BRISBANE, Australia (UCAN) -- The Beijing Olympics will open at 8:00 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month in the eighth year of this century.

The Chinese obviously consider "8" a lucky number.

It also had symbolic value in the homeland of the Olympics. The Greek letter theta [Θ] resembles the number 8, and the combination of three 8's is linked to local deities and even to the Greek name for Jesus [Ιησούς].

Hector Welgampola

Whatever the mystique of 8 in ancient Sino-Greco civilizations or in modern Gucci accessories for the 2008 Olympics, what excites the business world more than a confluence of numbers is the convergence of China's economic indices.

Beijing's US$1.6 trillion in exchange reserves lure big business, and its Olympic bid was part of a package deal to open a new Silk Road. China looks to more than gain face through the event, while world trade lobbies set their eyes far beyond economic deals and push a market cult. In that super stake, sports are a tool for political leverage linked ever-expanding economic power.

Even before the earthquake struck Sichuan province on May 12, China felt political quakes of diplomatic muscle-flexing. Selective human rights that generally do not enthuse big business came to the front burner. Protests by Myanmar monks, Tibetan lamas and Xinjiang Islamists layered a new "great wall" to stonewall China, this time from outside.

Undeterred, China tries to forge a new superpower equation as this century's key Southern leader. Meanwhile, the U.S. Catholic weekly America, inferring a European Union bid for Northern leadership, asserted in its Aug. 4 issue, "The dollar has collapsed. The euro is king."

Unfortunately, way ahead of mooting a Mediterranean Union, the EU abandoned its Christian roots for secularism. In the aftermath, many West European youths began moving to a post-secular phase alongside the move of their East European peers to a post-atheistic phase.

If, as Cicero said, religio (religion) is rooted in a move to relego (reconnect), these discerning youths seek to reconnect with spirituality. Their search for life's meaning has birthed new trends, within and beyond the ecclesial. Some seek spirituality in service, others in healing or immersion in the sacred. A search for the transcendental draws still others to rituals.

While Asia's rulers blindly strive for material affluence and one can debate whether or not the Falun Gong movement banned by China is a similar phenomenon, young Asians numinously share a quest for life's deeper meaning.

Was the reference of Pope Benedict XVI to "mystical theologies of Asia" at a general audience in Rome on May 14 inspired by insights of such trends alongside the surging economies of two Himalayan neighbors, China and India? For sure, the hope of Asia's future Church impinges greatly on these two emerging giants. A spiritual thirst is reviving the faith of many young Westerners. At the same time, the ascetic mysticism of Indian Christianity and the Confucian pragmatism of Chinese Christianity reflect the search of young Asians beyond merely material prosperity in a new Middle Kingdom.

In Asia, the old saying "martyrs seed Christianity" takes on a new meaning amid today's white martyrdom of living the faith, rather than dying for it.

The struggle of India's deprived Christians who are dalit (former untouchables) to live their faith is a daily martyrdom of attrition.

Likewise, Chinese Christians' silent struggle to maintain the faith has been a martyrdom of endurance for more than five decades. Their vibrant faith and grace-filled spirituality look beyond juridical or administrative paradigms. Their longing for faith communion with the worldwide Church unlikely will be bothered by issues such as diplomatic relations.

This may explain why the Holy See is now sending pastoral messages directly to Chinese and Vietnamese faithful trapped in political limbo.

When China took back Hong Kong in 1997, some Church people saw prophetic signs for Asia's Church because the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences is based in that city. But such prospects are whittling away like an untapped grace. Likewise, India and the Philippines had long been theologizing capitals of the Church in Asia, but that fervor also has begun to wane.

Even if expectations seem to go awry due to human limitations, faith is by no means on the decline in the Asian Church. Faith blossoms in ever-new forms.

A veteran missioner in Japan testified to the faith of Japanese Catholics when he recently said Japan is home to not only 1 million Catholics but also 4 million other people who think Catholic. It is one more sign that Jesus' "little flock" in much of Asia is insightful in faith and witness.

Just as in the silently enduring faith communities scattered all over China and India, such witnesses in the crucible of other Asian lands will hopefully respond to young Asians who keep searching. They are Asia's new Diaspora, as seen at the recent World Youth Day, which some called a spiritual Olympics.

The Church flourished in silent communion during the age of the desert fathers and mystics. Similarly, the Spirit can gradually network a borderless pilgrim Church that no longer bargains between believing and belonging.

As John Baxter's Song to the Holy Spirit rejoices, the Spirit blows "like the wind in a thousand paddocks inside and outside the fences..."
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Hector Welgampola, a Sri Lankan journalist, was Executive Editor of UCA News from 1987 until he retired in December 2001.

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