The Vatican commenced its eighth Buddhist-Christian Colloquium on 27 May in Cambodia, bringing together representatives of both religions to discuss the promotion of peace in Asia. Prefect for the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue Cardinal George Koovakad delivered a short speech on the first day of the May 27–29 conference on “Buddhists and Christians Working Together for Peace through Reconciliation and Resilience,” highlighting the significance of the two religions’ common commitment to peace, Vatican News reported. “Together, as Buddhists and Christians, let us explore how reconciliation and resilience can help shape peaceful and compassionate societies,” Koovakad said.
Approximately 150 people from Cambodia and abroad are participating in the three-day meeting organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh, Saint Paul Institute, Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, and the MAGGA Jesuit Research Centre.
Since 1995, the Vatican has held a series of Buddhist-Christian meetings in different countries to advance mutual understanding and collaboration between the Church and non-Christian religions in the spirit of Pope Paul VI’s Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate released in 1965. The last Buddhist-Christian Colloquium in 2023 was held in Bangkok and focused on the theme of “healing a wounded humanity and the earth.”

Eight decades after the partition of the Korean peninsula, the Catholic Church in South Korea remains one of the few actors that, with perseverance and faith, keeps alive the hope for reconciliation between the two Koreas. “Hatred and suspicion can never be a solution,” Bishop Simon Kim Jong-Gang, president of the Korean Reconciliation Commission, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
Last month, the Korean bishop led a pilgrimage to Kyodong Island on the border with North Korea in a gesture that highlighted the Church’s commitment to reconciliation between the two countries. The bishops walked along the three-mile barbed-wire fence on the island that has divided the two countries since the Korean War (1950–1953) and prayed that the two countries would put their differences behind them.
For 80 years, soldiers on both sides of the demarcation line at the Panmunjom Peace Village in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas have stood guard face to face, armed and under the pressure that any minor incident could trigger a new war. In 2018, as part of agreements between the two countries to build mutual trust, the Joint Security Area was cleared of firearms and military posts. But this openness was short-lived. In early 2020, North Korea closed its borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic and again ordered its soldiers to shoot at any movement across the border.
Kim noted that there are no exchanges between South and North Korea. “It’s impossible to meet people, exchange letters or phone calls, or even send emails between the two sides of Korea.”

Pope Francis’ call for ecolo-gical conversion has transformed hearts and communities world-wide. In Malaysia, the late Pope’s call for climate responsibility has flourished, with churches leading the movement for environmental stewardship. Inspired by the late Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, which came out ten years ago, the Catholic Church in Malaysia is converting used cooking oil into biofuels, planting trees, cutting single-use plastics, recycling candles, and pledging to live out a “deep ecological spirituality.”
In 2023, the country’s bishops signed an Ecological Diocese Pledge, committing parishes to live out “deep ecological spiritua-lity” and advance environmental justice across the country.
All nine bishops in Malaysia initially signed the pledge, before encouraging all the country’s parish priests to do so as well. The document includes ecological protocols, self-monitoring forms, and other documents designed to assist each diocese and parish in their ecological transition, with a focus on reducing carbon foot-prints and fostering community resilience.
The text of the pledge reads, “The Roman Catholic Parish of (name), Malaysia, hereby decla-res its pledge to be an Ecological Diocese in perpetuity, living out a deep ecological spirituality and advancing ecological justice and resilience for all creation, by pursuing decarbonised pathways and the building of community and Earth resilience, according to the Ecological Diocese Protocols appended to this pledge, to the best of its ability and creativity within local circumstances.”
The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Julian Leow Beng Kim, told Vatican News that Pope Francis “truly highlighted the existential problem of climate change with the encyclical Laudato si’ and the more recent and urgent call to action of Laudate Deum.”
“The world is indeed in crisis, and the whole of humanity must respond and have an integral conversion now before it is too late,” Archbishop Julian said. He added that he is encouraging all parishes in the Archdiocese to undergo an ecological conversion, saying that “although much has been done, much more is needed locally and globally to tackle this climate crisis.”

As the National Eucharistic Revival comes to an end in the United States this year, many believe there is a need for a global Eucharistic revival in other parts of the world — including the Philippines. Empty adoration chapels in the majority-Catholic country and lack of belief in the Real Presence are leading more parishes to implement a simple initiative called the “Holy Hour Pledge” and call for more catechesis.
Filipino-American priest Father James Cervantes of the Marians of the Immaculate Conce-ption (MIC) lamented the phenomenon throughout different parishes across the Philippines, despite its renown as the largest Catholic nation in Asia and the third largest in the world.
“I came here to Manila just a year and a half ago. I noticed there are a lot of adoration chapels where Jesus is exposed, but they’re empty and abandoned. I was puzzled. I thought, ‘OK, maybe this is just one.’ But then I visited another church and another, across different cities – and again, Jesus was exposed, but they were all empty. In the U.S. and in Poland, this wouldn’t even be allowed. All I could think was, ‘Oh Lord, no one is in here, I’m so sorry Lord.’” Cervantes recounted a tragic situation in one of the Manila parishes whereby the monstrance – with the consecrated host – was stolen by thieves inside an empty adoration chapel.

Caritas Indonesia’s 2025 National Network Meeting was held from 21 to 24 May at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Confe-rence of Indonesia (KWI), in central Jakarta. The biennial meeting brought together the main actors of the Catholic Church’s huma-nitarian network to renew their commitment to cooperation, environmental justice and inclusive development across Indonesia. The theme echoed the Jubilee motto with hope at its centre.
The event fostered spiritual and strategic reflection, with participants urged to deepen their shared mission of mercy and solidarity. “The National Meeting is a vital opportunity to nurture synergy and strengthen the spirit of fraternal cooperation among diocesan Caritas offices nationwide,” said Emeritus Bishop Aloysius Sudarso SCJ, Chairman of the Karina Foundation’s Governing Board. “This spirit must guide our efforts in disaster response and long-term humanitarian programmes,” he added.
Now in the third year of the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan, Caritas Indonesia’s commit-ment is more on green initiatives. During the event, the dioceses presented their best pra-ctices for the care of Creation, in line with Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. “These ecological programmes reflect our commit-ment to care for our common home,” Bishop Sudarso said, expressing hope that the meeting would generate follow-up actions to scale up environmental work across the country.