tidbits

DIOCESAN CENTRUM OF TAGBILARAN

2012-01-12T11:10:00.004+08:00

In line with the five year preparation for the Diamond Jubilee Anniversary of the Foundation of Diocese of Tagbilaran that set up pastoral programs for the development of the Basic Ecclesial Communities through the proclamation of the Gospel and subsequent catecheses on several important areas of our faith, the administration also envisions the integral development of the physical plant of the center of the diocese. Called the Development of the Diocesan Centrum of Tagbilaran, it is a project that serves to complement the spiritual growth of our people as it is envisaged to express in stone, concrete, wood, arts, hues, and lines the lived and in some way inculturated Faith of our people. With this project the Diocese hopes that our cherished Catholic Faith may live on.

Rationale of the Development of the Diocesan Centrum

The Diocesan Centrum of Tagbilaran is the administrative, religious, liturgical, historical, and pastoral centre of the Diocese of Tagbilaran. Located in kilometer 0, it is the heart and nerve of the People of God in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It encompasses the Bishop’s Palace (PALASYO), the Cathedral , the Formation Center, and its open Spaces.

The development of the Diocesan Centrum is a project envisaged to streamline the governance of the particular Church in Tagbilaran by rationalizing the areas where the administrative and pastoral work of the Bishop, his priests, and lay cooperators are conducted and by maximizing its physical spaces to accommodate the living quarters of its priests.

The project proceeds in two phases. The first phase is to revitalize the Palasyo. This is an undertaking that would rehabilitate its late 18th-century historical core and the 1950 façade. Its rear elevation and interior will be substantially renovated to articulate Boholano architecture.

The second phase involves the reconfiguration of the Diocese’s formation house located at the back of the Cathedral converting it into additional office spaces for the other departments of the Diocesan Curia, and into meeting rooms and conference halls open for the use of the Christian Faithful. Living suites on its upper floors are also contemplated to serve the guests, visitors, and pilgrims who would wish to avail of the Diocese’s modest hospitality.

PHASE 1: Rehabilitating the Tagbilaran Palasyo
The Palasyo is the official residence of the Bishop of Tagbilaran. It is the seat of the Diocesan Curia. It is from its hearth that our Bishop governs the Diocese as father in the Faith, and as faithful steward of Catholicity. It is from its heart where young priests are nurtured, the middle-aged are nourished, and the senior clergy are nursed.

The Palasyo is also the priests’ home, the central residence, the common resting abode – as it always had been for their Jesuit and Recollect predecessors.
However, the Palasyo has seen better days. We need a better home that addresses the priests’ personal and pastoral needs. Hence, the urgent need for the rehabilitation project. It has to be a residence that respects the structure’s late 18th century historical core. While preserving its 1950’s façade, the Palasyo articulates Boholano architecture on its rear elevation and in the interior design so that it becomes iconic for the island and its inhabitants, an emblem of the Church taking its root in Bohol, a symbolic capital of God’s home for His children.

In brief, the project Development of the Diocesan Centrum of Tagbilaran, Phase 1, calls for the following major structural alterations, viz., a renovated and capacious chapel where the Bishop, together with his priests, celebrate the canonical hours, the Holy Sacraments, and especially the worship of the Most Holy Eucharist; lounges, courtyards, balconies, and recreation rooms for communal activities; and, personal living quarters, formal and informal dining halls, receiving halls, and a reading room will complement the residence. The office spaces of the Diocesan Curia will be optimized to streamline the diocesan pastoral governance.

…that Faith may live on.

New Year 2012

2011-12-31T09:01:00.003+08:00

“Happy New Year”. It is a greeting that though commonly used still packs potent message presaging brighter future come the new year. For I know that 2012 with a clean slate comprising of three hundred sixty six days will uncover the untapped potential that is still in us. Predictions of more intense natural calamities such as storms and earthquakes, of more political tensions and party squabbles, of arm skirmishes and human right violations here and there in the country, of economic depressions and insufficient incomes both individually and collectively, have already been lined up by scientists and business experts. But people remain undaunted. Lodged within them is that deep feeling that all these negative predictions are for people who have hope opportunities for the betterment of their status.

After all for men of faith the answer to our sad plight goes beyond socio-economic analysis and political maneuverings. For the start our faith believes that this God-made-Man gives us the stubborn hope that blossoms best in moments of darkness and ambiguity; that it would give us the needed courage to pick up again the communal problem of searching for the truth that we have temporarily left off; that we can readily face up to the moral problems, political confusions, and social illusions, that have through these years tightly gripped the soul of our country. Time visited by God gives us the hope to extricate ourselves from the sad situation that we are in, the time when work is scarce, when families are so poor they can no longer live with dignity, when the greed of those in the corridors of power has drowned away all their shame and decency, when corruption has become our greatest shame as a people”, when the chaotic climate change with its flashed floods has threatened thousands of lives living in the low land.

This hope is dynamic, alive, vigorous. It pushes us to action. It is alien for people of hope to say that the event of our times is inevitable. A Filipino Christian, whose spirit is soaked with the Christmas experience, plunges himself into action, for he knows that at the heart of this topsy-turvy nation of ours there is the God who in His incarnation definitively took unto himself human history. Christmas has taught him that God has accompanied man in his journey in this world and eventually overcome the negative elements that are in it, death, sickness, and sin included. As Jesus said: “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world” (Jn 16:33).

By action here is meant concrete involvement in the unfolding of our history. Christians who possess the seed of hope in their hearts cannot be passive or indifferent bystanders in the drama which we call “everyday life”. “We can open ourselves and the world and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to truth, to love, to what is good” (Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 35). “Even when we are fully aware that Heaven far exceeds what we can merit”, the Pope says, “it will always be true that our behavior is not indifferent before God and therefore is not indifferent for the unfolding of history” (35). Even when we seem powerless before the enemy, “our actions engender hope for us and for others…” (35).
In other words, the more we engage actively and constructively in the efforts to improve society, the more we make alive the hope that is in us. Conversely, the more indifferent we are, the more cynicism destroys our capacity to dream for a better, renewed life.

And when we act, when we actively involve ourselves in the unfolding of history, the element of suffering becomes all the more unavoidable. Being a consequence of our finitude, suffering is already inevitable, but it can swell into horrifying levels when we labor for truth and justice. We can perhaps minimize it by leading a life of utter indifference. We can close our eyes from falsehood and tyranny, and spare ourselves from hostility.

But is this the Christian option? The Holy Father says, “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love” (37). And with a rather stunning emphasis, he repeats at least three (3) times in the encyclical that the capacity to suffer for truth and justice is an essential criterion, the very measure, of humanity (cf. 38 and 39). To abandon this capacity would destroy man himself. “Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie” (38).

2011 Christmas Message

2011-12-24T08:37:00.004+08:00

Like any precious gem the message of Christmas is wrapped up with a protective coat to shield its divine content from impurities of secular biases and worldly interpretations; from the banality of a Christmas atmosphere turned into business schemes and sales strategies; from the shallowness of Christmas gifts devoid of the human heart that gives; from the opaqueness of our interpersonal and communitarian relationship born out of pride and high-handed arrogance, our selfishness and greed, our excessive love of possessions and riches; from lack of concern for others. For the substance of the message of Christmas is Gift of Self – God giving up his dignity of God to become like us puny mortals taking up the name “Emmanuel”, that is, God living with us, sharing the sad story of our humanity that has for time immemorial been suffering the weight of human frailties. The motivation behind this divine act is simply beyond comprehension, unbelievable. But acts of love are always that: they are unbelievable. St. John the Evangelist described this God’s act of love in this simple line: “Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Truly, the greetings of Christmas are glad tidings of love and compassion for us all.

It is, however,interesting to note that the message of Christmas comes out handy and useful when man, down and out with great losses in life, still sees a ray of hope at the end of the dark tunnel; its true worth appreciated when he, left vulnerable to the stark negativity of life, feels the naked Baby Jesus lying within his being.

With this observation it is safe to say that sad realities of life help man break open the secret message of Christmas. Of late our country has undergone social, political, and climactic upheavals whose impact cannot as yet be measured or figured out. That these happened in this moment of our history is worth looking into. What is God’s Christmas message to us?

It all started with the issuance of the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) effected by no less than the Supreme Court itself deliberating in banc. Its content was to allow the former President Gloria Arroyo to set out of the country for health reason and thereby suspend the power of the Watch List issued by the Department of Justice, an Executive Branch of the government, barring the same to leave the Country. It was a clash of conflicting orders each side advancing grounds for their actions. While this dispute was going on, an order came out from the Judiciary – a lower court it’s true , yet has power to make a court order - to disallow her to leave the country because she has a pending case in court to respond and to settle. Caught up with these legal complexities the former president has to remain in the country, in a hospital specifically designated for her while on trial.

Then came the impeachment case against the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. To the amazement of everybody, the lower House of Congress came up with the move to impeach the Chief Justice. Signed by a big number of congressmen, the impeachment case was then submitted to the Senate for consideration. The Senate went over the case, appreciated its merit, and promptly sent a summon to the Chief Justice to answer the accusations regarding the issue at bar.

Then, a more deadly tragedy struck the nation. Tropical Storm Sendong stealthily entered the Southern part of the Country, bringing with it lots of rain that caused rampaging floodwaters thickened along the way with mud and all sorts of debris , flushing through towns and villages in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City. Thousands of lives have been lost at its tail, homes were destroyed and entire villages wiped out.

All these happened just some days before Christmas 2011. Is there a message to all these sad events? Yes, there is.

Firstly, It is in the midst of these misfortunes that God is deeply sensed to bring redemption to a man who needs redemption; to a person who is weighed down by his guilt, and is suffering from an existential evil, such as flood that drowned his loved ones and carried away all his belongings. It is in the midst of these variegated ills and tragedies of life that God is discovered to be the God who existentially listens to the cry of the poor. Keeping records of these encounters would eventually develop within man a solid foundation of his being. God becomes his foundation.

Secondly, our Christmas would be meaningful this year if we get up and help our brothers and sisters who fell victims to this force of nature. Our disciplined celebration of Christmas, the restrained cut-down of our holiday expenses for the sake of our brothers and sisters would in a long way teach us precious lessons of compassion, care, and concern. As beautifully expressed by Pope Benedict XVI: “The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer” (Encyclical Letter “Spe Salvi”, 38). Adversity, suffering, mysterious events do instruct.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

New Ecclesial Movements and the Pastors

2011-12-09T16:02:00.001+08:00

It has been for some time now that dioceses in the Philippines in setting up their pastoral programs in consonance with the desideratum expressed by PCPII has more often than not to contend with the existence of charismatic communities and other ecclesial movements. These are entities that have helped the parishioners to appreciate the variegated charisms that they have received from baptism, lived their Christian life with vitality, joy and enthusiasm, carried the love for neighbours in their day-to-day living, helping build up shelters for the homeless, taking care of the sick, proclaiming the good news to far flung barangays and urban slums. They are great Christians. And yet, they seem to be on their own, doing their own thing independently from the administration of the local church, gyrating around themselves without a bother with what is happening in the parish. Through the years they have created that impression that they are a parallel, if not rival, communities.
It is for this reason that the local Church authority has to seriously look into their nature, appreciate their existence, and consider the possibility of working harmoniously with them without stifling the fresh spiritual air that they have been enjoying. However, to welcome these ecclesial movements and faith communities into the working organizational structure of the same demands from the diocesan bishop and the parish priest the exercise of a high quality of leadership. This implies above all the study of the Magisterium’s recent pronouncements on new lay movements and ecclesial communities.
Blessed John Paul II who has meticulously followed the evolution of the movements and the fruits of renewal has made through the years some insightful conclusions. These conclusions could serve as excellent guidelines to local pastors in their approach to these movements.
First, John Paul II concluded that ecclesial movements are important for the Church. As he observed these movements are deeply rooted in the Church; nay, the Church herself is a movement. As early as 1981 he already applied the term “movement” to the Church. He said: “as you know the Church herself is a “movement” (John Paul II, Homily, 27 September 1981). And as such she participates in the dynamism of the Blessed Trinity who even up to now works and acts in the day-to-day history of man. In a mysterious way she dispenses the mystery of the eternal Love of Father, of his fatherly heart, from which the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit begins (cf. ibid). As a movement therefore the Church not only initiates the redemptive works of God in humanity, but is ever opened to the initiative of the Holy Spirit who causes irruptions in the hearts and consciences of the baptized. Pope Benedict XVI in his address to the bishops in 1999 made a sweeping observation that the Church is not just programs and organizations. She is shaped by her spirituality born in her openness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He said: “It is important that the spiritual office, the priesthood, itself be understood and lived charismatically. The priest himself should be a ‘pneumatic,’ a homo spiritualis, a man awakened and driven by the Holy Spirit… It must not overinstitutionalize itself, but must always remain open to the Lord’s unforeseen, unplanned call” (Ratzinger,Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements).

Second, John Paul II saw that charism is vital to the Church’s life. At the origin of these ecclesial movements and faith communities there has always been a charism granted to the founder. It is a grace, a gift freely granted by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the Church. It is therefore a boon to the community and not a bane; not a threat to the institution but a support to it. John Paul II in his 2 March1987 address clearly said: “In the Church, both the institutional and the charismatic aspects, both the hierarchy and associations and movements of the faithful, are co-essential and share in fostering life, renewal and sanctification, though in different ways.”

Third, the late Pope observed that communities are the fruits of charism. Charism builds communities. It is of its nature to reach out to people and lead them to unite together, eventually forming them into associations. Charism therefore takes its root in communities. John Paul II finely described this reality when he said: “In the Church’s history we have continually witnessed the phenomenon of more or less vast groups of the faithful, which, under the a mysterious impulse of the Spirit, have been spontaneously moved to join together in pursuit of certain charitable or sanctifying ends “ (ibid., Address 2 March 1987). .

Fourth, these movements lead the members to deeply appreciate the sacrament of baptism which they had received. No matter the diversity of forms, these ecclesial movements are marked by a common awareness of the newness and radicality of life which baptismal grace awakens in them. They deeply realize what it means to be a baptized person, that is, a person who is committed to the mystery of communion with Christ and with their brethren. In sum, these movements do not affect only partial aspect of Christian life, but are new ways of living the Christian message.
Lastly, the late John Paul II emphasized on the need of the movements for complete communion with the Church. This communion with the Church is for the pope the critical path which the movements have to trod. In Christifideles Laici he said: “This journey requires of movements an ever stronger communion with the Pastors God has chosen and consecrated to gather and sanctify his people in the light of faith, hope, and charity, because no charism dispenses the person from reference and submission to the Pastor of the Church” (n. 24).

Ecclesial movements and new faith communities are there for the taking. They are precious gifts of God to the particular Churches, ever ready to be tapped and availed of.

BLESSED PEDRO CALUNGSOD AND THE YOUTH OF BOHOL

2011-11-26T06:16:00.001+08:00

Somewhere in the Eastern part of the City of Tagbilaran, in a place where the urban trash has for time immemorial been dumped, sorted out and combed through to recover some items for resale, along the boundary that civilly cuts off Tagbilaran from the town of Baclayon, in a secluded sitio of Barangay Dampas pops up a new building visible to passersby due to its pleasing yet unassuming dirty-white coloration. It has two classrooms with a floor elegantly tiled ready to receive twenty-five to thirty young students. Soon, it will with pride and poise bear the name Beato Pedro Calungsod Foundation Training Center for the Youth.

