Asia is a complex continent in terms of religion, culture, and population. It is the womb of the largest world religions. Yet, the Catholic population occupies only 2.6 percent of the whole population among whom the Philippines contains half of the Catholic population in Asia. Compared to other religions in Asia, Christianity is not only a tiny group among others, but it is also the youngest religion. Except for Islam, Asian religions came into existence long before even the birth of Christianity.  Ancient temples and worshiping services through which the Asians encountered and experienced God permeated Asian religiosity whether they were Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, or Christians. Since religion influenced heavily the majority of Asian cultures and had great impacts on the social, economic and political life of Asian society, the Roman Catholic Church in Asia deems interreligious dialogue as a place of priority of church mission.  In the last 40 years, Asian bishops, religious, and lay men and women have joined their hearts to commit themselves to engaging in an open, sincere and continuing dialogue with people other religions. Given that many Christian families in Asia had ancestors who came from other faith traditions, Asian Christians had been shaped and nurtured by non- Christian values that formed their own ways of life and then passed on to the next generations in their family.

From church’s missionary perspectives, reaching out to other religions in Asia bears a profound missionary dimension.  The Asian church believed that dialogue with people of other religions continues God’s communication to the world. The church in Asia cannot build authentic local churches without taking seriously the challenge of the other religions and entering into dialogue with them. Many Asian Christians live and practice their faith from a larger worldview in which Asian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and ancestral worship had a great influence. Similarly, these religious elements cannot be separated from the Asian Christians when they practice peace (Buddhism), harmony between heaven and earth (Confucianism), detachment from the earthy world (Taoism), communion of souls (Ancestral worship).  These religious elements have permeated the Asian ways of life through a dynamic integration of various religious traditions into the Asian culture. 

Although external rituals such as liturgies and sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of Asia were very Western, religious values of Asian religions were incorporated in the consciousness of the Asian Catholic Christians.  In recent decades, men and women theologians in Asia have attempted to articulate the influences of Asian religions into the way in which Asian Christians live their Christian values such as emphatic love, peace of mind, compassion, detachment, immortality, communion of saints and other numerous values integrated by the Asian religions. If the values of Asian religions shaped the Asian ancestors, and through them, influenced the next generations, these religious values without doubt will continue to enrich the Christian faith as well as Asian’s ways of life through dialogue.  The Asian church believed that the great religious traditions can shed light on the truths of the Gospel and they can help us understand the riches of our faith.

From 1974 to 1984 theological articulation of other religions was more emphasized. During the first decade, the church in Asia attempted to educate Christians about the values of other religions in God’s salvific plan. Before Vatican II, religions in Asia had been considered as a group of pagans who needed to be baptized or converted so that they would be saved.  Moreover, negative teachings of the church about non-Christian religions had permeated minds and hearts of the majority of Christians including church leaders. Up to date, many Catholics still believe that only the church’s members will be saved.

The late 1980s saw a deep desire of the Asian church to promote engagement in dialogue at a more practical level through personal encounters between Christians and people of other religions. These encounters took place in various settings of life such as praying together and working together in a humanitarian project. The emphasis on praxis in dialogue in the 1980s showed a great effort to promote personal encounters in dialogue. In 1983, the FABC’s Consultation on Christian Presence Among Muslims in Asia affirmed that, dialogue is essentially between persons, not systems. This means that we encounter people of other religions as fellow pilgrims on that path to God, rather representative of a system of religious ideas. One can realize that there was a movement from institutional to institutional dialogue, to individual to individual in the encounters of these processes of dialogue. “Religions, as the church, are the service of the world, interreligious dialogue cannot be confined to the religious sphere but must embrace all dimensions of life: economic, socio-political, cultural and religious.”

Although Vatican II presented a positive view of non-Christian religions, it took great effort for the church in Asia to change the Asian Catholics’ perceptions of other religions. The Second Vatican Council affirmed that, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.”   Along with the Vatican Council’s positive view of other religions, the Asian bishops and theologians come to affirm that Asian religions are truly in God’s plan for salvation because they themselves have a living experience of other religions. They showed that values and characteristics of other religions such as compassion, non-violence, generosity, and prayer would enhance Christian spirituality. At the same time, the Asian church also acknowledged that difficulties and obstacles to the dialogue were a reality. As the Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs (BIRA) spelled out: “the connection of the Church with the colonialism of the past, inadequate inculturation, foreignness attributed to Christianity, mutual attitudes of religious and cultural superiority.” These issues became great obstacles to dialogue.  How to overcome these obstacles requires two main tasks. First, the church needed to reach out to people of other religions and create more frequent personal contacts through collaboration in educational, social and moral activities; second, there was a great need to incarnate the church in Asian cultures in liturgy, worship, symbols, lifestyle, and even its theology. In this aspect, interreligious dialogue would become an important process of inculturation.

With an emphasis on the Reign of God as the ultimate goal for mission, the Asian church sees that people of other religions are not only co-pilgrims toward the Reign of God but they are true builders of the Reign of God.  Therefore, people of other religions should become partners or collaborators with the church in making the Reign of God visibly present in the continent of Asia. Moreover, interreligious dialogue in this context bears a different face. The distinctive characteristic of the Asian church’s mission theology is an emphasis on dialogue that aims to put the church in daily contact with human fellows and to share with them their struggles, hopes, and religious experiences.  

I like to conclude with the Asian bishops’ deep gratitude and insightful appreciation of Asian religions as follows: