BANGALORE, India (UCAN) -- A Vatican official wants the Church in South Asia to promote justice and human dignity as part of its responsibility in the region, where Christians are a small minority.

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, was addressing a colloquium on justice, peace and development in South Asia in the light of Catholic social teaching.

For the Church in the region, "above all there is the duty to meet a widespread and enormous need for justice," the cardinal told some 65 participants from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The justice, peace and development commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India organized the Sept. 16-19 colloquium in Bangalore, 2,060 kilometers south of New Delhi.

"My first wish is that the Church in South Asia, as mother and teacher, will always be generously, and in all her facets, at the service of man," Cardinal Martino said on the concluding day.

Catholics, he added, should always work mindful of the Church's treasury of teachings on "the social doctrine," which aims to be the "guide of consciences at this time of profound social and cultural transformation."

The Church's social concern aims at integral development "of man and society (and) the authentic promotion of the person," the cardinal continued. For this reason, "the Church claims the social commitment as her duty and right."

Following the Church's social doctrines demands an expression of a commitment to the service of evangelization, which clarifies the relation between the Gospel and social life, he explained. "Thus the Church's social teaching is itself a valid instrument of evangelization."

According to Cardinal Martino, the expectations of people in South Asia are "very far from being fulfilled," despite having "great availability of means and the growth of democratic sensibility."

Thus "it becomes important to engage in building a culture, an economy and politics open to solidarity and peace" he said. "As a pilgrim in history, the Church is aware that she is the traveling companion of the men and women of our time."

Cardinal Martino was scheduled to open the colloquium but reached Bangalore only on the final day. In his absence Archbishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, apostolic nuncio to India, inaugurated the colloquium. The archbishop read the opening address Cardinal Martino had prepared.

The cardinal explained during his talk the reason why he missed the colloquium's opening. Following a late development, he led a Sept. 16 function in Rome that opened the canonization cause for Vietnamese Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, his predecessor at the pontifical council.

Established on an experimental basis by Pope Paul VI in 1967, and given permanent status in 1976, the council promotes justice and peace worldwide.

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