The structure, small it may appear, is the incipient realization of a dream that is ambitious in its vision and goals, extent, and intensity. For, the founding officers and members of the Foundation that give it existence have been impelled not by any hint of monetary consideration, but by their obligation to society and by their Christian responsibility to love and care. In their meeting some two years ago or thereabouts, they saw and were shocked to face ugly reality. The number of school dropouts among the youth has risen into a mind-boggling proportion. As responsible citizens they have seen that society seems not to care for them and their future. For sure, the government that is tasked to give general education to its citizenry and, therefore, has the primary obligation to look after this social problem, has not been remiss in this matter. For so long has it been dwelling on this snag and has tried several means to untangle itself from it. But the enormity of the problem is simply staggering. The government for one does not have the sufficient resources to manage this increasing dysfunctional state of the young and their poor families.
The founding officers saw this problem, and decided to throw in its share to its eventual resolution. They are for sure not dreamy eyed individuals. They are hard-core realists, persons who could call a spade a spade. If the government is financially incapable of meeting the enormity of the problem, they too are aware that they do not have the monetary resources needed for the task at hand. But they believe in their resourcefulness, their native creativity to look for solutions to problems that come their way. Huddling together and discussing, they came up with the concept of partnership, tying up, that is, with other generous and well-intentioned citizens and organizations, and forging them into multi-sectoral stakeholders. Pooling together their competencies as well as their variegated capabilities they can serve as a network of relationships, building up that bridge to fill up the gap confronting the youth and their poor families on the one end and, the responsible individual citizens, the different communities and organizations, and the government of the Province of Bohol on the other.

After all, every responsible citizen or social organization in the Province has the primary obligation to contribute to national and local development that has long been overdue. It is high time that every Filipino no longer waits for the government to do the things for him. He must do his share.

It is along this line of thought that the Beato Pedro Calungsod Foundation was born. To propel it to action and to persevere in its pursuit for the star, it envisioned itself as: “A Foundation of Christ’s faithful in the Diocese of Tagbilaran, inspired by the Word of God, nourished by the Eucharist, strengthened by constant prayer, ever conscious of its social and spiritual life in the integral human development.”
It is not mere convenience that the Beato Pedro Calungsod was taken as the title of the Foundation. The founding officers saw the heroism of this young gentleman, a martyr whose life of heroism could be a constant inspiration. Because of the Faith that he had embraced and boldly proclaimed, he was ordered to be killed by a primitive Chieftain in Guam, brutally executed by a tribal soldier. The youthful saint, who, as tradition has it, lived in Bohol, Cebu, and Iloilo, was known for these virtues, to wit: scientific and intellectual discipline; patience; hard work; bravery; and lived Faith.

This kind of life could indeed be the needed inspiration for the youth of Bohol, a life around which values-driven transformation programs and activities could be drawn up. The Foundation is hoping that this could be one of the entry points to touch base with the out-of-school youth and their families, and a medium for transforming societies into centers for integral human development.

“Thank God It’s Friday”: A Weekend Spirituality

2011-11-07T16:30:00.005+08:00

There has been for some time now an activity of the youth in the Cathedral Parish of Tagbilaran that has particularly caught my attention. It is the jamming session that they put up every last Friday of the month. It is curious because they hold it in the Cathedral square just in front of the Bishop’s residence, a place set aside for many other religious and social activities but not for this kind of program. It is just too secular, too mundane to merit the place for their merry making. We know that the activities that have sprung up from this jovial creation of the young to take it easy on a weekend are light merry making, a celebration of being released from the tension of so much work in the classrooms, the school activities, home works and other related assignments. There is nothing objectionable to be at ease on a Friday, to relax, to unwind, to shake oneself off from the drudgery of the classroom. To say “Thank God it’s Friday” means to throw the books away and hit the bar, disco or movie houses, to take out the latest video games, pore nonstop into internet surfing, to sing, to dance, to celebrate. All these are activities that are spontaneous and natural to the young of today. They need them so they say, for they need to be recharged and to ease up for their sanity’s sake. On the other hand, they could easily go awry, resorting for example to heavy alcohol drinking, or, to the taking of drugs, that could in time drive them to violent acts, untoward incidents, even sexual revelry. These latter apprehensions may sound prudish, but definitely not unfounded. Hence, the question remains: are our youth jamming their hearts out in the Cathedral ground on a weekend doing things improper?

A cursory look into the matter at bar, however, has brought me to a happy disclosure. Our young have found in this activity Jesus Christ as the source of their joy. For sure, they too are young and need the relaxation of their body and their emotions, they want to remain sane in the midst of so much work in the classrooms and at home, they like all the other kids around are searching for a place to unwind, just to be at ease, and they find it in the cathedral parish program called “Thank God It’s Friday” - TGIF. The songs, the percussions, the inputs, the dramatization of the characters of the Bible, the catechetical teaching consciously done in active dialogue with the listeners, the singing, the cadenced clapping of hands and the rhythmic stomping of feet on the ground, and the smooth swaying of the bodies in response to the discoveries and new insights of the Word proclaimed, the spontaneous reaction and the interpersonal communications that came out of it, the whole atmosphere is soaked not only with the message of Jesus but also with His person encountered somehow along the whole celebration. TGIF has its way of transforming everything and everyone into a prayer, urging each one to make that attempt, tentative sometimes it may be, to reach out to Jesus who once had made this avowal: “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete... It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another” (Jn:15: 11; 16-17).

TGIF, however, is not finished with that temporary joy. Its creativity lies in the follow up that is done in the Facebook. The organizers instructed the participants to always check their Facebook for the insightful questions and thought provoking queries regarding the TGIF experiences. It is surprising to note that the youth eagerly access this part of their computer to react to the posted questions and queries. This forms an essential part of the TGIF activity. The responses of the youth participants are encouraging to the organizers of the TGIF. Judging from the responses, they know that the Good News have again been proclaimed, no matter the unorthodox way that it is being done.

Joy is a state we all seek. A drab world is a place not worth living in. Our young, having a claim to that joy, is however exposed to the world of virtual realities created by the computer set; action pact pictures and other marvellous illusions in video games marvellously displayed in the monitor; the ephemeral things of the tube and the movies, the thrill, the glitz and sheer excitement of the entertainment world. Everything is virtual, passing illusions, good for the here and now. Nothing is absolute anymore; everything is ephemeral, passing shadows, to stimulate and to tease the heart of the young hungry for thrills in life but cannot fully satisfy the deep longing of his young and adventurous soul. For the spirit of man is made for the absolute; his purpose goes beyond himself. He is made for the eternal good, the summum bonum, endowed with that power to reach out for the Truth that is clothed in pure Beauty, ever ancient and ever new. Such is human nature that deprived of that, he remains for ever a restless being. It is along this line that a French philosopher of our age observed that a man exposed to an empty world eventually withdraws into himself; his action is no longer perceived as a gift of self but an uninhibited seeking of personal satisfaction in the fear of losing something (cf. Nault: “Acedia: Enemy of Spiritual Joy”, 2006). Man becomes a living dead.

TGIF is a youth program that aims “to provide an alternative experience of fun, freedom, fellowship, and catechesis.” It tries to reach our youth to tell them that life is worth living, that God is truly concerned about him, knows him, loves him, watches over him, and is close to him; that joy is just around the corner. Jesus Christ is there too on a weekend.

Faith and the World of 7 Billion Humans

2011-10-29T06:48:00.003+08:00

Just some days ago the 'Philippine Daily Inquirer’ carried a banner article on its front page anent the world population which is to hit 7 billion anytime these days. Relative to this is the account that while the number of children in the family has been reduced to 2.5, the infant mortality has substantially dropped and life expectancy has soared to 68 years. Released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the statistic was received with differing reactions. Some take it as an alarming news for it augurs the threat of overpopulation with its concomitant problems in the area of economy, such as the equitable distribution of wealth and services, the creation of new jobs , housing and other necessary facilities; of the environment, such as the rise of carbon emissions, garbage management and proper disposals; of social concerns as migration of rural folks to the cities, the rising gap between the haves and the have-nots. Others take the UN report with optimism and a bit of a swagger for it bespeaks of man’s triumph on this earth: human spirit over dense matter, science over superstitions, knowledge over darkness and ignorance, modern technology over man’s limitations, confidence over the forces that ever threaten man’s life.

The true Christian welcomes the United Nations statistical data regarding population, for he is convinced that the report is a statement of fact. After all, Christian faith is about reality, flesh and blood truths. It is not a religion of the imagination, but of facts; it does not teach man what is apparently good, but what is really good. Reality is the locus of Christian faith for it is in reality where the man of faith meets his God. The God of the Christian is the God who listens to the cries of the poor, the God who deigned to take up the human flesh, and lived out his story with us, giving it up as a ransom for all.

Hence, reality has to be faced squarely. That man has survived and increased to a staggering number of 7 billion in spite of the negative factors that have so often threatened his survival, that his life span has expanded to almost 70, and that mortality rate of his children has plunged, is a good news. He has faithfully responded to what God has enjoined him to do with this world when He said: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the things that move on the earth” (Gn 1:28). The report on the reduction of the number of children in the family to 2.5 is objectively a good news. But it does not stop the man of faith to probe with the question: in what way was the number of children reduced?

The man of faith believes that the world and everything in it is a creation of God. He knows that the world did not just pop out from a big explosion, for he believes in the existence of a Transcendental One who created everything out of nothing and breathed into man’s nostril the breath of life. He knows too that this Creator of his is a personal God, a God of the living. He knows that God came into this earth and declared to His creation: “Do not be concerned for your life, what you are to eat, or for your body, what you are to wear. Consider the ravens: they do not sow, they do not reap, they have neither cellar nor barn – yet God feeds them. How much more important you are than the birds. Which of you by worrying can add a moment to his life span? … Stop worrying. The unbelievers of this world are always running after these things. Your Father knows that you need such things. Seek out instead his kingship over you, and the rest will follow in turn” (Lk 12:22-25; 29-31). The man of faith therefore walks this earth with confidence and poise no matter the forces that threaten him.

It is for this reason too that the Holy Father having perceived the many fears that have hounded modern man came out with a Letter “Porta Fidei” announcing a year long celebration of Faith by 2012. He knows that man has gone astray because of these fears that he has forgotten to hope and to love. He knows that left to himself man can easily be swamped by thousand and one existential problems and death threatening events. The proclamation of the content of Faith should bring man to a personal encounter with Christ, know His ways, understand a little his plans. Or it should bring God into the consciousness of man so that he can realize that God’s hands made him and shaped him in his mother’s womb, that God’s Law is always right, governing the world in perfect harmony.

Through the celebration of the Year of Faith we are hopeful that the world alarmed by its 7 billion citizens would soon realize that God is more powerful than all our problems. The Holy Father put it this way: “To a greater extent than in the past, faith is now being subjected to a series of questions arising from a changed mentality which, especially today, limits the field of rational certainties to that of scientific and technological discoveries. Nevertheless, the Church has never been afraid of demonstrating that there cannot be any conflict between faith and genuine science, because both, albeit via different routes, tend towards the truth” (Porta Fidei).

Christ being with us this earth of 7 billion warm bodies is still our best possible world.

Senior Citizens in Our Society

2011-10-14T20:20:00.001+08:00

The first days of October 2011 ushered me to the world of the elderly and the retired, to groups of individuals who were sixty years old and above, giving me that precious opportunity to engage them in lively personal conversations, sharing of experiences, and interesting testimonies of life. One group was composed of homogeneous membership, widows all, while the other group was a heterogeneous one whose membership was open to all card holder senior citizens. They seemed to be fairly contented and well with the way they were in themselves, confident in bearing themselves with their peer group, boldly joking with one another and laughing heartily at themselves, enjoying the program they themselves have prepared, singing songs, reciting poems, and dancing on the stage improvised for the occasion. They, the elder folks of our society, were alright and well.

But is this really true? Is it the authentic picture of the world of our sixty-years old and above citizens? For me there was in those two occasions some hint of sadness in their voice that was too subtle to detect, a lack of luster in their faces, absence of the glitter in the eyes of many of them. The smoothness and fluidity of the bodily motions, the graceful sway that should come along with the lilt and cadence of the waltz music, the springy foot work, the fluid swing of the arms, all of these were not there. They knew very well the dance, they knew the movements required of it, but to put them into a bodily show that could entertain the beholders they no longer had it. They were senior citizens.

Reality of old age no doubt. The process of aging has finally caught up with them. For with old age comes the weakening of strength, the rigidity of the muscles and the throbbing aches of the joints, the loss of memory, vitality, and health. But on reflection it may be that our society causes the hastening of the aging process of our elders. We are living in a culture that has a strong bias for the young, the strong, and the skilled, those who are useful to its secular world view of life, an asset to its business and industry. It idolizes those who can produce the goods and deliver the services, gives high premium to those who are creative and talented, those who show leadership skills, astuteness in business, physical strength, prowess in making profits, ability to get fast promotions in office, the boldness and the brazenness to scale the social ladder of our society, the love for the fast life, comforts, cars, night life. It is a culture that gives priority to business profit rather than to the value of persons, things rather than people. These sixty and above citizens of ours by the estimation of such a kind of society are liabilities for they can no longer contribute to the advancement of the community. They have to be eased out . Harsh logic it is that soon opens as a necessary consequence the way to the enactment of the Law of Retirement. By force of that law, the once productive members of our society are cut off from their workplace and their productiveness, banishing them from social, economic, political life.

It is true that the law premises itself with a human and humane ideal, that is, to give due rest to our citizens who have contributed much to the good of our society, repay them for what they have done. Hence, the law provides specifically for a pension to sustain them in the last cycle of their existence. It also declares medical and dental privileges, such as 20% discount from purchases of food, beverages, transportation, and medicines. There is even a provision to allow them to be again employed. It truly is a humane and compassionate law, a creation of a society that has the senior citizens in its heart.
But all those benefits and privileges cannot heal the deep feeling of nostalgia, that wistful yearning of their soul to be respected as persons, to be listened to as beings of feelings and emotions, to be accepted as persons with dignity and value, members of the society which they have loved and served. To be retired is to be declared as cut off from the workplace, exiled from the community that he has through all those years come to love and cherish. It is therefore a kind of life that would make any person despondent, making the most alive and strong among us depressed. As one senior citizen put it: “When after dinner I hand over to the waiter the senior citizen card, I feel like a beggar, begging for discount.”
Is there a value to the life of the senior citizens? Can they still be a useful cog of our society and not a mere commodity to be grudgingly supported by the taxes of the young and the able? Lest it be forgotten the knowledge and the wisdom that they have heaped up through years of hard work, sweat, blood, tears, and concentrated study are lodged deep in their innermost being. They are the genuine treasures of our society.

Meantime, I noticed that the group of widows were more enthusiastic and optimistic. They called themselves “Happy Widows.” They attended the Holy Mass in Lindaville Church, their way of launching the birth of their organization that has committed itself to a spiritual vision and religious goals, social programs and activities. They are determined to respond with dignity to their state as senior citizens, reap whatever benefits society offers to them; to continue to live and let live the remaining years of their lives with Christian faith, hope and love. After all they have realized that life as a whole has been good to them. They had built up their careers, carved out a place in society, gained the respect from many. For them old age is pay off time. They have been given time to dedicate themselves to a ministry of giving back that sense of humanity if not Christianity to others. To start with the group of widows formed themselves into an organization with set of rules to follow and of officers to implement the vision, goals and objectives. They made themselves open and available to other senior citizens like them, to spend time listening to their personal stories, their secret longings and unfulfilled dreams, their hurts and joys, their successes and frustrations. It is a ministry of bringing humanity to our materialistic world, conveying person-to-person relationship to a community that is fast becoming impersonal. May their tribe increase.

