A call to respect fundamental human rights, alleviate Third World debt, lift the UN's economic embargo on Iraq, and preserve the unique and sacred character of Jerusalem are among the key elements in the final synod message presented yesterday in the Vatican, at the conclusion of the Synod for Asia.
For the past month, 250 delegates from many parts of Asia, including Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Siberia, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, have come together at this special assembly of the Synod of Bishops to share and discuss the pastoral concerns, hopes and fears of Asian Catholics.
While the bishops met in Rome, events in their home continent provoked further debate, including underground nuclear tests in India, the suicide of the Catholic Bishop of Faisalabad in Pakistan, John Joseph, and the student deaths in Indonesia.
All these issues are at least indirectly highlighted in the synod's message, along with a strong condemnation of the armaments industry.
Introducing the document, Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz, of Lingayen-Dagupan in the Philippines, called attention to the section of the message entitled "Appeals for Justice and Peace", highlighting the appeal for Jerusalem and adding: "We also appeal for an end to the embargo on Iraq because the country is suffering greatly and because those who suffer most are women and children . . . As for Third World debt, we say, could it not be renegotiated, could not the burden be eased?"
Asked about this week's nuclear armaments testing in India, Archbishop Valerian d'Souza, of Pune, in western India, responded: "We the synod fathers cannot take into account specific events like the recent nuclear tests in India . . . We clearly feel that too much money is wasted on so-called defence policies. The whole armaments industry does not help the poor, rather it hurts and kills people and is just the opposite of what this synod is all about."
Dr d'Souza said the underground nuclear tests caused extra pain for the poor. He told reporters the synod had expressed its hope that weapons, and especially nuclear arms, would be reduced and abolished.
He said military nuclear expansion "hurts the poor of India twice . . . once because they are victims of the tests and secondly because they deny them necessary resources for development and the fight against poverty".
Dr d'Souza said previous Indian governments had stated explicit opposition to military nuclear use, but not civilian use.
"The current government has as its majority the BJP, which has always supported and even wrote in its electoral programme for the last elections, nuclear use even for military ends," Dr d'Souza said, referring to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
The synod began a month ago with a strong focus on the Catholic Church's difficult relations with the People's Republic of China following Pope John Paul's invitation to two Chinese bishops - "underground" prelates who have remained loyal to Rome and rejected the government-backed local church, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association - to visit Rome. In the end, the Beijing authorities did not make it possible for the two bishops, Matthias Duan Yinming (90) and Joseph Xu Zhixuan (82), to go.
Asked about their absence, Bishop Joseph Fernando, of Kandy in Sri Lanka, commented: "The situation in China was and is a main concern of ours. We left two empty chairs at the synod gathering, as a symbol of our concern . . . We can only express the hope that Catholics in China can enjoy complete freedom of worship, freedom to worship in communion with Rome."
Additional reporting by Reuters