VATICAN - Cardinal Sepe addresses Thai Bishop: “As we are at the beginning of the Third Millennium, I can only remind that the Church in Thailand is called to a new missionary momentum”

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Addressing the Bishops of Thailand on Friday 26 November in Bangkok, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, assured them of the Pope’s warm greetings and blessing and gratitude for their efforts to make the Church in Thailand grow. The meeting took place at the Residence of Cardinal Michael Michai Kitbunchu.
“As we are at the beginning of the Third Millennium, I can only remind that the Church in Thailand is called to a new missionary momentum” the Cardinal said in his address to the Bishops, in which he stressed that missionary formation must be the local Church’s principle commitment. In this context the Cardinal said that evangelisation must be a key element in ordinary pastoral work in parishes, and lay associations and movements. “The role of the Pontifical Mission Societies must be promoted in the diocese to co-ordinate and promote missionary activity at the parish level”. Authentic Theology in keeping with Christianity’s twenty centuries of tradition and the Magisterium of Mission must be taught in seminaries and formation centres for religious: the subject is of special importance for communities living among other Christian confessions and religious sects.
Cardinal Sepe encouraged the Bishops to give special attention to the formation of priests, because “the future of the Church and especially the future growth of the Church in Thailand as in all Particular Churches, depends to a good extent on the quality of its clergy”. Care must be given to both initial and on-going formation for the clergy. Lastly the Prefect of the Missionary Congregation stressed the importance of the family in the life of the Church, as a recent plenary assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences FABC underlined, and the contribution which Catholic education offers in this pastoral field in schools and religious institutes.
On Saturday 27 November, the Cardinal celebrated Mass at the shrine of Blessed Nicholas in Sampran in the presence of seminarians and male and female religious novices. In his homily, speaking of a vocation as a special call from God, Cardinal Sepe underlined the necessity for “sound and integral formation” both cultural and spiritual, in order to respond worthily to this extraordinary gift and offer Christian communities “holy priests, authentic witnesses of God’s love”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 27/11/2004; righe 30; parole 390)