Suicide, Faith, and the Young Filipinos

2011-10-01T18:19:00.000+08:00

It is not only disturbing, but sad, to hear that suicide rate in our society is becoming more frequent among our young adults and teens. Some TV shows, local as well as national, have of late been giving some significant time slots on the matter, giving account on the increasing number of its frequency, and then, asking questions that could unsettle our social conscience. Is it true that three out of five young Filipinos have already in one way or the other been contemplating of ending their lives in the face of their problems?
Life is a precious possession , a gift that has to be appreciated, cared for, and defended. For a Christian, human life is sacred. He knows full well that life is not his, but God’s. From its inception it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end ( cf. CCC 22258). God is the Lord of life, its sole owner. Hence, no one has the rightful claim under any circumstance to snuff off his own life.
It is interesting to note that many of those who have thought of committing suicide are young individuals who have no more grounding in God, or, who have left behind the practice of prayer. Forgetfulness of one’s connection to the Transcendent One may not be the only cause of suicide. But for sure one who does not take his faith in God or friendship with Jesus seriously is bound to recoil unto himself in times of crisis. Without God man feels himself to be the centre of the universe. But such a mentality is precarious even for the mature and the experienced among us. For, existential problems that come into man’s life are simply too staggering for any self-centred individual to face without succumbing to helplessness and despair. There is no Other to hang on to; no Transcendent Being to assure him of that promise: “Do not be afraid.”
Many of our young people today are caught up with the modern culture that has gradually deleted man’s awareness and direct connection to God, replacing Him as the ground of his being and acting. Soon his decisions and moral values are being sourced from his capricious whims and personal desire and no longer from the Will of the Creator. No, it is not true that he is no longer a Church-goer. He appears still to be a good member of the Catholic Church, an obedient son to his parents, respectful to others, faithful to Sunday Masses. But deep inside his soul is emptiness. The Commandments of God and the friendship with Jesus do not have anymore influence in the way he makes the decisions. What is profitable, what promotes his ambition, what is convenient has become the basis for his actions and behaviour. His world is the here and now, a life that is mapped out by the playboy philosophy of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” A pleasurable life on doubt, but a flat one, boring due to its shallowness.
To get back our young to their senses we need to bring the Good News to them, proclaim to them again that Jesus is the answer to their life. It may sound naive, simplistic. But there is wisdom to this activity in as much as it is based on the nature of man and God’s loving plan for His people. Man simply cannot be satisfied with the things of the earth; his longing is eternal. Devoid of the eternal, man succumbs to restlessness, to a feeling of meaninglessness, to boredom. There exists within man an unquenchable fire that burns him ever to restlessness, making him incapable of ever settling him down to full peace; a desire that cannot be satisfied. In a language that is consonance to him as a poet, Plato described this state of man’s restlessness thus: “We are fired into life with a madness that comes from the gods and which would have us believe that we can have a great love, perpetuate our own seed, and contemplate the divine.” Augustine is simpler in his declaration: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
The restless soul of our young can only find rest in Jesus. For this, he needs to listen again the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News.

The Life of the Parish Priest in the Modern World

2011-09-24T09:19:00.002+08:00

The process of globalization, that has in some quarters gradually secularized and demythologized the world view of our people, has not spared the parish priests from its effects. Suddenly thrust into the world that is fast shrinking due to high technology and the concomitant process of globalization, the parish priest is bewildered and bothered by some realities that are happening unexpectedly in his parish. They are events that change the social behavior of some parishioners as they touch deeply the priest's life as the appointed parish priest of the locality, challenging even his leadership and authority. What is the place of the parish priest in a society that has become so complex, mobile, and sophisticated? Is the content of his message saleable? Do the sacraments still attract our people,still believers as necessary means of salvation that could liberate them from the meaninglessness of life? Is the priest still needed by society? Or, has he become a mere commodity, one who is there as a figure head? In short, is he still relevant in the globalized world?

Some years ago a parish priest came barging into my office with the heavy steps of a man with a problem. Deeply hurt he blurted out with a tale of woe. “I am but a mere commodity in the parish, Bishop,” he complained. “Imagine, a group just came to my rectory in the late afternoon, asked me to hear the confession of the youth who are having a youth camp in the parish. I got mad for a while for in the first place they never had that elementary courtesy to discuss with me as parish priest regarding the youth camp. I feel like taken for granted, a non-entity, an old hag. They could have approach me beforehand, tell me about their plan of putting up youth camp, discuss matters with me. In that way, I would know what they are doing in the parish, make out my role in the activity and the religious services that I have to extend. But, no, they just came in, asked for the sacrament of reconciliation for the youth, and expected me to do their bidding. But what hurt me more is the response of one of them: ‘But we thought we do not need your permission, Father. Our group is transparochial’”

Knowing the priest I just could not summarily dismiss him with a pat on the back and the cliché: “Don’t worry, Father. I will call the attention of the organizers and discuss with them this matter.” No, he is a very sensitive priest, a dedicated pastor, a deeply religious person with a fierce love for the parishioners. And so I surmise that his complaint was indeed serious.

To by pass the pastor in doing an out-reach activity in the parish is, to say the least, not proper, no matter how laudable the apostolate may be. It is first of all an affront to his authority as the duly appointed pastor of the parish. As pastor it is his bounden responsibility to know what is happening in the parish, ensure that the faithful under his care participate abundantly in the means of salvation, that is, the word of God, the Sacraments, prayers, charitable work. He has to promote preaching and catechesis, liturgical life and public worship, associations of the faithful, and the variegated forms of the apostolate and social actions. It is within this purview that Canon 519 declares: “The parish priest is the proper pastor of the parish entrusted to him. He exercises the pastoral care of the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, whose ministry of Christ he is called share, so that for this community he may carry out the offices of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling with the cooperation of other priests or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of Christ’s faithful, in accordance with the law.”

It is part of his responsibility, therefore, to be vigilant and sensitive to any activity in the vicinity, including the out-reach program for the youth, seeing to it that it ultimately promotes the building up of the Christian faith in the community. Otherwise the parish will be splintered, a parallel church created. And so the hurt of the pastor at bar is not just based on a flimsy snobbish act of the charismatic group. Its reason is deeper.

But the greater pain that the pastor suffers in his not being consulted is his being considered, consciously or unconsciously, as a useless servant leader. By not consulting him, the charismatic group seems to declare that they do not need him, that he is a religious leader who does not possess the power to inspire and form the faith of the members, a spiritual director who cannot guide parishioners along the right path, a pastor who cannot feed his flock with his homilies and catecheses, who cannot sanctify with the sacraments, cannot own the collective dreams and visions of his parishioners, define their goals and objectives, organize them and make them into a community of members who care for one another.

Needless to say every priest has charism; that any ordained minister is charismatic. To take a priest as a mere product of an institution that ordains him through the rite of ordination is a myopic view of what a priest really is. Priesthood is an office, a spiritual office that cannot be occupied by anybody who is not spiritual, that is, a person who is genuinely called to this office. To be a priest is to be called by God. The man who is called by God has to contend with this spiritual call, undergoes the long process of transformation that the Holy Spirit has stirred up in him. To receive, therefore, the order of the priesthood, is to respond to that call of God, the stirring of the Holy Spirit in the deep recesses of his soul. Any priest is a creation of the Holy Spirit; he is charismatic. It is along this line that Pope Benedict XVI once observed: “It is important that the spiritual office, the priesthood, itself be understood and lived charismatically. The priest himself should be a "pneumatic," a homo spiritualis, a man awakened and driven by the Holy Spirit” ('Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements', Joseph Ratzinger, 1999, Crossroad).

The Priests and the Laity

2011-09-17T16:58:00.000+08:00

The divine vocation to the priesthood as well as the subsequent sacramental ordination that indelibly seals a baptized person towards a total dedication in the fulfillment of sacred functions sets the ordained essentially apart from the rest of the faithful. This is the teaching that we without doubt hold: there is an essential difference, not only of degree, between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood of the faithful. With this doctrinal statement, however, the Church is poised with relevant questions. Should this ordination of her priests necessarily demand a life-style that is distinct from the laypeople? Does the theological and canonical elements of the ordo clericorum require the setting up of a status clericorum which finely defines juridical rules and specifications that safeguard the identity of the cleric and of his ministry? Should the deportment of the priest necessarily differ from that of the lay faithful?

Some years back the Church and her ordained ministers were severely criticized and attacked because of the discriminatory portrayal of the roles and functions of the clergy that make up his clerical status. The priests were placed in so high a pedestal in the life of the Church that they are set not only apart from but over and above the lay people. Gradually, elitism has crept in, its ugly implication negatively influencing the life of the priests and whole system of the institutional Church. Clericalism was born. In a nutshell, it emphasized the distinction and essential differences between the clergy and the laity. This distinction gradually received legal form and recognition by the privileges and immunities granted to the clergy. The arrogation of the power by the clergy was based on the claim that the clergy are superior to the laity, for the reason that they are the guardians of spiritual things; and spiritual things are higher than temporal things. Subsequent legislations, however, have dismantled many of the immunities and privileges granted to the clerics. Still, traces of them remained. In the 1917 Code of Canon Law, for example, the privilegium fori, wherein a cleric is exempted from being brought to civil suit on all cases without the express permission of the bishop (cf. c. 120) was still existent. Or, the so-called privilegium competentis according to which the clerics who were forced by the court to pay the creditors their debts should be allowed to retain what was necessary for his decent sustenance, with the obligation to repay them as soon as possible, could be invoked (cf. c. 122). Again, the 1917 Code held that the faithful owe reverence to the clergy in so harsh a way that if one who inflicts physical injury to cleric commits a sacrilege. Called the privilegium canonis, it is contained in canon 119.

Clericalism carries with it the evil of engendering, perhaps unwittingly, an elitist attitude within the ranks of the clergy that eventually evolve into a way of life that is classy. Members are to be endowed with more and more privileges, favors and exemptions. In time the clergy called the shot in the management of almost all the affairs of the Church and become untouchable in many issues.

The theology and ecclesiology of Vatican II had tried to change all that. It starts by setting up the basic doctrine which states: all persons who belong to the church have a common fundamental legal status, because they all share one and the same basic theological condition and belong to the same primary common category. Fr. Alvaro del Portillo puts it more graphically when he said: “All the faithful, from the Pope to the child who has just been baptized, share one and the same vocation, the same faith, the same Spirit, the same grace. They are all in need of appropriate sacramental and spiritual aids; they must all live a full Christian life, following the same evangelical teachings; they must all lead a basic personal life of piety – that of children of God, brothers and disciples of Christ – which is obligatory for them before and above any specific distinctions which may arise from their different functions within the Church” (Faithful and the Laity in the Church, Ecclesia Press, 1972, p. 19)

Place Called Home

2011-09-10T07:46:00.001+08:00

The busy chore in the parish which includes among others the looking after the spiritual needs of the people entrusted to his care, the setting up of the organizational systems and needed structures, the building up of BECs and taking care of faith communities and other movements, teaching the children and forming the youth, giving guidance counseling to married young couples and troubled families, the keeping up of the physical plant of the community, all these programs and activities could engage the parish priest so much that he forgets that time is not always his. Before he realizes it, weakness is getting a hold of him and the advancing age is slowing him down. And there he is alone and, perhaps, untended.

The Church true mother that she is cannot suffer to see that kind of scene to happen to her priests. She knows very well the all out dedication of her priests in the ministry, their heroism in giving up their own personal life, their dreams and ambition for the sake of Kingdom. For she cannot forget that she too came from an origin that is poor. She started as a small community in Jerusalem and yet with pooled resources could support each other as well as take care of the poor and the needy ( cf. Acts 4: 32): for “they held everything in common” and “distribution was made to each according to need” (Acts 4:35). It is on this account that she comes out strongly with this stipulation in law: “Provision must also be made so that they (clerics) possess that social assistance which provides for their needs suitably if they suffer from illness, incapacity, or old age” (Canon 281, §2). This law is actually a juridical formulation of the desideratum expressed by Vatican II which states: “In countries where social security has not yet been adequately organized for the benefit of clergy, Episcopal Conferences are to make provision…for the setting up of diocesan organizations…for the proper support of priests who suffer from ill health, disability or old age” (PO 21). The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines specified more this provision of the Code and in terse language stated: “When…priests retire from years of service in the Ministry, the Church should see to it that their respective Dioceses continue to support them…. “ (PCP-II, Acts, 561).

The dioceses in the Philippines are enjoined to dig deep into their own resourcefulness and creative selves to devise workable system that would meet squarely the plight of her ailing heroes. The task at hand is not at all easy. Most of the dioceses are poor and have to depend on the love offerings and contributions of the faithful. Other dioceses have to contend with old financial systems that may have incorporated the social security of their members, but somehow have been failing to meet the needs of the aging priests.

The Diocese of Tagbilaran understood well its responsibility to its aging and sickly priests. It boldly assumed the task at hand, discussed the matter seriously among its elder priests and lay faithful, and finally decided to put up social security scheme for its ailing priests as essential part of the whole financial system of the diocese. The visible offshoot of this decision is the setting up of some rooms in the Cathedral Rectory to accommodate the sick priests with a permanent residence. This provides them a decent place to live in, a residence which gives them ready accessibility to the bishop, the other priests and the lay faithful, an urban place where hospitals and other medical facilities are within reach. Needless to say this decision was based in the principle enunciated by the Second Vatican Council (PO 20 that said: “Completely devoted as they are to the service of God in the fulfillment of the office entrusted to them, priests are entitled to receive a just remuneration. For ‘the laborer deserves his wages’ (Lk 10:7), and (1 Cor 9:10) ‘the Lord commanded that they who proclaim the Gospel should get their living by the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9:10). Just remuneration needless to say includes provision for the social security of the priests who have reached the age of retirement or those who are cut off from the pastoral work due to disability.

HONESTY IN BUSINESS According to BCBP

2011-08-27T13:28:00.001+08:00

August 27, 2011 marks the 19th anniversary of the founding of the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) in Tagbilaran. It is a day to celebrate, to relish and to reflect on how Christ and the gospel values have made a difference in the lives of many of our business men and professionals. Personally I am very much honored to be invited into the occasion for it immediately gives me the opportunity to keep in touch with persons of deep and variegated influences in society and to see how Christ and the Bible message of honesty and integrity through nineteen years of journey by the group have shaped their lives in the privacy of their consciences, their homes, and in their chosen works and profession, dealing with other persons in the marketplace and offices. I would like to directly hear testimonies of how the “law of the marketplace” has given way to the priorities of God’s Kingdom in doing business. The message of Christ who once said: “Seek first his kingship over you, his way of holiness, and all these things will be given you besides”(Mt 6: 33), has this made some positive changes among members of the BCBP, shaping them into Christians, gentlemen of character, who do not park their precious faith in the Church on Sunday but live it through thick and thin seven days a week?

It is not easy to bring Christ and his message to one’s daily professional and business ventures. A person of integrity, just, honest, and God-fearing in secular dealings is not necessarily assured of monetary profits nor of promotion in the office. In the world of reality the smart guy unscrupulous in financial dealings often gets the substantial profit. The more shrewd one is in business enterprise the more profit he makes. Jesus himself had seen this irony in life when he once made this comment: “Because the worldly take more initiative than the other worldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind’( Mt 16:8). To make profit is not bad. It sure is part of business. But essential as it is in business, it is not the only factor that determines the cost of the items for transaction. One has to consider the real value of the sales, their quality, their cost of production, reasonable mark-up, and other added values. Herein comes to play the inner character of the businessmen, their honesty, their fair play that may not assure them of a captured market. But these human if not Christian qualities do instill the trust in the heart of the buying public. Morality does pay off in the long haul, not only in terms of pleasing God, of doing business with conscience. These activities create inner peace of mind, business stability, and consistency. Contemporary books on leadership such as Warren Bennis’ On Becoming a Leader, John Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You, and Stephen Covey ‘s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, are one in underlining the importance of the persons’ character in financial enterprise, that those business leaders who highly respect their customers, deal fairly with employees, stockholders and partners, will outlive other business undertakings, will remain stable, and will be reasonably profitable in the long run. In time they surely will get back not only their investment but a reasonable profit, not counting the high respect that they earned from the community. In a real sense, good ethics is good business. It pays to “Be honest, even if others are not; even if others will not; even if others cannot.”

