{"id":34533,"date":"2019-10-30T09:55:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T09:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=34533"},"modified":"2019-10-30T09:55:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T09:55:31","slug":"popes-visit-to-asia-a-model-for-anti-christian-neighbours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2019\/10\/30\/popes-visit-to-asia-a-model-for-anti-christian-neighbours\/","title":{"rendered":"POPE\u2019S VISIT TO ASIA: A MODEL FOR ANTI CHRISTIAN NEIGHBOURS"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Pope Francis has said that Asia would be a priority in his pontificate, and he will be visiting the region again next month, when he visits Japan and Thailand in November. The pontiff has spoken about a desire in his youth to serve as a missionary in Asia, but he never got the opportunity with the Jesuits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His visit will highlight two countries in Asia where miniscule Catholic populations live in peace with non-Christian majorities, hopefully as models for their neighbors, where the religious majority often sees the continent\u2019s Christian population as a threat to their power.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Anti-Christian persecution has long been a problem in authoritarian communist countries in the region: North Korea is considered to be the worst place on Earth to be a Christian, and the communist parties in China and Vietnam try to keep their local churches under the thumbs of apparatchiks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even the Philippines &#8211; one of only two majority-Catholic countries in the region has seen an upsurge in violence after a relative calm following a peace deal with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Of course, the most famous prominent Islamist attack was the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka which left over 250 people dead, and 500 others injured.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is where Pope Francis\u2019s trip itinerary could prove to be a masterstroke.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis has said that Asia would be a priority in his pontificate, and he will be visiting the region again next month, when he visits Japan and Thailand in November. The pontiff has spoken about a desire in his youth to serve as a missionary in Asia, but he never got the opportunity with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>POPE\u2019S VISIT TO ASIA: A MODEL FOR ANTI CHRISTIAN NEIGHBOURS - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2019\/10\/30\/popes-visit-to-asia-a-model-for-anti-christian-neighbours\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"POPE\u2019S VISIT TO ASIA: A MODEL FOR ANTI CHRISTIAN NEIGHBOURS - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pope Francis has said that Asia would be a priority in his pontificate, and he will be visiting the region again next month, when he visits Japan and Thailand in November. 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