Dalai Lama, Cardinal Chow… These religious personalities of Asia and Oceania who will mark 2025
The last Dalai Lama?
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, 89 years old
His public appearances are rarer, while he is about to blow his 90th candle this year. Supreme authority of Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso fled Tibet in 1959 in the face of Chinese repression. Installed in Dharamsala in northern India, in 2011 he gave up his political functions. Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, he has long crossed the world to defend the Tibetan cause and promote interreligious dialogue.
His heart problems have forced her since 2023 to drastically reduce his trips. The question of his succession is crystallizing tensions today with Beijing, who aims to designate his successor – where Tenzin Gyatso maintains that such a decision belongs to the Tibetan people, and without excluding being the last of their line.
A key actor in the dialogue between Rome and Beijing
Cardinal Stephen Chow, Archbishop of Hong Kong, 65 years old
In Rome, no one disputes the effects of his “shadow diplomacy” in the recent appeasement of Sino-Vatican relations. Archbishop of Hong Kong since 2021, the Jesuit Stephen Chow, created Cardinal by Pope Francis in September 2023, embodies a new approach in this thorny file.
His vision of a “bridge church” between the Chinese church and Rome materialized in 2023 by a historical visit, at the invitation of the Patriotic Catholics Association of China, in Beijing – a first, since 1985, For a Hong Kong bishop. In a context marked by the tacit renewal of the bilateral agreement on the appointment of bishops at the end of October 2024, this year he should continue his mission as a balancingist.
Uttar Pradesh’s “monk-minister”
Yogi Adityanath, Hindu Ultranationalist Monk, 52 years old
His face was mainly known at the time of the last Indian presidential election. His real name Ajay Singh Bisht, Yogi Adityanath has been the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, since 2017. This Hindu ultra -nationalist monk also directs the temple of Gorakhnath and founded the Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu militia.
Controversial figure of the BJP, the ruling party, it is known for its anti-Muslim positions-working for example to change the names, on its jurisdiction, of Muslim consonance cities. Close to Narendra Modi, he is considered by certain observers as a potential successor to the post of Prime Minister. His authoritarian style and his “zero tolerance” policy towards crime marked her governance of the most populated state in India.
Indian guru to world notoriety
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Indian spiritual guide author of a meditation program, 68 years old
The most populous country in the world, India is also the one with the most spiritual leaders per capita. Among them, the guru (a word without negative connotation) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is undoubtedly distinguished. Through its “art of living” foundation, or the association for the promotion of human values it has co -founded, it claims 300 million followers in 151 countries, to the point that the magazine Forbes In 2010 elected her fifth most influential personality in India.
Its ultra-popular meditation program, supposed to relieve stress and prevent violence, is sometimes criticized as a marketing and pseudo-scientific company. Today, the proximity of the “guru of the poor”, or “of peace”, with the authoritarian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made it an instrument of the soft power Indian, also arouses concerns.
A Burmese nun to silence the sound of weapons
Sr Ann Rose Nu Tawng, Burmese nun, 49 years old
In February 2021, a photograph representing her on his knees, arms on the cross, in front of a horde of Burmese police, had moved the whole world. The gesture had been hailed by the Pope. Having become a symbol of peaceful resistance in the country at war, sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng, nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint-François-Xavier, has been continuing, since then, its tireless commitment to patients from a Catholic clinic in Myitkyina, in the ‘State of Kachin.
Despite the threats of the military junta, this militant for peace and democracy continues to accompany the sick in the villages and the camps of displaced, while the country will sink on February 1, 2025 in its fourth year of conflict.
Evangelical activist against human trafficking
Christine Caine, activist and evangelical author, 58 years old
His commitments are now filming mainly around the fight against human trafficking, and the improvement of the female condition in the 21st century. Born in 1966 in Sydney in Australia, where she was then adopted by a family of Greek origin, activist Christine Caine founded in 2008 organization A21, aimed at fighting modern slavery.
Help with victims, prevention of risky situations, plea work … International speaker and author of Christian bestsellers, this pasteur of the evangelical church Zoe-affiliated with the Hillsong movement-intends to continue to mobilize behind it, in 2025, the communities believers around the world in his fight.