Of course, the nineteen years of existence in the BCBP have not been that smooth. The road less traveled is always a lonely and rugged path to traverse. To be ethical and moral in business transactions and in dealings in the profession is wrought with tensions – one has to contend with the wiles of the world, the temptation of quick return on investments, the pressure of society that has become materialistic and secular in its view of life. Even among the members of BCBP has filtered a morality that has been watered down by some schools of thought, such as the schools of consequentialism, situation ethics, and proportionalism. The doctrine proposed by these schools are very alluring indeed. They contend that all human acts are good or indifferent, that their morality depends upon the intention of the agent and the proportionate consequences of the effected acts. The Church looks at askance at this doctrine. It leads to moral relativism, a teaching that denies moral absolutes,that is, those acts that are always right or wrong, acts that are prohibited because they are always evil. But, the members of the BCBP go on as faithful followers of the Church. For deep down in their souls are solidly embedded the Christian values and the ideals of the Christian Brotherhood. The nineteen years of stay in the BCBP with all their personal and shared experiences have convinced them that Christ is still relevant today in the marketplace; that honesty is the best policy; that ethics is good business.

HAPPY 19TH ANNIVERSARY.

Katesismo Bol-anon

2011-08-20T12:45:00.000+08:00

Katesismo Bol-anon is a catechetical book conceived and given birth primarily for the Bol-anon faithful who desire to deepen their knowledge and love for the God they have been worshipping. Its purpose is not to deviate from the traditional doctrine of the Catholic Church contained in the official “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, nor, to satisfy that vain feeling to show off to the rest of the world that Bol-anons have finally reached the age of maturity in faith, capable of producing a catechesis out of their own human resource, effort, and creativity. It is rather to meet the particular needs of our people, for them to be able to adapt more and more to the ways of God vis-avis the ways of living in a world that has become secular, technological and digital in its orientation. The journey in faith together as a Diocese of Tagbilaran for the past seventy or so years, following faithfully the Sacred Scripture, traditional doctrine of the Church, and the Magisterium has formed within the Bol-anons a spirituality and culture that is uniquely Boholano. Because of its particularity the universal teaching of the Catholic Church can no longer fully address their social, cultural and spiritual needs. It is because of these needs that the Katesismo Bol-anon is born.
To accomplish this, the writers tasked to draft the project have to contend with questions relevant to the work. What is the level of faith of our people? How profound is their knowledge of God; how deep is their love for Him and how broad and encompassing is their concern for others, the environment, and other God’s creation? Has this faith been translated into human values that guide the day-to-day interrelationships of the community of people, the neighborhood, the family? Has it thoroughly influenced the culture of the Bol-anons? Confronted with challenges of modern paradigms of thought , of new ideologies, of the advances of science and technology, of the materialistic way of living, secular thinking, relativistic and cafeteria manner of following the norms of law and dictates of conscience, the post-modern view of human person whose concept of freedom is to be limitless, not to be constrained by external authority and objective laws, how strong is their faith to parry all these? Have they learn good lessons from them, incorporating them in their way of Christian living, instead of being carried away by these dangerous teachings? Are our people mature enough in their faith to be a beacon of light to the world of today, even to the point of questioning many of their assumptions and biases? Is there a new fresh new way of reaching this people, telling them with authority about Jesus and His answers to the deep longing of modern man? What method in catechism should we use today to reach our people sophisticated in the ways of the world, effectively proclaiming to them the Word of God, teaching them the content of the faith, leading them back to genuine Christian living, and, ultimately, bringing them back to God, to the true worship of Him?
The Katesismo Bol-anon is born out of this cognitional process, a rigorous and disciplined exercise of the mind and the will that the writers have willingly undergone for a purpose that is noble. In their heart, however, beats that longing and that prayer that the catechism they have helped to see the light of day would indeed be a relevant guide to usher the Bol-anons to the process of assimilation to God. As observed well by the great German author Goethe “eye could never recognize the sun were it not itself sunlike,” so the faithful can only know God if deep within them is sown and nurtured the initial knowledge of Him through catechism.
Of course, the writers of the Katesismo Bol-anon are fully aware that faith is a gift. But they also know that this donum fidei can only be received and assimilated by the individuals through tedious process of evangelization and long catechesis as well as their willingness to cooperate in listening and accepting the Good News of salvation. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI who described the role of catechesis to the life of the faithful: “Catechesis aims at coming to know Jesus concretely. It is theoretical and practical initiation into the will of God as revealed in Jesus and lived by the community of the Lord’s disciples, the family of God.” (Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism, Ignatius Press, 1997, p. 56).
After so much straits and travails in giving birth to the Katesismo Bol-anon, however, the writers have that consolation in that they have contributed a little to prepare the faithful to know God, help them to adapt to His ways and, hopefully, to again fall in love with this God.

Catholic Morality and the RH Bill

2011-08-11T09:18:00.002+08:00

One positive offshoot of the on-going debate between the RH Bill and the Roman Catholic Church is the deliberate introspection and deeper study of morality that it has prodded. For quite a time the Church has taken for granted the study of morality in general, and in particular, of the morality of sexuality. The study on morality of sexuality has not been given that needed time to delve ever deeper into the richness of human acts and the realities of sex, into the spirituality of human behavior and habits, into the meaning of what human life really is from the perspective of man as a whole, his dignity, his ontological orientation, his relation with self and others, his acts befitting an embodied person whose expressions with the world outside him includes his sexuality. Hence, it is a joy for me to again hear a Catholic writer on spirituality who came up with an insightful statement that approximates a poetry on family life and sexuality, thus: “Perhaps there is nothing in this world as powerful to break selfishness as is the simple act of looking at our own children. In our love for them we are given a privileged avenue to feel as God feels – to burst in unselfishness, in joy, in delight, and in the desire to let another’s life be more real and important than our own” (Ronald Rolheiser, ‘How Children Raise their Parents,’ Western Catholic Reporter, 27 March 1995).

It has to be admitted that Catholic morality then was more focused on the ‘acts we have done’ instead of emphasizing on ‘what kind of person are we becoming’ by virtue of those acts. At first blush it may be the right way. After all what is wrong with the daily examination of conscience that has become our revered exercise, meticulously weighing up the acts that we have done? On closer look, however, if we focus our moral evaluation only on our acts, our tendency is to strive only for the minimum. We become minimalist. An example is the attitude: ‘how far should I go before I commit a mortal sin?’ Or ‘how many venial sins will add up into a mortal sin? This attitude shows that we tend to worry only about mortal sins and we tend not to care for those we conveniently label as small-time sins or, as we are used to say, venial. Moreover, we take notice of our ‘sins of commission’ but hardly do we give attention ‘for those we have failed to do’ or 'sins of omission'. By intently looking so much on the possible violations of our acts we become too individualistic, measuring, that is, its harmful effects only on how it affects us and seldom on how it impacts on other people. The sum total of all these is mediocre Christians - a state that once earned the ire of Christ who said: "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth" (Rev 3:15).

Thanks to modern sciences on human behavior we now know that small and seemingly insignificant but repetitive actions can cement into a deep seated attitude and habit, which will later on induce someone to commit big decisions of mortal consequences for one self and others. Thanks also to psycho-spirituality we now know that the good ‘we have failed to do’ are, in the long run, as destructive as the wrong ‘we have done’. In other words, we become what we do! A husband’s adulterous encounter, for example, is not the authorship of Satan. Rather he has been conditioned by his small but increasingly becoming frequent flirtatious side glances, double-meaning jokes, and dubious gestures to younger officemates, small instances of neglect to his wife, and white lies when confronted about them. In other words, our venial sins cannot just be simply dismissed as insignificant for they might have a bearing on the kind of person that we are becoming.

It is along this context that we are hoping that in the face of the RH Bill controversy Catholic morality would return to the drawing board, strongly emphasizing therein ‘what type of person are we becoming in view of every single act that we effect.'

Message of Joy and the RH Bill

2011-07-30T16:12:00.004+08:00

It is sad to observe how the unfolding of the public discussions and formal debates of the RH Bill has degenerated into personal attacks, unprintable verbal assaults, and wanton mudslinging unheard-of in civilized society. Religious and cultural sensibilities have with abandon been disregarded and ignored, the fine things in life as painting, poetry, and music used to hurl disdainful attacks at the very core of the faith of Christians. A defence of the faith, a sort of an ‘apologia’, is in order.
Meantime, in the midst of all these negative incidents, a group of Catholic lay faithful came up with a rally of its own, the smile rally. It was meant to bring across Metro Manila the pro-life message, that is, to proclaim this message of life with a smile. Life after all brings with it joy, a message of hope, an assurance of continuity, a message of vitality. Smile is the faint response to that invitation to the call to accept life and to uphold it.
The pro-life group actually just echoes the stand made by the Catholic Church which with much confidence proclaims the Gospel of life no matter the objections of the RH Bill proponents. It is first of all based on the Church profession of faith in God as Creator. It is a belief that may not originally be its own, but inherited from the faith of the chosen people of God, the Israelites. It is the ground for its solid adherence to the respect and preservation of life. This credo immediately tells us who God is and who we are. The world is not a product of mere chance nor can it be reasonably explained by the big bang theory that proposes the existence of all things, living beings included, through mere evolutionary process. The reasonableness of faith in creation tells us that everything is ultimately dependent on the mind of God the Creator. He holds history and all peoples in His hands, the Creator of all things, the source of power, the God who provides. It is this faith in God the Creator that gives man the confidence that there is Someone who freely produced him out of sheer love. It also gives him the courage to face up life’s challenges and to take upon himself the great adventure of life, for God loves him first. Realization of the great truth that we come from God, that the universe is the product of his freedom, his knowledge, and his love, empowers man to relate with others with respect and poise, trust the other without inhibition, and love as human beings without fear what the future would bring. As Benedict the XVI aptly put it: “God is the Lord of all things because he is their Creator, and only therefore can we pray to him. For this means that freedom and love are not ineffectual ideas but rather that they are sustaining forces of reality” (Ratzinger, ‘In the Beginning,’ p. 18).
Faith in creation is reasonable. The argument that the existence of order, harmony, and beauty of the universe demands and calls for the existence of a creative Mind and Reason that causes the existence of the former may not be a conclusive one for modern thinkers due to some shortcomings, but creation is still a better alternative. As Benedict XVI argued that today, as in the time of Aristotle, the reasonableness of the universe provides us with access to God’s Reason: ‘God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation’ and ‘in the Bible is and continues to be true enlightenment which has given the world to human reason and not to exploitation by human beings, because it opened reason to God’s truth and love’ (cf. Ibid., p. 17).
For those who believe in God’s intervention in the world, they may look into the creation story in the Book of Genesis. For Christians, however, the normative scriptural account is John’s Gospel that says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was God... All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (1: 1,3). God is a Creator. Man is a creature.
The pro-life group in its campaign to spread out smile to all is actually proclaiming that profound reality of the Catholic Faith on life. Life comes from God; it has to be respected; it has to be celebrated; it has to be greeted with a smile.

Birthing of a Boholano Catechism Book

2011-07-22T09:06:00.001+08:00

To prepare for the forthcoming Diamond Jubilee of the Diocese of Tagbilaran the priests, the religious, and the lay faithful have decided to publish a catechism that is peculiarly their own. Its purpose is not to deviate from the traditional doctrine of the Catholic Church contained in the official “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, nor, to satisfy that fanciful pride to show off to the world that they have finally reached the age of maturity in faith, capable of producing a catechesis out of their own human resource, effort, and creativity. It is rather to meet the particular needs of our people, the BEC, our clusters, our parishes, our Diocese. The journey in faith together for the past seventy or so years, following faithfully the Sacred Scripture, traditional doctrine of the Church, and the Magisterium has formed within us a spirituality and culture that is uniquely Boholano. Because of its particularity the universal teaching of the Catholic Church cannot fully satisfy their cultural and spiritual needs. It is along this context that the publication of a Boholano Catechism is conceived.
To accomplish this, the writers tasked to draft the project have to contend with questions relevant to the work. What is the level of faith of our people? How profound is their knowledge of God; how deep is their love for Him and how broad and encompassing is their concern for others, the environment, and other God’s creation? Has this faith been translated into human values that guide the day-to-day interrelationships of the community of people, the neighborhood, the family? Has it thoroughly influenced the culture of the Boholanos? Confronted with challenges of modern paradigms of thought , of new ideologies, of the advances of science and technology, of the materialistic way of living, secular thinking, relativistic and cafeteria manner of following the norms of law and dictates of conscience, the post-modern view of human person whose concept of freedom is to be limitless, not to be constrained by external authority and objective laws, how strong is their faith to parry all these? Have they learn good lessons from them, incorporating them in their way of Christian living, instead of being carried away by these dangerous teachings? Are our people mature enough in their faith to be a beacon of light to the world of today, even to the point of questioning many of their assumptions and biases? Is there a new fresh new way of reaching this people, telling them with authority about Jesus and His answers to the deep longing of modern man? What method in catechism should we use today to reach our people sophisticated in the ways of the world, effectively proclaiming to them the Word of God, teaching them the content of the faith, leading them back to genuine Christian living, and, ultimately, bringing them back to God, to the true worship of Him, to prayer?
It is within this context that the writers came up with a Boholano catechism book – a modest volume, seemingly insignificant to demand a place in any library, or, be displayed in the National Bookstore. But we are sure that in no time it will become a priceless possession of our BECs and clusters, for it contains the content of our faith. However, it is so sequenced in accordance to traditional way of presenting our universal catechism that it may be mistaken as a mere reproduction of the same. But a keener study of the catechism book would yield the existence of an inner yet subtle logic that makes it unique in style and presentation. It starts with the study of the Trinity to show that our life is communitarian in origin and therefore communitarian in its nature, activity, and purpose. It ends with the presentation of the Kingdom of God to inculcate the lesson that we are not headed nowhere. As we come from God as a community so we return to him as the community of the redeemed. The style too is unique. It has adapted the process called ORID – a method that is behavioral and inductive. Its purpose is to engage actively the listener in the presented content of the faith.
However, the catechism book would remain lifeless when left on the table. It acquires life only when the trained formator-catechists pick it up, go to the BECS of the parishes, present to the faithful the catecheses contained in the book, facilitate the conduct of the seminar, and together with them actively listen and pay attention to the Lord who teaches. Through this the content of the message becomes alive because the catechists and the participants are engaged in a lively dialogue, preparing them to listen together to the God who speaks to them. Here, the people hear the words of the Scripture and catecheses no longer from the formator-catechists alone. They hear the words from each other. And, hopefully through this dynamic process they would finally recognize their true identity; that they realize that they are not just a group of people that is amorphous, individuals of different directions and prejudices, clinging to each other due to some organizational set-up in the parish, but a community chosen by God as uniquely His own, a community bound together by that divine love that calls them together in the act of evangelizing and catechesis.
Only then will this Boholano catechism book serves its purpose and justifies its existence.

