Sizing up the Church in Taiwan. (News in Brief: Taiwan).

Kaoshiung--A glance across the Formosa Strait to the Democratic Republic of Taiwan may give us some pointers towards how the Catholic Church would fare if full religious liberty were granted in mainland China.

This information is based on a missionary agency Fides (November 2002), interview with the Bishop of Kaoshiung, Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-shi. The cardinal's general comment on Taiwanese society is that it "became more industrialized, urbanized, and consumerist. People think only of material things, neglecting the spiritual side of life." A great problem for the Church there is the lack of vocations.

Of 600 priests on the island, 500 are over the age of 60 and there are only 50 seminarians. He had, however, great praise for the commitment of the Taiwanese laity. Laypeople are a moving force in the evangelization of the country and co-operate with clergy to place a major focus on family life. At the end of the 1940s, there were fewer than 10,000 Catholics. Today, there are 300,000.

The Bishops' Conference of Taiwan has also expended much effort to implement the guidelines of Pope John Paul's letter Ecclesia in Asia (November 1999). One of their initiatives was to translate the document into Chinese and distribute it within mainland China and Hong Kong (Zenit, Dec. 6/02).