wfn.org | Catholic Church in Taiwan celebrates 150th anniversary

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3013 Edition

>November 23~29, 2009

Catholic Church in Taiwan celebrates 150th anniversary

>Reported by Lin Yi-ying

>Written by Lydia Ma

It was 150 years ago (or 1859) when the first Catholic missionary  set foot in Taiwan and

began sharing the good news in Kaohsiung. To commemorate Taiwan  Catholic Church’s

150th anniversary, about 16,000 people packed Linkou Gymnasium on  November 21 for a

celebration rally. Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou was among them.

Cardinal Jozef Tomko, who had visited Taiwan on three previous  occasions, also attended

celebrations and presided over the Mass. PCT General Assembly  Moderator Leonard Lin

and Vice-Moderator Lai Hsien-chang represented the PCT at the  rally.

What makes this rally unique is the partnership between the  Catholic Church and the PCT in

leading people to Christ during the altar call. According to  reports, a one-on-one evangelistic

technique widely used among PCT churches in recent years was  adopted by the Catholic

Church this time and hundreds of people made a commitment to  follow Christ for the first time.

To mark this special occasion, the Catholic Church chose to use  lively worship music

commonly used among Protestant Churches at the beginning and at  the end of the rally.

Priests, nuns, and the rest of the congregation sang joyously as  they worshiped their King of

>Kings.

During celebrations, Cardinal Tomko announced that, to commemorate  Kaohsiung as the

place where Catholicism began in Taiwan, Rome had decided to  appoint an Archbishop of

Kaohsiung. Before that time, Taiwan’s Catholic Church only  had one archbishop, which is the

Archbishop of Taipei. Kaohsiung Bishop Peter Liu was chosen to  join Archbishop of Taipei

>John Hung as archbishops of Taiwan.

To address the problem of declining membership, the Catholic  Church had planned from the

beginning to use its anniversary to increase awareness of the  church among mainstream

Taiwanese society as well as preach the gospel. For this reason,  it contacted PCT a few

months earlier to arrange staff training on how to introduce the  gospel more effectively. A

training seminar on “one-on-one evangelism” led by a  Taoyuan PCT pastor was held on

August 15, drawing about 250 Catholics. These efforts paid off in  the end when hundreds of

people who’d never heard of the gospel before rose up from  their seats during the rally to

>accept Christ as their personal Savior.

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