Clerical Dress Code

2011-07-15T09:35:00.000+08:00

The priests have a particular dress code. It requires them to dress up in clerical attire when they appear in public. It is the official garb that is to be used by the clergy in his social life, the ecclesiastical uniform supposed to be worn by them in their public appearances. The Universal law came out with specific regulation obliging those who receive the sacred orders to wear this uniform in public as an integral part of the priestly decorum. Canon 284 expresses it this way: “Clerics are to wear suitable ecclesiastical dress, in accordance with the norms established by the Bishops’ Conference and legitimate local custom.” In compliance with the mandate of the Universal law the Philippine Hierarchy issued specific norms regarding the ecclesiastical uniform enjoining all the ordained ministers in the Philippines to follow. It states: “The proper clerical attire approved by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines are as follows: 1. cassock or religious habit; 2. clergyman’s suit; 3. trousers of dark one-tone color, with the clerical collar. The shirt may also be either polo-barong or barong tagalong, with a distinctive cross” (Testera, Florencio, Canon Law Digest of the Philippine Catholic Church, Manila, 1987, pp. 13-14).
The reason for the obligation of wearing the clerical dress, however, is not at all based on the intention of setting up an elitist class in the Church, a sort of a status symbol for the clergy, installing them not only apart from the rest of the faithful in the ecclesiastical community but also as possessing a higher stateliness and dignity. The real purpose of the ecclesiastical garb is to serve as a public testimony, a manifestation to one and all that the one wearing an ecclesiastical dress is an ordained minister.
Unfortunately, history has somehow warped the perception of the ecclesiastical garb. There was a time when the Church has experienced the tragedy of elitism, the tendency, that is, of the clerics to be considered special and privileged of society because they are granted special treatment by the community, such as, to be exempted from some obligations, or, favored with more and more privileges than the rest of the members of the ecclesial community. To be a cleric at that time is to be special and elite.
The Second Vatican Council tried to eliminate these clerical privileges. It did so by introducing the concept of the People of God, leveling thereof the dignity, rights and duties of all the faithful in the Church. In this concept all the baptized are considered equal. That should have settled the problem of elitism in the Church until another reactionary movement came to the fore. This time it emphasized on what was common to all. Steeped with Vatican II theology and doctrine, some members of the Church made that generalization which states: everything ecclesiastical is elitist. Applying this conclusion to the ecclesiastical dress code, some clerics shirk from wearing the clerical uniform, stating that to wear the official dress is to pose as one who is an ecclesiastic and, therefore, exclusive, snobby, elitist. Hence, they prefer to go in public in t-shirts or in ordinary clothes. It is not that they are necessarily ashamed of their identity as priests or that they have a weak sense of their clerical identity. Rather, they do not like to get the attention of people, who because of the uniform give them privileged treatment, or else be looked at with suspicious and leery glances. They prefer to be left alone, free and unperturbed.
The Church is insistent that her ordained ministers wear the ecclesiastical garb. The reason is simple. The ecclesiastical dress is an external sign, a symbol that is replete with meaning. The clergy who wears it is sending a message to the community of believers as well as to the people in general. The message of the Gospels that the clergy is commissioned to transmit is expressed with words and communicated effectively with external signs, easily understandable to the world of today that is so sensitive to the language of images. To quote the words of the late Pope John Paul II, to wit: “Ecclesiastical dress, therefore, is a sign which makes it easier for others to approach the ministry that the priests represent. In the present society, in which the sense of the sacred has become so diminished, people have even more need of those calls to God, which cannot be disregarded without a certain impoverishment of our priestly service” (John Paul II, Letter to the Vicar of Rome, 8 September 1982, in L’Osservatore Romano, October 18-19, 1982).
Oftentimes we hear of words of excuses from donning the priestly garb. As reasoned out the ecclesiastical dress is not the external sign of the priesthood. It is the spiritual and priestly life of the person concerned. True. However, the Church who legislates on the proper dress for her clergy is not purely spiritual. She is a realist, sacramental in its language as it is incarnational in its expression. The spirit can be expressed in something physical; God can be experienced in the burning bush; the Word can be seen and can be touched in the flesh of Jesus; the ontological transformation wrought by ordination to the minister can be known by the ecclesiastical dress he wears.
The spiritual reality of the priesthood imprinted in the person of the ordained minister has to be expressed and communicated to the community to which he is called to serve. His life, his behavior, his prayer life, his decorum, his language, all of them have to communicate and articulate the reality of the priesthood he had once been configured. To be known as such, so the Church enjoins, the ordained minister has to wear the proper ecclesiastical attire.

Sandugo, Faith, and the Culture of Bohol

2011-07-02T10:38:00.003+08:00

In the five years of my stay in the Diocese of Tagbilaran, I have always savored the beauty of creation that is Bohol and the grandeur of human ingenuity as expressed by the many antique Churches, the deep religious life of the people and their vibrant faith in the Transcendent. I have seen closely the refined culture of the Boholanos reflected in the artistic way they build their houses and public buildings, captured by the solemn hymns and liturgical cantatas in the Church, articulated in the lullaby, the haranas, and other love songs, conveyed by the motion of the body in dances, emotionally played by string and wind musical instruments, and communicated by a language that is simply a pleasure to hear.
It is within this context that the month of July is of great consequence to the Boholanos. It showcases the cultural heritage that they love and visitors admire. It is the month dedicated to the “Sandugo” event, a historical happening that started the great religious and cultural evolution. It was not an earth-shaking occurrence as the Declaration of Independence of the Philippines. But, for the Boholanos it was far-reaching in its effect. It was a sort of a MOA, a Memorandum of Agreement, between the Filipino Natives and Spain to come together, plan together, work together, and cooperate in the building up of a nation based on the Faith in God and in Jesus Christ the Saviour. The signing of that Treaty of friendship was indeed unique and dramatic. Living blood was used in the sealing of the agreement. It is called a blood compact – Sandugo. The protagonists were the Boholano chieftain Sikatuna and the Spanish leader Legazpi. History states that this Treaty was made around 25 March 1565. With that the colonization of the Philippines by Spain and the baptism of its inhabitants as Christians was definitively sealed. Sizing the importance of this event, the Boholanos have decided to celebrate this event not just for a day or two, but for the whole month.

From that Sandugo event of 1565, Bohol through the years has evolved religiously, culturally, socially, economically. Now it has become a center of tourism. Thousands of foreigners as well as local tourists come in droves to Bohol through cars, planes, and fast crafts. The influx of tourists is simply overwhelming.

I, of course, am happy with all that I see. But the experience has caught me off balance, a bit puzzled of what to do with this overwhelming phenomenon. I know that the great influx of visitors bespeaks of the greatness of the place, but as a religious leader I have to contend with religious questions that come with the issue at bar. For one how will tourism affect the religious sensitivity and culture of our people? These old yet stately Churches have been there for centuries to receive and serve the native congregation that has been for years “of one heart and one soul,” worshipping the God whom they have known as their Provider and Savior and serving one another as an expression of their awareness as one Christian community. It has been out of these Churches, complete with intricate works of art in images, signs and symbols for evangelization, liturgy and devotion, that a culture which is typically Boholano was born and has developed and matured. Now these same Churches are frequented by tourists and other individuals whose interest are far from being inserted into the religious life of the native folks. Can a World Heritage Church be adapted to a mixed congregation of worshipers? How can it meet the needs of both the local community and the amorphous group of tourists and visitors?

Faced with such realities, I have to dig deep into the accepted teaching of the Church on religious iconography and the discipline that it has established to regulate the proper actions related to the Churches and works of art. Here I come across the traditional teaching that the patrimony of the Church is profoundly connected with the truths of faith. Through the years these works of art have served the mission of the particular Church to come up with a response to the deep religious longing of man for the transcendent, to provide contemporary individual the tool to experience more vividly the religious wonder at beauty and wisdom captured in images, lines, and hues. Faith after all has that innate power “to express itself in artistic forms and historical witness that have an intrinsic evangelizing force and cultural valence before which the Church is called to pay her maximum attention” (cf. John Paul II, Motu Proprio “Inde a Pontificatus Nostri initio, March 25, 1993).

Liturgy is the formal expression of this faith. It is the official worship of the Community that is formed by this faith, the stance of the People of God in its attempt to reach out to the Infinite whose nature is Truth and Beauty. As such it has to be articulated with beautiful signs and symbols. With the purpose of drawing the worshipers’ mind and heart to God, liturgy has to make use of what is refined and artistic. They should be fitting expressions of the congregation’s faith. They are not mere additives or decors, but essential language of the soul in contact with the Creator.

The sacredness of the signs and symbols comes from an interior vision of an artist in his act of stretching out his God-given talent to touch the exalted One with the end in view of expressing it in lines, colors and images. In turn these images, signs and symbols, coming as they are from a deep contemplation of the artist, have appropriated that innate power to lead man to awe and wonderment, to profound prayer and meditation. As such these artistic images, signs and symbols have become proper instruments for the service of Liturgy and catechism.

To save Bohol from the influence of secularism and materialism as well as relativism in norms of human conduct and behaviour that comes with the influx of visitors of varying perceptions in life, the Church must remind the people time and time again of preserving and conserving the Faith, the works of art such as the Churches, songs and dances that are inspired by this deep religious belief, and the cultural refinements that they have received. They are pearls of great price.

BEATO PEDRO CALUNGSOD FOUNDATION TRAINING CENTER

2011-06-24T04:24:00.004+08:00

Somewhere in the Eastern part of the City of Tagbilaran, in a place where the urban trash has for time immemorial been dumped, sorted out and combed through to recover some items for resale, along the boundary that civilly cuts off Tagbilaran from the town of Baclayon, in a secluded sitio of Barangay Dampas pops up a new building visible to passersby due to its pleasing yet unassuming dirty-white coloration. It has two classrooms with a floor elegantly tiled ready to receive twenty-five to thirty young students. Soon, it will with pride and poise bear the name Beato Pedro Calungsod Foundation Training Center for the Youth.

The structure, small it may appear, is the incipient realization of a dream that is ambitious in its vision and goals, extent, and intensity. For, the founding officers and members of the Foundation that give it existence have been impelled not by any hint of monetary consideration, but by their obligation to society and by their Christian responsibility to love and care. In their meeting some two years ago or thereabouts, they saw and were shocked to face ugly reality. The number of school dropouts among the youth has risen into a mind-boggling proportion. As responsible citizens they have seen that society seems not to care for them and their future. For sure, the government that is tasked to give general education to its citizenry and, therefore, has the primary obligation to look after this social problem, has not been remiss in this matter. For so long has it been dwelling on this snag and has tried several means to untangle itself from it. But the enormity of the problem is simply staggering. The government for one does not have the sufficient resources to manage this increasing dysfunctional state of the young and their poor families.

The founding officers saw this problem, and decided to throw in its share to its eventual resolution. They are for sure not dreamy eyed individuals. They are hard-core realists, persons who could call a spade a spade. If the government is financially incapable of meeting the enormity of the problem, they too are aware that they do not have the monetary resources needed for the task at hand. But they believe in their resourcefulness, their native creativity to look for solutions to problems that come their way. Huddling together and discussing, they came up with the concept of partnership, tying up, that is, with other generous and well-intentioned citizens and organizations, and forging them into multi-sectoral stakeholders. Pooling together their competencies as well as their variegated capabilities they can serve as a network of relationships, building up that bridge to fill up the gap confronting the youth and their poor families on the one end and, the responsible individual citizens, the different communities and organizations, and the government of the Province of Bohol on the other.

After all, every responsible citizen or social organization in the Province has the primary obligation to contribute to national and local development that has long been overdue. It is high time that every Filipino no longer waits for the government to do the things for him. He must do his share.

It is along this line of thought that the Beato Pedro Calungsod Foundation was born. To propel it to action and to persevere in its pursuit for the star, it envisioned itself as: “A Foundation of Christ’s faithful in the Diocese of Tagbilaran, inspired by the Word of God, nourished by the Eucharist, strengthened by constant prayer, ever conscious of its social and spiritual life in the integral human development.”

It is not mere convenience that the Beato Pedro Calungsod was taken as the title of the Foundation. The founding officers saw the heroism of this young gentleman, a martyr whose life of heroism could be a constant inspiration. Because of the Faith that he had embraced and boldly proclaimed, he was ordered to be killed by a primitive Chieftain in Guam, brutally executed by a tribal soldier. The youthful saint, who, as tradition has it, lived in Bohol, Cebu, and Iloilo, was known for these virtues, to wit: scientific and intellectual discipline; patience; hard work; bravery; and lived Faith. This kind of life could indeed be the needed inspiration for the youth of Bohol, a life around which values-driven transformation programs and activities could be drawn up. The Foundation is hoping that this could be one of the entry points to touch base with the out-of-school youth and their families, and a medium for transforming societies into centers for integral human development.

Clerical Decorum

2011-06-18T09:59:00.001+08:00

The life-style and behavior of priests and deacons are sometimes a puzzle to some of our lay faithful. They behave and they dress not like any other mortals. Because of these they seem to be out of this world, irrelevant to the rhythm of the time. What is the reason for their different ways of life and behaving? Are they mere fanciful creation of the laws of the Church, an irrational sticking to tradition?

As the Sacrament of Sacred Orders makes a person a sacred minister; the Church law enacts an intricate complex of laws and guidelines that define the proper conduct of an ordained individual. The Sacrament of Orders endows spiritual powers to the sacred minister to carry out within the Community the office of priest, servant-leader, and teacher; the Church discipline comes out with norms of how he should licitly and validly fulfill this mission to the Community. The Sacrament of Order transforms a mere human being into a man of God; the law sets down obligations, rights, suggestions and even prohibitions in order that this man of God appears before the People of God and before civil society as a man that bears the mark of the divine.

The norms dealing with the juridical status of clerics have therefore the purpose of reflecting and canonically protecting the identity of clerics and give them the space to perform properly their ministry, the office received from Holy Orders.

Characteristics of the Clerical Status

1. It is not temporary. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Sacrament of sacred orders imprints an indelible character in the sacred minister, making this configuration with Christ as something perpetual. Herein follows the nature of the juridical status of the clerics: it too is not ad tempus. Henceforth, as a result of valid ordination the life of the sacred minister will be regulated by this set of special norms, determining his way of life, the obliging him to carry out the roles and the functions specifically laid down for him. These will apply through all his life, and even into retirement. Fr. Luis Navarro eloquently puts it this way: “From what has been said it can be concluded that the personal juridical status of clerics is with them always, day and night and wherever they are. Therefore it is not legitimate to consider that a cleric exercises his rights and fulfills the canonical norms only during the time in which he performs some ministry. This would reflect a functionalistic view of his identity and ministry” (“The Juridical Status of the Clergy”, Luis Navarro, Philippine Canonical Forum, CLSP, January-December 2001, vol. III, p. 43).

2. It is not optional. This juridical status of the clergy is not something optional. The norms are obligatory. After all it is established in close connection with the sacrament of holy orders, translating his sacramental identity into the area of his mission, wherein he has to function properly as demanded by law. Secondly, this sacramental reality has to influence, evolve and develop in his own personal life, his priestly decorum, his life-style, wherein he has to conduct himself properly before the Christian Community and to the world. The faithful has all the rights to see in their minister all the elements that make him genuine minister. Pope John Paul says it bluntly: “Thus, permanent formation is a requirement of the priest’s own faithfulness to his ministry, to his very being. It is love for Jesus Christ and fidelity to oneself. But it is also an act of love for the People of God, at whose service the priest is placed. Indeed, an act of true and proper justice. The priest owes it to God’s people, whose fundamental right to receive the word of God, the sacraments and the service of charity, the original and irreplaceable content of the priest’s own pastoral ministry, he is called to acknowledge and foster. Ongoing formation is necessary to ensure that the priest can properly respond to this right of the People of God” (Apost. Exhort. Pastores dabo vobis, n. 70).

