austraLasia 1483

WCB meeting in Rome - interview with Philip Yu

ROME: 8th March 2006 -- WCB must be one of the most widespread acronyms in the world!  For some readers it will refer to one or other Cricket Board no doubt, but 'Philip Yu' is the giveaway, unless Hong Kong still has a flourishing cricket team.  Instead, in these parts, it refers to a World Consultative Body, this time of the Salesian Cooperators.  Philip Yu is the Regional ASC Coordinator for EAO.  Rome being Rome, it took rather longer for the trip from the airport to the Pisana than it did for the Paris-Rome sector of his flight! Fiumicino-Pisana today took two hours instead of the usual 15 minutes.  Rather more like Bangkok than quiet extra-suburban Rome, so it gave one ample time to talk with Philip about developments in the EAO-ASC part the Family.
    The outstanding success story of the Region at the moment appears to be Korea, where thirty plus units have sprung up, with a strong formation programme.  Many of these units are based on married couples.  It certainly seems to be working well.  The Korean Salesian Cooperators have apostolic works in their own right, including one 'reception' centre where they take in youngsters who face problems at home.  This is not only true of Korea. Philip was also able to speak with pride of his own China Province where the Cooperators have developed a centre to help youngsters with their homework.  The China Units also came very much to the fore during the recent centenary celebrations where each branch of the Salesian Family had a role to play.  The ASC looked after accommodation details for visitors, airport transfers and the like.
    There are parts of our region where the ASC may not exist officially, but this does not prevent them from meeting and being active and indeed flourishing.  He was not talking of his own province in this instance.  There is also one part of the region where Cooperator units have not existed until now, not because of any government strictures but for a host of other historical reasons.  But there are plans afoot to develop the ASC in ITM and in actual fact there are very many cooperators with a small 'c' in both Indonesia and East Timor.  It simply remains to organise this more formally and to establish a formation programme, which is essential.  Philip expressed his delight and gratitude at the help he has received from Fr. Bob Bossini of AUL, especially in his work with documentation, unitised formation programmes and the like.
    Elsewhere the ASC is active too - Philippines, Japan, Thailand were amongst three areas Philip spoke enthusiastically of.  In Thailand the ASC has been strongly involved in post-Tsunami reconstruction, assisted by the Japan ASC who have raised substantial funds to this end.
    The WCB meeting is in proximate preparation for the World ASC Congress to be held in Rome later this year.  One of the central matters for both meetings is to finalise the new Regulation of Apostolic Life or RAL.  These will now be more like the standard two part set of constitutions and regulations to be found amongst the SDBs and will also bring the ASCs in line with contemporary developments in lay apostolic spirituality and action.
GLOSSARY
WCB: World Consultative Body
ASC: Association of Salesian Cooperators
EAO: East Asia-Oceania
ITM: Indonesia-East Timor
AUL: Australia
RAL: Regulations of Apostolic Life
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