We soldier on!

White smoke or not coming from the Sistine Chapel, life moves on and we must soldier on.  Rome seems a long way from Thailand and the Thai Church where what rules the day is the local scene and culture.  Any argument or difference is settled here by the locals with the one line - This is Thailand or That is Thai culture.  That just stops all discussion and the day is won by the local. 

It reminds me that I was just at a three day seminar on migration in Southeast Asia.  They were looking at the ASEAN Charter and how one of its pillars is to live together on the basis of peace and harmony but, as one pointed out, it is peace and harmony based on the terms demanded by those in power and not on anyone else's terms.

The Thai Church lives in its own world run, as I see it, on two ideologies - doing business and presenting the good face of a structured, ordered and wealthy institution.  For me, both speak of its downside.  Face just doesn't work and that is true for the whole Church as I see a Church losing the plot because of hypocrisy and not just at the level of the Vatican.  What I see that would concern me about the Thai Church is that, being so young and so small and so sure of itself, that it runs the risk of being a Thai, Buddhist ghetto in a universal Church that is so rich in theology, history and tradition.

We soldier on, knowing our own fragility and vulnerability and being able to see something else beyond institutional visions.   

Then I see our new Pope, a Jesuit from Argentina.  What very little I quickly read shows a humble man who walks and uses the metro rather than a chauffeur driven car, a man who favours his priests who work with the poor.  Then he chose the name, Francis, and St Francis was a humble man of his time on about reform of the Church.  This election gives one a new sense of hope in a dated Church that is so out of touch.  Habemus Papam!