For the priest therefore to be considered distinct from the lay faithful in his life-style and conduct is not at all intended to set up a new form of snobbery or elitism. It is the Church’s way of making her priest always and everywhere what he already is in the sacramental way: true and genuine minister of Christ.

Morality, the Holy Spirit, and the Catholic Church

2011-06-09T09:34:00.001+08:00

In her long drawn dispute with the proponents of the RH Bill, the Catholic Church insists on the importance of an objective morality that should guide the laws and rules of conduct of the nation. For her any legislation that runs counter to natural law and the dignity of the human person is in the long run detrimental to the State no matter the many other good items and noble services that it proposes to extend to the citizenry.
Morality is more than the human positive laws. Morality, which consists of an accepted set of values, is basic to any harmonious and peaceful living among the members in society. It defines what is right and what is wrong; it enunciates the principle of conduct that states: ‘do good and avoid evil’; it dictates to every individual person the day-to-day way of living humanely and well; it orders people to make use of their freedom to make life choices that would define their true character, to come up with bold decisions that would impact the common good of the community in which they live. Man by the aid of his human reason can arrive at this moral truth. For deep inside the human spirit is lodged that faculty to discover what good is to be upheld and what evil is to be avoided; what it means to be a good person, what a just community looks like. It is within our natural capacity to figure out how we ought to be human.
But the Catholic Church does not content herself to the valid discovery of human reason to base her teaching regarding the human and the humane way of being and acting. The Church believes in the intervention of God in the complex affairs of men after the fall. To do that, she studies the precept of the Lord and meditates on His law. The set of values that she has imbibed and developed through the years has been influenced by the written Word of God, oral Tradition, and the Magisterium. The Ten Commandments that God gave to his people (Ex. 20:1-17) are bases of Church’s morality. They sum up God’s requirement in terms of relationship with Him and with one another. The nature of this relationship is love. It is first and foremost love relationship with God as expressed in Deut. 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength”. It is also a love relationship among His people as stated by Lev. 19:2: “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” In the Old Testament, therefore, God expressly established a Covenant between Him and His people. The great “Shema” precept (“listen”) and the Ten Commandments were there precisely as requirement for the people to comply and to preserve the covenant of love.
Following the tradition of the Israelites the Church accepts the ten Commandments as her articulation of faithfulness to the Covenant. There is a God who loves us, hears our cries, saves us out of the many dangers in life, frees us from death. He is the God who invites us to an integral salvation by asking us to offer our “whole mind, whole soul, whole heart” to Him and to all those He loves. In this sense, Catholic morality in her consideration of the commandments as requirement for the preservation of that love relationship will not take sin as a trivial or private digression from the law. Every sin, whether mortal or venial, is an act of betrayal to that Someone who loves us; and act of treachery to our neighbor. Instead of being a private affair, every sin is serious matter, carrying with it destructive consequences not only to self but also to the community or to the nation at large. For instance, we have grown up thinking that the sin of “dishonesty in business” is only between me and my God. So we assume that it is a private matter that I have to settle with my “Boss up there”. Thus we never care to ask for forgiveness from the people we have harmed; we never care for making retribution for the damage done. For as we foolishly reason out: ‘anyway these people – the consumers - are personally unknown to me’
But in the standard of the Church, to be obedient to the Ten Commandments and the other existing laws would hardly make one a good Christian. It is a call not proper to the dignity of human persons. As Jesus once said: “I tell you, unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of God’ (Mt. 5:20). If at all, it is but an open door to a far richer life of growing into the image and likeness of Jesus.
The Christian is a person who has moved to a different level of human existence in response to the call of Jesus Christ. His life is radically shaped by that call of the Spirit. As Jesus declared to Nicodemus: “I solemnly assure you, no one can see the reign of God unless he is begotten from above… no one can enter into God’s kingdom without being begotten of water and Spirit” (Jn 3: 3; 5) In this sense, to be a moral person is to be committed to configure one’s whole life according to the image and likeness of Christ.
Hence, the foundation of Catholic morality is God’s call to each one - configuratio Christi! Catholic morality is, in the words of St. Paul, putting on the “new man” Jesus Christ.

Voice of the Laity and the RH Bill

2011-06-03T15:52:00.002+08:00

Amidst the tensions and animosities which RH Bill has roused and whipped up, we are inspired to observe the persistent vigilance of the lay faithful. They have been there ever present in every discussion and debate to defend the sacredness of life and the rights of the family, never giving up the traditional stand of the Catholic Church vis-a-vis the many and formable challenges put forward by the proponents of the proposed law. Yes, they have made the bishops proud. They are courageous bunch of individuals who have stood up for the Commandments of God and morality, the value of self-sacrifice and discipline. Many of them are faceless personalities yet brilliant and propound in their expositions of the faith to show to the postmodern citizens the existence of the bigger picture of human life. I see them in Congress explaining to the representatives of the people the value of human life and the importance of the objective standard of actions and non-negotiable principles of morality in the legislation of a nation; I view them in T.V. parrying the objections brought forth by the RH Bill promoters, casually shrugging off some comments meant to put them on the spot and embarrass them, patiently explaining the stand of the Catholic Church on the beauty of life and the deep respect for the natural laws that govern the human body in the use of sex; I read them in the newspapers and magazines, expounding the need for discipline and morality in the exercise of sexuality, procreation, and love life. For them, the nation will be better off if it follows the laws laid down by the Constitution, instead of resorting to contraceptives, sterilization and condoms, artificial means that downgrade human sexuality from what should be a loving act of the man and the woman into a mere exchange of bodily fluids for the sake of a fleeting pleasure. As Mr. Francisco Tatad eloquently put it: “(RH Bill)... is a naked attempt to impose a hedonistic sex-oriented lifestyle upon individuals and families – one in which marriage is reduced into a State-mediated partnership between two individuals whose primary purpose is to engage in a mechanical State-supervised exchange of carnal sensations while doing everything to avoid its most natural consequence, namely, the conception of a child” (Cf. The Truth and Half-Truths About Reproductive Health, p. 4). Mr. Leonardo Montemayor, FFF National President, in the name of the Federation of Free Farmers, issued an official Statement against the RH Bills in Congress, upholding the sacredness of human life and integrity of the Filipino family as the bedrock of Philippine society, and, among others, declared: “Filipinos in general and farmers in particular consider their children a blessings to their families and as assets to society. In contrast, the RH bills seem to treat pregnancy as a disease and child-rearing as an affliction, both to be prevented or even eliminated.”

Such a manifestation of courage and heroism bespeaks of an interior life that has grown mature; a Christian soul that is alive and sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit; a faith that sees beyond what the senses feel and the unaided brain perceives, that is, the material surface of things. It penetrates through what is merely visible and appreciates the invisible yet evident workings of God in the daily occurrences of living. It is the very same faith that we have all received during our baptism. But, thanks be to God, our Christian family and our Church have patiently nurtured this faith through the teaching of the word of God and the administration of the sacraments. The word of God serves as the light to whatever happens to the baptized, giving the daily event in life a deeper meaning than what is being sensed and felt; the sacraments allow the baptized to continually commune in a personal way the God who created him and the God who saves him. It is within this environment that the faith of our lay faithful has developed. In time there has developed in them a sensitivity for divine activity, the instinctual appreciation to give to God what belongs to God.

Our lay faithful who keep the faith have a world-view in dealing with the affairs of the universe. They uphold that the ultimate reality is God – the Creator of the universe and, therefore, utterly distinct from it. He is a personal God, eternal, and self-sufficient (Gn 1:1; Col 1:16). He has no beginning and no end, a God who is a person, not a force. Man is created by this God according to His own image and likeness. As such he possesses a nature that is unique in its value and dignity, possessing within himself the faculties of the intellect to know the truths and facts of life, and of the will to love the good and the beautiful. This God communes with man. He is a God of history – a God who not only hears the cry of the poor, but had left His throne in heaven and became man in Jesus Christ, taking everything human unto Himself except sin. His purpose is to free man from sin, the curse of suffering and death. To do that He accepted His own death, a death that is ignominious, death on the cross (cf. Ph2: 6-8). In this world- view man is to live here on earth with a purpose. As he came from God, he too has to return to Him. But as he was endowed with the freedom of choice, he can attain only that purpose of his life by choosing the good and avoiding evil. By that, he is made responsible for all the decisions and actions that he has done to his life, to render account to the Creator, and be judged accordingly.

It is this kind of world-view that gives our lay faithful courage and perseverance to stand up in defense of the Catholic faith. The Church is deeply proud of them.

Voice of the Church and the RH Bill

2011-05-26T16:07:00.003+08:00

The voice of the teaching Church, strongly opposing the RH Bill and warning the people of its effects to morality, can be heard loud and clear in the issuance of the January 2011 Pastoral Letter of CBCP entitled: "Choosing Life; Rejecting RH Bill.” In so doing it passed a definitive judgment on the Reproductive Health Bill and its subsequent amended versions. The main reason for its rejection is: it is morally unacceptable.

The Church speaks from the standpoint of morality. This is after all where her competence lies. It is part of the Church’s mission “to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it. The means, the only means, she may use are those which are in accord with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances” (CCC 2245). The Church, in order to be the genuine expert of humanity and authoritative in its assessment of man, has to listen and contemplate on the Words of God out of whom man exists, acts, and has his being – the be-all and end-all of humanity. Aside from the Bible and the Sacred Tradition, the Church has to dig deep into the study of philosophy to know man's nature and life through and through from the standpoint of natural knowledge. When, therefore, the Church made its stand against the RH Bill it was not meant to be disrespectful to the State. It was rather to state that she has to be listened to, for she has much to say about man and God given authority to talk about his integral welfare; to declare its stand and state the reasons for its posture. Hence, the pronouncements that it made regarding the RH Bill should be understood on this context.

The State has a legitimate existence of its own. The Church is aware of this reality. It acknowledges autonomy of the State to pursue its temporal purposes; it respects the sovereignty of the nation in the ordering of the temporal goods and services in the just and equitable distribution to each individual citizen and family; it collaborates in the noble task of the State government in putting up an environment of peace and justice so that the complex interactions of the different rights of the citizens may be harmonious and peaceful; it supports the State in its pursuit for developmental goals and economic growth. Hence the Church accepts the autonomy of the State to legislate laws that are according to the requirements of the common good, provisions that would respect and protect the fundamental rights of the human person, legislations that would dispense human services that are in consonance with the dignity of the persons and the natural law. Dispensation of justice to all is the legitimate ambit of the State. In fact it is its duty to promote public order, a modicum of peace and justice, a humane environment, in which individuals, families, and small communities can interact with one another, and thereby wholesomely flourish and grow.

If that is so, then why does the Church now oppose the attempt to make the RH Bill or its amended version into a law of the land?

The answer is the content of the RH Bill which is perceived by the Church as morally wrong. It is on this ground that the Church made its verdict. It states: “ 1) We object to the non-consideration of moral principles, the bedrock of law, in legislative discussions of bills that are intended for the good of individuals and for the common good; 2) We are against the anti-life, anti-natal and contraceptive mentality that is reflected in media and in some proposed legislative bills; 3) We object strongly to efforts at railroading the passage of the RH Bill; 4) We denounce the over-all trajectory of the RH Bill towards population control; 5) We denounce the use of public funds for contraceptives and sterilization; 6) We condemn compulsory sex education that would effectively let parents abdicate their primary role of educating their own children, especially in an area of life – sexuality – which is a sacred gift of God.”

Meantime it is worth noting that the world has become globalized and society of man into a fluid entity. At its wake it has developed citizens of variegated and heterogeneous perceptions of things, different ways of appraising issues at hand. It is in this kind of environment that pluralistic mentality thrives, freedom of choice is nurtured. Eventually ethical pluralism evolves, a belief that sanctions the decadence of the principles of natural moral law. It teaches citizens to claim complete autonomy with regards to moral choices that they make. It also facilitates the lawmakers to enact laws that are oftentimes unethical and even immoral in the pretext that they are just respecting the freedom of choices of the citizens. Soon the basis of Democracy, which is, true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles will be dismissed. It is along this line that The “Doctrinal Note” of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith put this warning: “If Christians must recognize the legitimacy of differing points of view about the organization of worldly affairs, they are also called to reject, as injurious to democratic life, a conception of pluralism that reflects moral relativism. Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society” (cf. “The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Nov. 24, 2002, n. 2).

It is within this context that the voice of the Shepherds of the Church is heard in the Philippines.

Voice of Theology and the RH Bill

2011-05-20T10:17:00.004+08:00

It is in the midst of doctrinal confusion and uncertainties, like that which has recently been unleashed by the introduction of the RH Bill injecting into the consciousness of our people new belief system and one-dimensional programs of family life, sexuality, and reproductive health, that the voice of theology is badly sought after. The voice of the teaching Church may be there and can be heard distinctly, but in-depth study of theology is needed to clarify issues so that realities can be sifted from perceptions and assumptions.

We are living in a globalized world whose borders are pierced through and through by the technology of modern communications. As people are brought closer to each other, the interaction that it generates, the social behaviour that it spawns, the human and humane values that it shapes and develops, the ethical standard of human actions that it presses on our minds and consciences is mind boggling - it goes beyond the proportion of what we have learned in schools, colleges, and universities. The whirl of the world has become so complicated that we in the Church are dizzily panting to catch up with what we are going to offer to our people in order for them to pursue developmental goals that, in the words of Benedict XVI in his Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate”, ‘possess a more humane and humanizing value’.
Theology is precisely there for the service of this social truth which the Church believes can set man free from the cruel grips of the nihilistic and myopic world view. Commitment, therefore, to the study of theology is not only a noble task, but also a priority in our globalized world.

The RH Bill in its attempt to make a headway to legislation is presenting a document that packages a set of laws, organizational set up, programs of activities that would for its goal set the Philippines in a better shape economically. Its philosophy is: economic prosperity of a nation becomes possible only through control of births and population. To advance this kind of legislation, it makes assumptions that run counter to the teaching of the Catholic Church. For one, it presupposes that there are no other laws, except human laws, that should govern man’s individual and social conduct and behaviour. Natural laws, transcendental laws, Divine laws, do not count. It is on this ground that the Church opposes the Bill.

Meantime, in its fight against the passage of RH Bill, the Church is falsely accused of imposing its faith on other religious denominations. It is true that the Catholic Church has no desire to impose its belief on other religions. But, its insistence in its opposition to the Bill is perceived to be such.

It is precisely here that we need the voice of theology – that is, how does the Church stand up for its right without imposing its religious belief system on others? After all both the Church and politics are not fixed realities. They are living realities in progress and evolution. No wonder the relation between Church and State is a complex issue. The Holy Father himself keenly observed that the Church does not claim to interfere in anyway in the politics of States, nor does it have technical solutions to offer. But it does possess the truth about society and the mission to teach this truth in every time and circumstance. It is this truth that shields our society from an empiricist and sceptical view of life.

Can theology come out to help the teaching Church in its mission to proclaim this truth of the family vis-a-vis the challenge of the RH Bill?

RH BILL AND CHRISTIAN FAMILY LIFE

2011-05-14T06:47:00.002+08:00

With the building up of emotional tension among our citizenry spawned by the RH Bill and its concomitant issues, it is wise to pause and with a touch of objectivity reconsider the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on sexuality, marriage, and family life.

The Church is very much aware of the position of our culture vis-a-vis the teaching of the Church on sexuality, love, marriage, and family. It reasons out that the Church is too prudish, not up to the standard of the world today; its discipline on sexual relations of man and woman, the call to modest acts and behaviour in sexual matter, the invitation to pure and chaste love, are impractical and ridiculous to the urgent call of the wild. This reaction was already noted some years ago. Pope Benedict XVI, in his first and recent Encyclical Letter “Deus Caritas Est” declared that in France during the Age of the Enlightenment the great philosopher Nietzsche had already made this judgment: “Christianity had poisoned eros.” To elaborate, the philosopher asked these pointed questions: “Doesn’t the Church, with all the commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn’t she blow the whistle just when the joy, which is the Creator’s gift, offers in a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the divine?” (no.3).

