The Asian bishops speak to their faithful of violence and secularism, war and persecution, but recall how the risen Christ combats all of this for the sake of the victory of love.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Persecution, secularism, war and injustice take the battlefield, and lose against the love and truth of the dead and risen Christ.  This is the theme addressed by the Asian bishops in their Easter messages, released to the faithful in recent days: in spite of the many evils in the modern world, the hope of the risen Christ is the cure for the illnesses of modern societies.

From Hong Kong, Cardinal Zen writes: "Seeing the wounds of Jesus the disciples understood: Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are persecuted. They understood that salvation did not come from power and strength but from sacrifice and love . . . Easter is not just one day . . . Find time to come to Church and sit beside the Easter candle . . . open the Bible. Let the risen Jesus explain his teaching to us as he did so to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus".

From South Korea, each bishop addressed a message to his own diocese. Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, archbishop of Seoul, recalls how "through his resurrection, Christ demonstrates that truth, justice, and lawful always triumph.  Be witnesses of this miracle, today and every day of your lives".

But the archbishop of Daegu, John Choi Young-soo, attacks the hedonism and the extreme egoism that afflict Korean society: "The traditional values of the Church have been seriously challenged by arbitrary secular values. We should not spare any effort in filling the world with the blessing of our Lord's resurrection".

The situation is very different in Pakistan, where the Christian community is struggling for its physical survival. From Faisalabad, Fr Yaqoob Yousaf tells AsiaNews: "We arrange a Palm Sunday procession every year that marches through different streets of the parish, but now the situation is dangerous and we changed our plans".

To avoid violence and attacks, "the procession was limited to the interior of the church. Nonetheless, we ask God for protection and we entrust our lives to him.  Thanks to this, we have seen many people come to celebrate the Via Crucis, a sign that hope has not been extinguished".

There is a similar situation in Sri Lanka, devastated by a long civil war.  The Anglican bishop of Colombo, Duleep de Chickera, writes to his faithful: "The celebration of Easter in our beloved Sri Lanka today, ravaged, and torn apart by the ruthless greed and violent machinations of evil persons, brings us hope.  Because Christ has been raised from the dead, all that degrades, dehumanises and destroys the dignity of human life around us will not last".

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