10/17/2018, 15.15
ASIA-VATICAN
Send to a friend

AsiaNews Symposium 2018: 'accompany' young people who resist (Video)

The conference aims to be a contribution to the Synod on young people taking place in the Vatican. Testimonies from Iraq, China, Cambodia, Brazil, Hong Kong. Direct experiences of missionaries who "put themselves alongside" the sufferings, difficulties and joys of the new generations, not content with merely studying them.

Rome (AsiaNews) – Analysis, studies and statistics on the life and habits of young people today are not enough, "there is need of a missionary experience, of witnesses". It is with this sentiment that the AsiaNews Symposium on "Youth who resist" took place yesterday in Rome, organized by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, PIME missionary and editor-in-chief. Together with him, yesterday at the conference - which aimed to be a contribution to the Synod on young people, under way in the Vatican - priests and educators from China, Cambodia, Brazil and Iraq took part, speaking of their experiences with young people. Some of them are direct witnesses of wars, religious and political persecution, and have decided to remain in their original societies because of that impulse to accompany, to stand next to each other, which is the teaching of Christ; others are missionaries in foreign countries and their beacon is always Christ, who invites us to "go out into the whole world" and preach the Gospel.

Fr. Paolo from Iraq spoke, among other things, of how he tried to curb the hemorrhaging of young people from the Nineveh Plain, and the joy of priestly and matrimonial vocations despite the presence of the Islamic State (ISIS); Fr. Luca from Cambodia spoke of the challenges posed by modernity and depopulation of the villages; John from Hong Kong described the despair of young people when one day, during a Way of the Cross, the police forced them to suspend the prayer at the seventh station and how they wanted to continue despite the ban, but "in fact - says the educator - it was not necessary : they had experienced the 14th station, Jesus being placed in the Sepulchre ". Finally, the testimony of Fr. Marcelo, who described how his vocation was born and highlights some characteristic traits of today's young people, young people who "ask pertinent questions" and want concrete answers; but who above all,  "demand credible witnesses", that is people they trust who do not only make beautiful speeches but experience the Gospel in their own life.

 

Bernardo Cervellera: Young people who resist

 

Luca Bolelli: Cambodia, young people a leading role in Church and society

 

Giovanni Pang Chenyu: The houses in Hong Kong and the Via crucis in China

Father Paolo Thabet Mekko: Rebuilding the Nineveh Plain with the young

Marcelo Farias dos Santos: Young restless, looking for answers from 'credible witnesses'

TAGs
Send to a friend
Printable version
CLOSE X
See also
2018 AsiaNews Symposium: Fr Marcelo on restless youth, looking for answers from 'credible witnesses'
16/10/2018 20:10
2018 AsiaNews Symposium: Young people’s leading role in Cambodia’s Church and society
16/10/2018 16:20
AsiaNews Symposium 2018: Young people who resist
16/10/2018 11:37
Church leads the way in helping Vietnam cope with its educational emergency
11/03/2016 17:00
Synod for the Amazon: Card Stella hails the ‘great beauty’ of celibacy in a priest’s life
24/10/2019 17:56


Newsletter

Subscribe to Asia News updates or change your preferences

Subscribe now
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”