SINGAPORE – As Pope Francis departs Singapore, local Catholics were expressing gratitude for his three-day visit and expressing the conviction that for his message of fraternity, tolerance and dialogue to be assimilated, it’s critical to start with the young.
Cindy Soon, a teacher at Saint Joseph’s Convent, a government-aided Catholic secondary school for girls, told Crux that the pope’s message on the importance of dialogue and multilateralism is appreciated by locals.
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Singapore, she said, is “a multiracial society, multi-religious, and we respect all races and we also have now inbuilt in our society this idea of respecting each other. We are all different cultures, but we have come together, and we are one Singapore.”
“So, when you talk about that unity and how can Singapore do it, I guess we continue to forge that kind of trust and that base for understanding each other,” she said, voicing her belief that “it starts in school.”
School is a place where children of different races and religious are all part of the same class, and is where they learn “to mix with each other and they grow up without that discrimination.”
“They don’t see somebody of a different skin color and all that. In fact, they’re all friends and basically, we are all Singaporeans,” she said.
Soon spoke ahead of the pope’s Sept. 13 Mass in Singapore, which is his last stop before returning to Rome after a sprawling 12-day tour of Asia and Oceania that has also taken him to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor.
After meeting privately with the bishops, clergy and religious of Singapore and holding a public event with young people Friday morning, he boarded his Singapore Airlines flight back to Rome.
Speaking to Crux, Alan Lai, a Catholic preschool teacher whose students range in age from 18 months to six years old, said he believes that “age definitely plays a part in the ability to understand the teachings,” and that starting young helps.
“What’s even more important is that the family, the community and everybody play a part in explaining them to live the life in a godly way,” he said, saying, “age doesn’t matter” when it comes to teaching the essentials.
“In fact, all the more on the contrary, the earlier you start, the better it is,” he said.
Lai voiced his hope that as a result of the pope’s visit, both his students and his own children would learn the importance of “love.”
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“Nothing is more important than the fundamental love for each other. And I like especially what the pope has said, that whether is it rivers or trees, they don’t survive for themself. They exist for others,” he said.
The reason love is so important, he said, “is that these kids must learn to appreciate how to love others, for them to be able to flourish as a community together. And that’s important for us.”
Jackie Yap, a volunteer who helped organize the papal Mass, voiced excitement for the pope’s visit, noting that the last time a pope visited, when John Paul II came in 1986, “I wasn’t even born yet.”
“So it is really exciting for myself as well to be able to be a part of this really huge event,” he said, speaking to Crux.
Yap said Pope Francis has been “a very, very influential person for us as Catholics,” and that the pope’s commitment to caring for the poor and the environment have been especially inspirational.
“These are things that I personally feel (are) the highlight of his of his pontificate. And these are things that are also reminders for us as practitioners of the faith to try to uphold as well in our own daily lives,” he said.
Pointing to Singapore’s diverse racial and ethnic population, Yap said this diversity has been present in Singapore since its independence, and he believes “it’s one of the most important reasons why Singapore is what it is today, this multiculturalism.”
“You know, for all of us to be able to participate in each other’s practices and whatnot” is key, he said, jesting that “this is one of the highlights of Singapore, apart from food!”
Soon said non-Catholics are less familiar with the pope and his teachings, but that there is a greater awareness about the pope among young people.”
She said all of the girls at her school know who Pope Francis is, and have classes on religious education in which they “delve deeper” into the Catholic Church, the figure of the pope, and “what he stands for.”
“We imbibe a lot of these values in all our lessons,” she said.
Speaking of the importance Pope Francis has placed on fraternity, Soon said the message is “coming in slowly, phase by phase,” and that they have to simplify the core concepts to make it understandable for their students.
“If you talk about humanity, we always have, in school the curriculum also actually has a lot to do with humanities, society and the environment,” she said, saying the big word for them is “sustainability,” which has been a priority for Singapore, and for Pope Francis.
Sustainability is something Soon said schools seek to incorporate in various ways, also through religious education classes, which she said are open to Catholics and non-Catholics.
“We try and find time actually to get to all our goals and grow in terms of the faith formation,” she said.
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