austraLasia
1483
WCB meeting in Rome
- interview with Philip Yu
ROME: 8th March
2006 -- WCB must be one of the most widespread acronyms in the world!
For some readers it will refer to one or other Cricket Board no doubt, but
'Philip Yu' is the giveaway, unless Hong Kong still has a flourishing cricket
team. Instead, in these parts, it refers to a World Consultative Body,
this time of the Salesian Cooperators. Philip Yu is the Regional ASC
Coordinator for EAO. Rome being Rome, it took rather longer for the trip
from the airport to the Pisana than it did for the Paris-Rome sector of his
flight! Fiumicino-Pisana today took two hours instead of the usual 15
minutes. Rather more like Bangkok than quiet extra-suburban Rome, so it
gave one ample time to talk with Philip about developments in the EAO-ASC part
the Family.
The outstanding success story of the Region at
the moment appears to be Korea, where thirty plus units have sprung up, with a
strong formation programme. Many of these units are based on married
couples. It certainly seems to be working well. The Korean Salesian
Cooperators have apostolic works in their own right, including one 'reception'
centre where they take in youngsters who face problems at home. This is
not only true of Korea. Philip was also able to speak with pride of his own
China Province where the Cooperators have developed a centre to help youngsters
with their homework. The China Units also came very much to the fore
during the recent centenary celebrations where each branch of the Salesian
Family had a role to play. The ASC looked after accommodation details for
visitors, airport transfers and the like.
There are parts
of our region where the ASC may not exist officially, but this does not prevent
them from meeting and being active and indeed flourishing. He was not
talking of his own province in this instance. There is also one part of
the region where Cooperator units have not existed until now, not because of any
government strictures but for a host of other historical reasons. But
there are plans afoot to develop the ASC in ITM and in actual fact there are
very many cooperators with a small 'c' in both Indonesia and East Timor.
It simply remains to organise this more formally and to establish a formation
programme, which is essential. Philip expressed his delight and gratitude
at the help he has received from Fr. Bob Bossini of AUL, especially in his work
with documentation, unitised formation programmes and the
like.
Elsewhere the ASC is active too - Philippines,
Japan, Thailand were amongst three areas Philip spoke enthusiastically of.
In Thailand the ASC has been strongly involved in post-Tsunami reconstruction,
assisted by the Japan ASC who have raised substantial funds to this
end.
The WCB meeting is in proximate preparation for the
World ASC Congress to be held in Rome later this year. One of the central
matters for both meetings is to finalise the new Regulation of Apostolic Life or
RAL. These will now be more like the standard two part set of
constitutions and regulations to be found amongst the SDBs and will also bring
the ASCs in line with contemporary developments in lay apostolic spirituality
and action.
GLOSSARY
WCB: World Consultative Body
ASC: Association of
Salesian Cooperators
EAO: East Asia-Oceania
ITM: Indonesia-East
Timor
AUL: Australia
RAL: Regulations of Apostolic
Life
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