Pope Francis on Thursday met with a group from Taiwan’s United Association of Humanistic Buddhism, Chunghua, calling the visit a privileged occasion that made the encounter between different religious cultures possible.
The association led a delegation of more than 100 people to the Vatican under the invitation of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the Taiwanese embassy to the Holy See said.
The visit is to “promote interreligious exchange and communication in the post-pandemic era,” it added.
Photo courtesy of the Embassy to the Holy See
The group met with Pope Francis to pray for people around the world to resolve international conflicts and “cast light into the darkness,” the embassy said.
Buddhist master Hsin Bao (心保) of the Fo Guang Shan (佛光山) monastery presented two portraits of the pope created by Taiwanese children as gifts, it said.
The paintings symbolize the pope’s great love for the world and the blessings from Taiwan, Hsin Bao said, adding that the trip aims to promote tolerance and harmony between Eastern and Western religions, the embassy said.
The pope said the portraits were impressive, and expressed his hope to promote cross-cultural dialogue and world peace through religious exchanges, it said.
At a time marked by “a continued acceleration of changes affecting humanity and the planet,” religions are needed more than ever to foster fraternity by promoting cultural encounters, Vatican News cited the Pope as saying.
“An interreligious educational pilgrimage can be a source of great enrichment, offering multiple opportunities for us to encounter one another, to learn from one another and to appreciate our various experiences,” the pope was quoted as saying.
After meeting Francis, the delegation attended the “Five Loaves and Two Fishes” art exhibition at the embassy to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his pontification.
The embassy on Tuesday hosted an opening ceremony for the exhibition, which features 27 sculptures by Taiwanese artist Tseng Ying-tung (曾英棟).
Inspired by the “miracle of the five loaves and two fishes” in the Gospel of John, the exhibition echoes Pope Francis’ third encyclical letter, Fratelli tutti (“All brothers”), Ambassador to the Holy See Matthew Lee (李世明) said.
The exhibition shows Taiwan to the world as a force for good, he said, adding that the nation enjoys cooperating with the Holy See in promoting world peace, democracy, human rights, humanitarian assistance and environmental protection.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday sent a message to the pope to wish him “good health, resilience and success as you continue to promote human dignity, fundamental rights, democracy and freedom across the world.”
“Together on the path of fraternity, justice and peace, Taiwan and the Holy See have been working to address significant challenges to help those most in need,” the president said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater