Day 2 (27th, Mon): Workshop 1 –Women in IP Communities Empowering Integral Ecology for the Better World
Morning session –
Promoting Women’s Role in IP Communities for Sustainable Future in the World
by local woman speaker from IP community
Afternoon session –
Promoting Ecological Sensibility in relation to Great Spirits in IP’s Religio-Cultural Traditions in Asia
by Dr. Ariya Setamra
(*** Each session is be followed by workshops in groups )
Day 3 (28th, Tue): Workshop 2 – Promoting and Developing Integral Ecology and Interculturality Based on Intercultural Spirituality
Morning session-
Dialogue with IP’s Interreligious Traditions for promoting Intercultural Spirituality in Thailand and Asia
by Fr. Niphot Thianvihan and Dr. Sunthorn
Afternoon session –
Church’s Future Direction Toward “Integral Ecology” with Regard to the “Cop 27” and Post-Laudato Si
by Dr. Noelyn Dano
Day 4 (29th, Wed): Workshop 3 – Synodal Church for ‘Interreligious and Intercultural citizenship’ in Thailand and Asia
Morning Session:
Synodal Church or Synodality articulated in Amazon Synod Cultivating Intercultural Citizenship for the Better World
by Dr. Paul Hwang
Afternoon Session- Free afternoon / Visitation/Cultural Exploration
Evening – Cultural Night
Day 5 (30th, Thur): Departure
