2014-08-17 09:16:00

Pope to Asian Bishops: Dialogue and encounter


(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday stressed the importance of entering into dialogue with others, telling the Bishops of Asia it is a way of sharing our common experience and humanity.

Seàn Patrick Lovett reports from Korea

Anyone who knows Pope Francis might have known it would happen. 

Speaking to his brother Bishops, the Bishops of Asia, on Sunday morning, the Pope put aside his prepared remarks – which remain valid (which is why we published them) even though they weren’t pronounced – and shared his reflections off the cuff in Italian. Many of those present have studied in Italy so understanding what he was saying to them shouldn’t have been a problem.

And what he said was this.

He said we must constantly enter “dialogue” with others, we need to be “welcoming” and to “listen”. “I cannot dialogue”, said Pope Francis to the Bishops of Asia, “if I am closed”. It is important, he continued, to share our common experience and humanity – because we are all children of “one Father who created us all”. It is through encounter with Him and with others that we are “enriched”.

In Italian, Pope Francis constantly used the word “camminare” – a verb that can be translated with a variety of subtle variations in English: it can mean “to accompany” and “to walk with”, or “to proceed” and “to persevere along a determined path”…

It appears as if the Holy Father intended all of the above in his improvised remarks to the Bishops. “We need to walk with God”, he said, “and to walk together with others”. Perhaps you already do this, continued Pope Francis, but you still fail to convert more than a few. “Continue to do so”, he urged them, “be flexible…walk with others”. This is not proselytism, he insisted – “the Church doesn’t believe in proselytism but in encounter”.

After praising the ancient cultures and traditions of Asia, the Pope quoted his predecessor, St John Paul II who recognised the Church’s commitment to dialogue as “grounded in the logic of the incarnation of Jesus. God Himself became one of us, shared in our life and spoke to us in our own language”.

Finally, Pope Francis returned to the image of the Good Shepherd as the one who knows and recognises each one of his sheep. He concluded by commending the Bishops, their flocks and their nations to the intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, and our Mother.

In Seoul, I’m Seàn-Patrick Lovett.

 








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