What is the significance of Father Malones award for the Church in Asia?
BISHOP JULIO XAVIER LABAYEN: The FABC, which Father Malone helped build, brought together bishops’ conferences throughout Asia, and that’s why it has become influential. The bishops realized Churches in Asia in countries with different cultures have to come together and discover how they can relate with one another. With FABC, bishops have learned to respect the cultures of fellow bishops and to practice ecumenism. What is a concrete example of this “coming together”? Let me give you a personal example. Through my involvement with FABC I got very close to (then) Archbishop Shirayanagi. Another bishop in the 1970s in Tokyo archdiocese told me FABC also made him feel “very challenged.” Soon, this young bishop would be seen in pictures in the streets of Tokyo with a bullhorn to his mouth promoting justice and peace. The young Auxiliary Bishop Hamao of Tokyo was later made cardinal and assigned to social-justice work in Rome. Were the two future cardinals involved in FABC social-justice wo
