ASIA - West Asia Synod can Bring New Hope for Humanity

Hector Welgampola

BRISBANE, Australia (UCAN) — Just as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, the region of Jesus’ birth would be as sacred whether it is called Middle East or West Asia.

However, if the former name’s European slant clouds the upcoming Synod for West Asia with crusading hang-ups or post-9/11 prejudices, the synod would miss the spirit of the desert for its sand. For the spirit of the desert is the essence of that region’s Christian heritage. It is a spirit that can rev up the Church to respond to today’s spiritual thirst.

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI scheduled the West Asia Synod for this coming October. He announced it at a meeting with the patriarchs and major archbishops of the Eastern Churches. The heads of Churches in Egypt, Iraq, India, Lebanon, Syria and the Ukraine were among them. They said the synod should tackle regional issues. Some key issues noted by the Chaldean archbishop of Iraq included Christian witness among Muslims and the flight of Christians from West Asia.

These problems were not addressed by the 1999 Synod for Asia. True enough, West Asia is an essential part of Asia. But the early preparations for the Asian synod were not sensitive to that region’s realities. The first preparatory document for that synod, the lineamenta issued in 1996 by the Vatican-based General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, used the British-coined name, Middle East, to describe the region.

The synod working document issued in 1998, with Asian Church involvement, rectified the error and named the region West Asia. It went further. Three of its four paragraphs on Asia’s many Churches, described in detail the region’s various Oriental Churches. The Asia-wide Latin Churches were summed up in just one para!

These were promising gestures. Yet, they failed to be more than tokens, as evident in Pope John Paul II’s 1999 post-synodal apostolic exhortation, “Ecclesia in Asia.” Although it said “Western Asia became a land of promise and hope for all mankind” because Jesus was born there, it did not focus on the region’s problems. The document dealt mostly with concerns of the Latin-rite Churches within the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).

Not that a West Asia Synod should shut out all FABC concerns. For example, West Asia currently hosts hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from FABC-member countries. And their voices should be heard at the synod. But issues related to West Asia go deeper, and should go beyond a Eurocentric mindset or a re-emerging Islamophobia.

Over the last millennium, political hang-ups of Christendom and the crusading spirit conditioned the psyche of many Western Christians. While some of them continue to be obsessed with fears of Eurabia, Muslims’ longstanding antipathy to colonial expansion prejudices their relations with a religion that has much in common with Islam.

These impact West Asian Churches and scar the faith and life of Christians there. These isolated Christians deserve the support of the worldwide Church far more than is currently extended to Churches in Eastern Europe. The synod will offer the Latin Church an opportunity to apologize for the historical negligence of West Asia.

Preparatory work for the synod needs to be open to the region’s religious reality. History shows how the hub of Christianity moved away from the land and culture of Jesus’ birth, while Islam remained close to its own roots. Both realities had their pluses and minuses, as much as the two faiths contributed in the fields of education and culture.

However, while Islamic society stayed largely monocultural and centralized, Christianity found its own historical sojourn a path to multiculturalism. Yet, Islam cannot be blamed for not acquiring the democratic nuances evolved during Christianity’s Western sojourn.

The proposed synod comes at a time of revival in the Islamic world. As evident in major projects like Qatar’s Education City, West Asia strives to educate the region’s youths for an age and an economy beyond the oil boom. Also, several countries of the region see the need for contextual democratization.

Christians can contribute much in both areas. However, if such a contribution is to be of service to West Asians, it has to be based on the religious roots of Christian education and Christian social doctrine. Not as a Western import with a political agenda.

They need a Christian witness to core democratic values as distinct from Western secularity which, for one reason or other, many Muslims consider depraved. And the Church’s re-focus on liturgy can find inspiration in the Mozarabic traditions that helped break new ground in a difficult era.

May the West Asia synod be a grace to the harried peoples of the shared homeland of Christianity and Islam. May it help them revert to their heritage of contemplative spirituality. May it also help eliminate Western hallucinations about Islam. Even despite endless fears of Islamic fundamentalism, such Spirit-led moves can rekindle hope for the rest of humanity as well, and prevent political hijacking of the Abrahamic tradition.

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Hector Welgampola, a Sri Lankan journalist, was Executive Editor of UCA News from 1987 until he retired in December 2001. His email address is welgampo@gmail.com

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