Encountering Christ in Harmony (2018)

Encountering Christ in Harmony: A Pastoral Response to Our Asian and Pacific Island Brothers and Sisters, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

The document Encountering Christ in Harmony: A Pastoral Response to Our Asian and Pacific Island Brothers and Sisters was developed by the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Island Affairs under the direction of the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It was approved by the full body of bishops as a formal statement of the same at its June 2018 General Meeting and has been authorized for publication by the undersigned.  

Msgr. Brian Bransfield, General Secretary, USCCB 

The USCCB’s pastoral statement Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith (2001) encouraged the creation of a national pastoral plan. There were several programs and processes initiated immediately after the publication of that statement: regional gatherings, national pastoral institutes, learning seminars, listening sessions, a national summit in 2006, and the formation of national organizations. Many of these initiatives were not connected to one another or were started by different groups. Thus, some of these programs existed for a period of time and then were discontinued, surfacing a need for a more consistent and viable process of bringing together the Asian and Pacific Island communities. 

In 2008, the creation of the Committee and Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church and the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Island Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) presented a new opportunity to reconsider pastoral ministry to and among Asian and Pacific Island Catholics in the United States. In 2013, the subcommittee began a three-year process to create a national pastoral plan for Asian and Pacific Island Catholics. The scope of this proposed plan admittedly did not include Eastern Catholic communities from the Middle East; their issues and needs were deemed to carry a certain urgency and distinction that would be difficult to encompass in the daunting task of establishing a common thread for those communities coming from this territory.  

asian-and-pacific-island-pastoral-response-encountering-christ-in-harmony-2018.pdf