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POPE-CENTRALASIA Oct-2-2008 (460 words) xxxi
Pope urges Central Asia's Catholics to embrace their strong faith
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the tiny Catholic communities of the Central Asian republics to remain united and hold on to the strong faith that kept the church alive through decades of communism.
The pope met Oct. 2 with the bishops of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and the heads of church missions in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
Islam is the largest faith community in each of the countries, which once were part of the Soviet Union.
As the bishops were concluding their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican, Archbishop Tomash Peta, who is based in Astana, Kazakhstan, told the pope, "Living in multiethnic and multicultural societies, we give glory to God for the fact that he is present in our reality through small, but lively Catholic communities."
Pope Benedict told the bishops not to be discouraged that their communities are small; the combination of decades of communist repression followed by large waves of emigration left the church small, but tenacious.
The pope said that along with patience and courage, the region's bishops and priests -- the vast majority of whom are Russian-speaking foreign missionaries -- must find new ways of ministering and sharing the Gospel "taking into account the language and culture of the faithful entrusted to you."
Kazakhstan's Parliament recently defeated a law that would have restricted religious freedom, including for Catholics, Archbishop Peta told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
In Uzbekistan, every form of missionary work is prohibited, although the Catholic Church is allowed to minister to its own members and to speak to individuals who request information, Bishop Jerzy Maculewicz, apostolic administrator of Uzbekistan, told the paper.
Bishop Nikolaus Messmer, apostolic administrator of Kyrgyzstan, told L'Osservatore Romano that with the vast majority of the population professing Islam, Catholics in Kyrgyzstan quietly carry out an "apostolate of presence" within society.
Pope Benedict said that in addition to the challenges posed by emigration, establishing democracy and building an economy after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the region -- like the rest of the world -- faces "worrying phenomena that place security and peace in serious danger."
"I am referring in particular to the plague of violence and terrorism (and) the spread of extremism and fundamentalism," he said.
"Certainly, these scourges must be fought with legislative interventions," he said. "However, law must never be transformed into inequity, nor can the free exercise of religion be limited because to profess one's faith freely is a fundamental and universally recognized human right."
The Catholic Church, he said, believes that "conversion is the mysterious fruit of the Holy Spirit's action. Faith is a gift and the work of God," which is why the church "forbids every form of proselytism that forces or induces" people to embrace Catholicism.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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