SSPX News Archive Malaysia Asian Bishops Get Acquainted with Neocatechumenal Way Co-founders Say Movement Has a Place in the Continent KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia, APRIL 23, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Asian bishops received a lesson in the Neocatechumenal Way and the role it can play in the evangelization of their continent. More than 120 bishops attended the meeting here April 9-13, accompanied by itinerant teams of catechists and by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández, founders of the Way, Vatican Radio reported. A handful of bishops from Australia and Oceania also attended. The largest delegation, with 52 bishops, came from India. The debates focused on two fundamental questions: "How to evangelize Asia?" and "What is the Neocatechumenal Way?" For most of the participants, it was their first exposure to the Way, a spiritual renewal movement that began in Spain in 1964. Co-founder Argüello explained in the invitation letter that the meeting aimed "to concretely show the Asian bishops the way in which the itinerary of the Way can make its contribution to the evangelization" of that continent. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Holy See department that takes care of most Catholic local Churches in Asia, sent a message for the occasion. He wrote, in part: "To help you in your apostolic ministry the Holy Spirit, who inspires in every era impulse for greater fidelity to the Gospel, through the Second Vatican Council gave rise to valid tools -- one of these is the Neocatechumenal Way, to enable the Church to meet the longing for fullness of life and peace felt by men and women of today." In the homily of the event's closing Mass, Cardinal Paul Shan, bishop of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, said: "The Second Vatican Council was like a typhoon. We in the Pacific know the violence of typhoons: The branches of trees fall, but the forest is cleared. When it is all over, new branches grow with new vitality and new fruits. The Neocatechumenal Way is a real renewal, in keeping with apostolic tradition, in the service of the Church." The Neocatechumenal Way is present in more than 750 Asian communities in 16 nations and 75 dioceses. Last week's meeting was the sixth organized by the movement with the bishops of various continents. ZE02042302   SSPX Note: Please see also the Neo-Catechumenal Way: a heresy encouraged by Rome from the July-August 1999 Asia Newsletter. Note: this link is in no way endorsed by ZENIT or part of the ZENIT story above.   Catholic Churches Attacked in Malaysia ROME, OCT. 18, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Arson attempts against Catholic churches in Malaysia might be a reaction to the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan, unofficial Church sources reported. Arsonists last Saturday tried to burn down the Catholic Church of Christ the King in Sungai Petani, in the northern state of Kedah, the Malaysian Prime Minister´s home state. The church was locked, and the vandals only succeeded in burning some furniture which was near the windows. Workers who arrived Saturday morning saw the church filled with smoke and the doors burned. On Sunday morning, in the southern state of Johore, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the door of St. Philip´s Catholic Church in Segamat. The door was burned, but not the tabernacle, where another Molotov cocktail failed to explode. Malaysia has 22 million people, most of them Muslim. Catholics number about 712,000, Church data show. Code: ZE01101801   back to Malasia page