On the 100th World Mission Sunday (18 October 2026) under the theme “One in Christ, United in Mission,” the author argues that the Asian Church must confront internal polarization—ethnic, political, and ideological divisions—as a greater threat than external persecution.

The piece highlights acute suffering among Asian Catholics, including displaced Christians in Manipur, blasphemy-related violence in Pakistan, and communities scattered by civil war in Myanmar, calling for sustained structural solidarity rather than episodic concern.

It further urges the Church to treat migration as a missionary opportunity by integrating migrants into leadership, and to give women and young people real decision-making roles, framing the centenary as an occasion for institutional reckoning rather than mere gratitude.

(UCA News) — On Oct. 18, 2026, the universal Church will mark its 100th World Mission Sunday under a theme chosen by Pope Leo XIV: “One in Christ, United in Mission”.

For most of the Catholic world, this will be an occasion of gratitude and generosity — a day of collections and prayers for missionaries far away. For the Church in Asia, it should be something more uncomfortable than that. It should be an examination of conscience.

We are not a mission field somewhere else. We are the mission field, and increasingly, the mission itself is under strain from within as much as from outside.

The threat we are not naming honestly enough

This July, more than 120 cardinals, bishops, and lay delegates gathered in Jakarta for the 12th Plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, reflecting on the Church’s call to be “bridges and bridge-builders” across a continent strained by poverty, forced migration, armed conflict, geopolitical rivalry, environmental collapse, and a bewildering pace of digital change.

But the most important thing said in that room was not about outside pressure at all. One scholar warned the assembly that polarization — not persecution, not secularism — may now be the greatest threat facing the Church in Asia.

Political, ethnic, and ideological divisions do not........

© Eurasia Review