'austraLasia' #70

'FIRST' EVANGELIZATION PRIORITY

East Asia-Oceania missionaries meet in Thailand

by Julian Fox

HUA HIN (Thailand): 16 May -- Some 40 Salesians SDB and FMA completed

their meeting at Hua Hin with some firm proposals for missionary

animation and formation in their respective provinces over the next four

years. The meeting had been organised from the Central (Rome) Mission

Departments of these two branches of the Salesian Family and was

attended largely by those responsible for mission animation or formation

in their provinces. All discussion centred on first or basic

evangelisation, especially in the Asian context where Christianity is in

a minority. Salesians already involved as experts at the Asian Synod of

Bishops meeting in Rome were able to be present. This included

systematic theologian Fr. Joseph Puthenpurackal from Shillong and the

Vietnamese Provincial, Fr. John Ty who had been in Rome at the request

of the Vietnamese Bishops Conference to asssit them in the formulation

of contributions from that country.

The meeting formulated more than a dozen proposals and associated

strategies for creating greater missionary awareness of first

evangelization in each province, as also initiatives that should be

privileged in order to set up joint missionary animation between SDB and

FMA in provinces. The countries of Oceania, recognising that their

needs are quite different, requested of the Dicastero a special assembly

in either 1999 or 2000 to consider the possibilities and challenges of

evangelisation in that area given the new and growing Salesian presences

in PNG, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Australia.