Shallow perceptions of this kind are mirrored in the way our culture treats sexuality. Once the National Geographic magazine came out an issue with a banner story on love and family life. Entitled “The Thing called Love”, it portrays love as a chemical reaction that influences the brain and the whole person of the parties involved. It then proffers the questions: “Does passion necessarily diminish over time? How reliable is romantic love, really, as a means of choosing one’s mate? Can a marriage be good when Eros is replaced with friendship, or even economic partnership, two people bound by bank accounts?” (National Geographic, Lauren Slater, “The Thing Called Love”, February 2006, pp. 32-49). Or, is sex measurable as much as our brain is measurable? is there such a thing as CQ, Compatibility Quotient as we do have for our intelligence (IQ)? The Reader’s digest in one of its 2006 issues suggested that there should be a stable measure for one’s attraction to the other. In this perception, we are made to believe that we are all hard-wired to choose a partner, that is, “that men will go for petite, curvy woman; that women prefer a tall man with a strong jaw line who looks affluent.”

It is within these one-dimensional perceptions that our modern culture insists that sex is casual, morally neutral, not subject to any rule or discipline. It is an in-born right of every individual person to make use of sex, a private entitlement to enjoy anytime he feels the urge to it; a private property to be used according to his desire. Unfortunately such an intimate union of man and woman in sexual act, wanted or unwanted, can result in pregnancy. Is pregnancy part of the deal?

It is at this point that RH Bill comes in and makes that big bang promise that, if made into a law, it guarantees “satisfying and safe sex life” without the burden of getting pregnant. It does so by giving to the citizens of the Philippines free access to all kinds of contraceptives. With this the RH Bill inherently sanctions a life of promiscuity.

The Roman Catholic Church opposes this posture. Sex is not just like anything else. It is not a toy to be played with. It is a sacred gift to be handled with care, to be respected. It speaks of total self giving, total trust, total commitment. In such an intimate sharing of one’s life, the conjugal union cannot admit of any tinge of conditionality. Hence, for a Roman Catholic, sex by its very nature must be linked to marriage that is permanent, exclusive, and open to life.

It is within this context that there is a need for the Christian marriage to be proclaimed again in full vigour. Christian marriage is more than a piece of legislation; more than the union of a male and a female hit by a chemical reaction called love. It is a sacred union. It starts with the free choice of the man and the woman in love, mutually surrendering themselves to each other which they do by entering into marriage whose meaning and values do not depend on them but on God himself. For God is the Author of marriage, delicately endowing it with proper laws and regulations. And due to reality of sin, making him/her prone to the temptations of the flesh and the pride of life that oftentimes sours the relationship between man and woman, God elevated that union into a sacrament. Here the spouses are caught up by the Christ who gives that great promise: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Plight of Filipino Migrants

2011-05-06T15:46:00.000+08:00

The Plight of Filipino Migrants

It is a sad commentary that we are no longer shocked with the fast growing number of our countrymen who are leaving the Philippines, land of their birth. It bespeaks of an attitude that has become accustomed, if not calloused, to the alarming reality; that the phenomenon does not cause us anymore uneasiness or feeling of guilt. In the midst of this seeming indifference, I would dare to state the fact that there are now nine million migrants, if not more, or thereabouts. They are not mere faceless individuals, but warm bodies with human feelings, Filipino emotions, and basic needs that constantly call our attention. They are living persons who need food and the necessities of life to keep themselves in one piece; rational beings who can foresee the need to provide for the uncertainties of the future, responsible family men and women who in search for a better future for their children, they set out of this country that they love, and settle in a foreign land which they think could give them a better prospect for themselves and their family; human persons who are endowed with rights and obligations, particularly the right to a decent environment that guarantees the protection of their human dignity. They have to be cared for bodily, psychologically, and spiritually.

The Church in the Philippines has not been remiss in its obligation to extend its Pastoral Care to Filipino Migrants. It is aware of its task to look into the temporal and spiritual needs of its faithful. It is after all its response to the rights of the migrants as well as all the faithful which the Code enunciated, to wit: “Christ’s faithful have the right to be assisted by their Pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church, especially by the word of God and the Sacraments” (Canon 213). They may be far from its reach, but the obligation remains in the conscience of the Philippine Church. Foremost in its mind is what is demanded in the Salvation History – God provided laws and guidelines regarding refugees. When God commanded the Chosen People to be hospitable to foreigners and strangers, as stated in Leviticus 19: 34, God reminded them of the reason for the legal provision, that is, “because you yourselves were foreigners in strange land.” CBCP sees this text as a framework for its pastoral care for Filipino migrants, that is, our people are strangers in foreign lands. It has to look after their pastoral needs, their well-being, peace of mind, growth in spiritual life, and their appreciation of their dignity as human beings and as children of God. The Church in the Philippines has task to constantly remind them and support them that no matter how menial their kind of work is, they remain children of God and bearers of human dignity. It is for this heavy responsibility that CBCP has to found the Commission for the Pastoral Care for Migrants, and to demand from it a regular report and evaluation of its mission. But nine million Filipino migrants is a number so staggering that the Commission is in a quandary on how to effectively and efficiently meet the demands and expectations of the Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

One of the greatest pains of our migrant workers is the loss of the sense of self-pride. They pine to get it back, but no amount of money that they receive can buy it back. The Church understands the depth of man’s pain when he is deprived of such self-worth. Hence, in its work for Christian justice and charity, its priority is help the concerned individual migrants get back their dignity. Hence, the words of John XXIII echoed: “Individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social l institution” (Pacem in Terris, 31). Then he added: “Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services” (ibid, 32). For, every person is precious, people are more important than things, and the value of every institution is whether or not it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person.

Our migrant workers, nine million of them, have dignity to uphold, human pride to protect, better quality of lives to pine for, meaning of life to savor, spirituality to hang on to, so that they can stand up as human persons and as children of God in foreign places.

EASTER JOY AND SAD REALITIES

2011-04-29T09:17:00.003+08:00

EASTER JOY AND SAD REALITIES

In spite of the event as awesome as the resurrection of Jesus, man remains deeply entangled with the existential forces of darkness and the perennial problem of evil. It seems that the power of the resurrection has never made a dent on the invincibility of evil that has bound man to its tight grip. The Good News that “the Christ is risen” would once and for all put an end to man’s earthly problems, sufferings, anguish, agony and death , but it appears to be a dud, an empty promise. As it is, the Easter joy has been proclaimed with all the pomp that the Church could muster, but communities of believers, Christian families, and individual faithful are still struggling with the problems of hunger, misunderstandings in societal relations, violent separations of loved ones, hatred for one another, deceits and betrayal, sexual promiscuity and moral corruption, religious persecutions and prejudices, jealousies, pride, despondency, despair. Paul though converted to the faith and had an intense experience of the risen Lord in his life was not exempted from inwardly contending with his own personal existential problem of sin and evil that in his estimation had no end. And so, disgusted with his fate, he agonizingly once exclaimed: “In my inmost self I dearly love God’s Law, but I can see that my body follows a different law that battles against the law which my reason dictates. This is what makes me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death?” (Rm 7:22-24)

Benedict XVI, deeply endowed with a sensitive soul, has used his talent to help man face this kind of problems. In his talks and in his writings he plunges deep into the reason of all these and proclaims to him God’s gracious intervention. The Encyclical “Spe Salvi” was precisely written by him in order to help modern man with the problem of suffering. Here he discussed in full length the meaning of hope vis-a-vis the stark realities of man. And then, recently, this Good Friday he took the opportunity to speak to all men of good will regarding suffering. It is for this reason that he veered off a bit from his regular schedule for that day. As he pondered on the sufferings and death of Jesus, he saw this same Jesus as he descended to the dead assuming unto His own Self all the sufferings and deaths of all living creatures, men of the technological age included. As the successor of Peter and as a Vicar of Christ, he felt the obligation to talk about sufferings directly to the world. By listening intently to the tale of men’s woes, empathizing with them, and extending to them his deep compassion, he believed that he would be putting himself in the position of service to help men bear the brunt of their pains and anguish.

For that to happen, he went on T.V. and opened himself to queries from the different sectors of suffering humanity. The first question came from a Japanese girl who in her innocence and simplicity came up with an interesting query. She said: "My name is Elena. I am Japanese and I am seven years old. I am very frightened because the house where I felt safe really shook a lot and many children my age have died. I cannot go to play at the park. I want to know: why do I have to be so afraid? Why do children have to be so sad? I'm asking the Pope, who speaks with God, to explain it to me". The pope obliged: “Dear Elena, I send you my heartfelt greetings. I also have the same questions: why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so much while others live in ease? And we do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do, an innocent, and that the true God who is revealed in Jesus is by your side. This seems very important to me, even if we do not have answers, even if we are still sad; God is by your side and you can be certain that this will help you... Be assured, we are with you, with all the Japanese children who are suffering. We want to help you with our prayers, with our actions, and you can be sure that God will help you.”

The pope’s answer to an innocent question was lengthy and cautious. For how can one explain to an innocent child a mystery that has for centuries baffled the mind of man? The simplest answer to the child could have been to bring her to a time machine, set it back to the past just before the big earthquake and the giant tsunami, and have her see Japan in its original splendour. But that can only happen in the rich imagination and creativity of the movie makers. The Holy Father had to console a child of seven, now experiencing the violence of nature and the havoc that it had created to her and her people. And so, he had to be careful with his exposition, cautious to say that reality, no matter how cruel, has to be lived and embraced; that the havoc is not a chance, but the plan of the great Designer; that she is not alone in her sufferings; that he as a pope is with her in her pain and sadness.

The resurrection of Jesus has not taken away from man his suffering, heartaches, pain of separation, death. But it does implant into each one of us, that substance, that pledge, that energy, to face all kinds of trials with courage. This hope gives us this hard evidence that the triumph of Jesus over suffering and death is also our triumph over suffering and death.

Easter 2011

2011-04-21T11:26:00.001+08:00

EASTER 2011

The ‘Alleluia Songs’ that reverberate in the stillness of this early Sunday morning with their tunes of happiness and uplifting feelings, the play of lights that starts with the blessing of the fire on Black Saturday evening, the resumption of the intonation of the” Gloria” and the deafening pealing of the bells, the solemn movements of the liturgical rites of the Easter Vigil that are building up its pace into a fast crescendo, the excited greetings of “Christ is risen, Christ is truly risen”, all these are there not at all to conjure up from the Christian Faithful the joy of Easter. Rather, they are there to depict in the best possible way, to portray and describe in liturgical symbols, songs, prayers ,and actions the exhilarating feeling of a man who meets Christ and touches Him in a more personal way during the time of Lent – Christ who forgives him his sins, reconciling him to the Father; the Christ who saves him from his despondent thoughts caused by his irresponsible behaviour towards his wife; the Christ who brings him back from the painful hurts and gnawing pains he has incurred from his employer who has no appreciation for his work, no regard for his person. The joy of Easter is not a conjured up thing, a make-up hope, an empty optimism born from external manipulations. The joy of Easter is real. It is true – “Christ is risen; Christ is truly risen.”

The joy of Easter was the feeling of Moses when he and the Chosen People of God, the Israelites, were saved by God from hands of Pharaoh who pursued them to bring them back to Egypt and to their chains as slaves. Having seen how God drowned the pursuing chariots and charioteers Moses sang the original song of ‘Alleluia:’ “I will sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea” (Ex 15:1). It is this kind of intervention of God that King David composed the ‘Alleluia Songs’ in the Psalms. Psalm 118 for instance expresses this feeling of joy this way: “Alleluia. In danger I called to the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is with me; I am not afraid; what can mortals do against me? The Lord is with me as my helper; I shall look in triumph on my foes” (5-7).

The joy of Easter is Jesus Himself. He was crucified, died and was buried. But God came to him, raised Him from the dead, and made Him Lord of the living and the dead. It was not for him that he had undergone all these, but “for us men and for our salvation.” The joy of Easter then is a proclamation to all of us sinners who have been cowering from the grace of God because of our fear of His holy anger and right judgment, a proclamation that everything, death included, is over. Jesus conquered sin; Jesus conquered death.

Of course, it is not as simplistic as that. We are not here viewing some acts of a magician gracefully waving his wand to take away from us this reality of sin and death. They are there to haunt us as long as we live. But the Risen Lord has given us the power to face them, to conquer them. With him and with our undaunted faith of His resurrection, we can gradually extricate ourselves from the clutches of sin and from the fear of death. The personal experience that we had with Him during the time of Lent should give us the necessary assurance that He is a personal God, a living God, a God who saves, a God who protects. With this personal experience we face the challenges of the future with hope and courage, for we know that we are not alone in this. Your salary is still the same, but you know better that it is sufficient to support your family and can make decisions within this budget without compromising the Law of God; your wife still suffers the trauma of the breast scarred due to the presence of cancer, but you are not upset anymore for you know that even in that God has better plans for all of you; you still have unholy feeling for your secretary, not really pretty but charming and caring, but you know better that this is but a passing fancy of irresponsible day dreams that could be shaken off by recalling Jesus who died for you. Yes, the resurrection of Jesus does not change your status in life, neither does it provide you in an instance the courage to face the realities of life. But it does give us the hope that what seems impossible before is no longer that impossible; it does give us the perception that the future ahead of us, though still unknown, is no longer threatening; it does give us trust in God amidst the mess in this world, the mistakes that we make, the pains that others inflict on us, the unjust treatment that we receive. For, we have met Jesus in a personal level this past Holy Week. Pope Benedict XVI puts it this way: “We see as a distinguishing mark of Christian the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well” (Spe Salvi, 2).

Jesus is truly risen is a reality that we have witnessed. This is a positive reality that transforms our perception of life ahead of us. As St. Paul himself assured us: “For those who love God all things work together unto good, for those who, according to his purpose are saints through his call” (Rm 8: 28-29).

Holy Week, CBCP, and the RH Bill

2011-04-15T15:27:00.002+08:00

Holy Week, CBCP, and the RH Bill

The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have come out with dogged determination against the RH Bill and the corollary issues that it has spawned. They have seen that some legislators were bent on putting into a law an item that should not be legislated, for it is an issue which goes beyond its scope and competence. There is no nation under the sun that dares to legislate love and human affection for the reason that it is better to be left alone in its own natural principles and inner logic. The Bill wants to put reproductive health into a law. In doing this it touches on human sexuality – a matter that is close to the heart of the Christians. Human sexuality has a natural structure and a system of its own. It works fairly well with its innate dynamics deeply implanted by the Intelligent Designer when He created His masterpiece, man and woman. Sexuality is God’s energy within us. Once its principles are respected and the inner logic faithfully followed, the Divine Fire we call sex will lead humanity to the completeness of its existence. The document ‘Familiaris Consortio’ aptly describes the sacredness of sexuality in this way: “God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image...., God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion’ (Fc 11).

Sex then is not a toy to be played with; an object to be trivialized; a personal property to be used as one wishes. Sex is sacred and, therefore, to be respected. If, however, sex is abused and its inner dynamics perverted, it brings havoc not only to the individual, but also to the partners and to the community as a whole. For such is the power of sex. It packs an energy unimaginable to the human mind. It is a fire that is so close to the man’s existence, to his heart and to his hman l soul, that it either ignites life in the human person who possesses it, or, it destroys him/her.

For a Christian, sex determines the identity of any human person born on this earth. It etches a definitive stamp in the humanity of Adam to walk on this earth as a man, seals an indelible character in the humanity of Eve to be a woman. “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created” (Gen 1:28). Hence, everyone, man and woman, has sexual identity which he/she has to acknowledge, to accept, and to act in consonance to the roles that it dictates. For, God has a purpose in implanting sexuality in the nature of man and woman. It defines the affectivity, giving man and woman the capacity to love and to procreate, the aptitude to form bonds of communion with others (cf. CCC 6:2332).

For us Catholics sex by its very nature is linked to marriage, to monogamy, and to a commitment that is indissoluble. Sex of a man and a woman outside marriage is simply irregular; intimate relationship that is not exclusive is anomalous; a sexuality done without a permanent commitment is irresponsible. For sex speaks of total surrender of self to the partner, total trust, total commitment. So intimate a union does sex make between the man and the woman that total self-giving and self-sacrifice is demanded of it. Sex that intimately unites man and woman has an innate purpose that precedes the personal aims of the partners concerned. It is aimed at “a deeply personal unity that goes beyond union in one flesh, lead to form one heart and one soul. It demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility and life” (CCC 3:1643). Behind all these acts of intimacy and self-giving is pure love of man and woman, love that is exclusive, love that self-giving, love that no human power can put asunder. This love is what we call conjugal love –a union between man and woman blessed by the Creator in the Sacrament of Matrimony.

We are living in a culture that protests against this belief. RH Bill in trying to put into a law human sexuality, is protesting against the Christian position of sexuality and life. The Church insists on this position, because of the terrible consequences of a fractured sexual relationship - heartaches, family breakups, hate, violence, and sometimes even suicides. As the celebrated Fr. Cantalamessa in one of his homilies to the household of the Holy Father in Rome puts it: “Eros without agape is a romantic love, very often passionate to the point of violence. A love of conquest which fatally reduces the other to an object of one's pleasure and ignores every dimension of sacrifice, of fidelity and of gift of self. There is no need to insist on the description of this love because it is a reality that we see daily with our own eyes, propagated as it is in a hammering way by novels, films, television fiction, the Internet, the Gossip magazines. It is what common language understands, moreover, by the word ‘love’."

As we enter into the celebration of Holy Week 2011, may I invite you to ponder and consider well this traditional thought of our Catholic Faith on human sexuality and the conjugal union of man and woman in love.

Encounter with Christ and Lent

2011-04-08T10:49:00.002+08:00

No, it is not true that the Catholic Church sets aside the forty days of the Season of Lent in order to make people who are happy unhappy; that she is a big killjoy damping an otherwise bright atmosphere with a suffocating air of sober and serious practices of strict penances, long drawn prayers, fasting and abstinence. The Church knows full well that no amount of human effort can erase the gnawing and perennial questions of suffering and death from man’s his consciousness; that they are there forever haunting and gnawing the soul of her faithful. The Season of Lent is meant to lead us to Christ. For only He has effectively grappled with the stark realities of suffering and death of His existence, and effectively transformed it into a new life. Hence, He alone can truly helped man to effectively face these existential problems. Christ is the center of the Church, and central to Him is the Paschal Mystery, his willing acceptance of his suffering, death, and thereby transforming it with the Resurrection. As He Himself declared: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (Jn 12:24).
When in the Mass we sing full-throated the phrase “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”, or, in a drawl of one whose mind is not entirely there we tag along with the congregation mumbling it, we are actually proclaiming the very core of our Christian faith. It is called the Paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and Resurrection, the center of the Good News that the Church proclaims to the whole world. All the religious activities, the penances, prayers and works of love and compassion, the liturgical celebrations and private devotions that lead to discipline and self-mastery, connected with the Season of Lent are all about Christ and His Passover. For it is only through our identification with Christ crucified can we participate in the redemption as planned by God.
To avail of this life that Jesus merited for us we have to be incorporated to Him, undertake the Paschal journey with Him, suffer with Him, die with Him, and be transformed into His likeness, the pleasing Son of the Father. How are we to be incorporated to Christ? The story of Nicodemus could give us a glimpse of the way we will be incorporated to the life of Christ. He was a knowledgeable man, a man who knew about God and His commandments. But with the spiritual stuff that he had in his brain, he was nagged by some questions that eventually brought him to Jesus. Before he even could state his question, our Lord told him: “Unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” When Nicodemus intervened with this remark: “How can a grown man be born? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus replied: “I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God; what is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (cf. Jn 3:1-6).
The Sacrament of Baptism is the means whereby sinful man is incorporated into the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. From the day of our baptism, we share Christ’s death and Resurrection and start the wonderful journey of His disciples. Along this line Benedict XVI in his 2011 Lenten message said: “Hence, Baptism is not a rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which informs the entire existence of the baptized, imparting divine life and calling for sincere conversion; initiated and supported by Grace, it permits the baptized to reach the adult stature of Christ.
The Season of Lent, then, is our journey towards the center of our faith: an encounter with Christ in his suffering, death, and Resurrection. It is for us a revisit to our original vocation to be holy in Christ. As St. Paul succinctly put it: “You have been buried with him, when you were baptized; and by baptism, too you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead” (Col 2: 12).

Prayer and the Season of Lent

2011-03-30T16:00:00.002+08:00

PRAYER AND THE SEASON OF LENT

The Season of Lent summons us Christians to pause and pray. It is a time of grace to look deep into ourselves, examine the motivations that drive our life, our status with the community and the environment, and above all, our relationship with the Transcendent without whom human life becomes a tumble of mess and meaningless bits of unrelated events. As it is said, an unexamined life is an existence not worth living.

Deep prayer is based on reality. It is not an imagined relationship with God, neither is it a mere conversation with the Father in Heaven clothed in pietistic burst of emotions and interesting words. Genuine prayer is reality. It aims to bring us down deep into the realization of the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel who, having been unmasked of her immoral love life and accepted it as a matter of fact, immediately asked Jesus about the nature of a true worship that is acceptable to God. In tender words Jesus answered her: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… the hour will come – in fact it is here already – when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:21, 23-24). Prayer confronts us to the truth about ourselves. It brings us to the hard realization that life which runs independently from the plans of God because it leans more to the promises of this world is always an empty one, a life devoid of meaning, wrought with so much lies, disappointments and frustrations. As Jesus once declared: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but losses his own soul?” This realization is critical to prayer. For it is only in this knowledge of our emptiness and inanity of life that we are led to search for another reality, the reality of God’s love who is ever willing to embrace us with his mercy. Psalms 69 gives these hopeful words to the despairing sinner who deep inside him realized that God is a Savior: “In your loving kindness, answer me, Yahweh, in your great tenderness turn to me, do not hide your face from your servant, quick, I am in trouble, answer me. Come to my side, redeem me, from so many enemies ransom me” (16-18). For me, the sharp description of a man in prayer is the blind man of Jericho found in the Gospel of Mark, who, having heard of Jesus passing by, unmindful of the scorn and insults of the people around him, threw aside his cloak, ran towards Him, unashamedly prostrated before Him, and begged: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner” (cf. 10: 46-52).
Prayer therefore is a discipline. It is a rigorous study of our life and serious acceptance of the demons that drive our day-to-day activities and behavior. As a discipline, prayer first of all takes on the form of listening to the Word of God offered in abundance through the liturgical readings. God speaks to our hearts and entreats us not to disregard His voice, for the words that He utters are guideposts in our itinerary of faith. “If only you would listen to him today, ‘Do not harden your hearts’” (Ps 95:8). It is a sad commentary to the history of our salvation that we are found ever stubborn to the Will of God, stiffed neck people. We think that we know better than God; that our plans are better than His. And so, like our first parents in the garden of Eden we go our separate way, listen more to the tantalizing whispers of the snake in abject disregard to the persistent invitation of God, ever declaring ourselves autonomous, godlike. No, it is not true that God is jealous of our nature and our innate power. On the contrary, He wants us to participate in His life. We are after all His children. But we mistrust Him, we defy His plans. We insist on our own designs of achieving this power (cf. Gn 3: 1-19).

Along this line, Pope Benedict XVI in his Lenten Message advised us: “ During the entire Lenten period, the Church offers us God’s Word with particular abundance. By meditating and internalizing the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer; by attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism…. The Lenten period is a favorable time to recognize our weakness and to accept, through a sincere inventory of our life, the renewing Grace of the Sacrament of Penance, and walk resolutely towards Christ.”

To get back to our God, we have to bow down and pray, listen to Him again and obey.

Lenten Fast and Easter Feast

2011-03-22T08:03:00.004+08:00

In plain language fasting is the act of abstaining from some food or some meals, the exercise of depriving oneself with a meal or a kind of food. It is an ascetic act aimed to strengthen one’s character vis-à-vis the strong desire of the human body for food. It is true the appetite to eat is nature’s way for man to live and to survive. But left unchecked it can develop in him an uncontrollable hunger for food that would eventually make him a slave to his stomach.

In the Church fasting is a religious practice that carries with it a penitential overtone. Its purpose is to discipline man’s body, its desire and its instincts. It is for this reason that the Season of Lent starts up with fasting together with prayers and almsgiving. These acts of penances are there to call the faithful to revisit the import of religious discipline in their lives, in their behavior and character. In the journey of life, man’s instincts sometimes go haywire, his heart hardens due to selfishness and greed for things of this earth, character slackens as he indulges himself with the ease and comfort of fine living, consciousness gradually being pushed further away from the presence of the transcendent God. He needs to recover his Christian poise and original integrity that is pleasing to the Father. And to do that, the Church a good mother as she is, reminds us of her precept that runs this way: “You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence”. It is hoped that this precept will help the faithful to regain the mastery over his instincts and the freedom of heart which marks him a genuine child of God.

Fast and abstinence, though of the same kind, are different in sort. Both are disciplines intended to control body appetite, its need and desire for food. They demand from the faithful the discipline to deprive themselves of a meal on the appointed days. But they are different in that fasting specifically orders the faithful to eat in the prescribed day one meal instead of three, while abstinence is the discipline of not eating meat on Fridays of Lent.

Fasting/abstinence needless to say is a revered practice in any major religion. A religion that does not obliged fasting from their followers is a religion not worth its name. The Mohammedans strictly keep the fast of Ramadan, wherein the faithful have to abstain from eating from dawn to sunset. The genuine Israelites assiduously keep fasting on the Day of Atonement. The Book of Leviticus prescribed this once a year fasting, obliging all men to mortify themselves from morning to evening (cf. 16:29-34) During the time of Jesus, however, the Israelites did not only fulfill fasting on the Day of Atonement, but many of them practiced private fasting. It is no wonder that the disciples of John the Baptizer asked Jesus ‘why is it that while we and the Pharisees fast, your disc iples do not’? Jesus had a good response to the query, but He did not totally dispense his disciples from fasting. In fact, Jesus immediately declared: “When the day comes that the groom is taken away, then they will fast” (cf. Mt 9:14-15).

Because of the deprivation of the body of its basic need such as food, fasting unfortunately has not caught the fancy of our modern day mind-set. It is a depressing activity to say the least, a remnant of a medieval kind of spirituality that is too heavy and too ascetic. In recent years, however, fasting has experienced a resurgence of its practice. But the motivations that cause its resurgence are varied and oftentimes secular. Some groups who are religiously practicing fasting today are believers of the great religions of the East. To enter into the meaning of yoga and transcendental meditation, they have to undergo fasting. They have to restrain themselves from eating indiscriminately. To acquire the spiritual power that they want, or, to reach the peace of mind amidst the ambiguities of life, they have to undergo these religious practices that include the discipline in the proper intake of food. Other groups take good health as their motivation for fasting. Actually, they do not call it fasting. They call it dieting. These group believe that easy life is unhealthy, that the undisciplined intake of food makes one soft and flabby. In contrast regulated dieting makes one trimmed, healthy and disciplined.

But the Christian fulfills the practice of fasting as duly prescribed by our Lord Jesus Himself and His Church. As our Lord said: “When I am no longer with them, then, they will fast” (ibid). And so we fast. And we do it for we are convinced that by rendering our table poorer and denying our stomach of some of our favorite food, we learn to free ourselves from our selfish selves, start to discover that there is Someone besides ourselves, “the One and only God, whom we shall adore” (cf. Dt. 6”4-9), and hope to recognize Him in the faces of our least brothers and sisters ( cf. Mt. 25: 40). It is hoped that the Lenten fast would lead the faithful to the real celebration of Easter which can only be savored to the fullest by one who has undergone the agony of a stomach in fasting, articulately expressing the empty spirit it has in its struggle to reach out to God and neighbor. Here, fasting has evolved itself into a feasting.

In his Lenten Message, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI expressed this truth beautifully: “For Christians, fasting, far from being depressing, opens us ever more to God and to the needs of other, thus allowing love of God to become also love of our neighbor” (cf. Mk 12:31).

As Catholics then, let us joyfully take on fasting and abstinence for all that is worth.

2011-03-22T08:03:00.001+08:00

Almsgiving and the Digital Man

2011-03-14T18:14:00.001+08:00

Almsgiving and the Digital Man

A snapshot of a man on the road who summarily shoves his right hand into his pocket, and fishing out a five peso coin hands it over to the outstretched hand of the crippled and poorly clad beggar, is a picture of what almsgiving is to many of us. It is, as we know it, a sharing of one’s money, food, clothing, or, even time and other belongings, with the poor people.

In our secularized world, almsgiving has lost its value and importance. It is a degrading act so it is said. It perpetuates dole-out practices, promotes dependence among our people, implicitly encouraging indolence and laziness in society. As these progressive individuals contend, “it is better to teach man how to fish than to give him a fish. The former will last him for a life time; the latter will last him only for a day.”

But in the Church, almsgiving has a special place in its existence. It is an act of religion, which the Lord Himself has decreed in the New Law. Its tradition goes back to the Old Testament, practiced by the chosen people of God and held in very high esteem. For them to give alms is of great merit in the eyes of God. Forgiveness of past sins is attributed to it. As the Book of Tobit put it: “It is better to give alms than to store up gold, for almsgiving saves one from death and expiates every sin. Those who regularly give alms shall enjoy a full life; but those habitually guilty of sin are their own worst enemies” (12: 8 & 9). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus took up almsgiving together with prayer and fasting as esteemed practices in the life of His followers. But, to have value almsgiving must be directed, not to the giver himself who in his heart is secretly pining to be seen by men and be praised because of it, but to the “Father who sees in secret” (cf. Mt. 6:9-13). For Jesus ostentatious giving of alms defeats the religious purpose of almsgiving which is to help the other in need. In his desire to feel good of his good deeds of kindness and generosity, he is using the poor beggar for his selfish interest.

Seen in the whole teaching of Christ, almsgiving as a parting of one’s money or possession acquires broader context and a richer meaning. Our Lord has seen the delusion that money has created in man’s wild imagination. With much money man is made to believe that his assurance for the future is secured, that everything is cared of in his life and family, that he is complete and fulfilled. Such a delusion is captured by Jesus in his parable of the rich man who had a good harvest and said to himself: “You have blessings in reserve for years to come. Relax. Eat heartily, drink well. Enjoy yourself.” Then God said: “You fool! This very night your life shall be required of you. To whom will all this piled up wealth of yours go” (cf. Lk 12:19-21)? Almsgiving done properly and seriously, will remind man of God’s primacy in his life; it gives modern man the capacity to transcend the greed of possession and the inordinate desire to accumulate money; it empowers man to again see the beauty of sharing, of relishing the love of the Father whose providence Jesus described by these words: “It is not for you to be in search of what you are to eat or drink. Stop worrying… Your Father knows that you need such things. Seek out instead his kingship over you, and the rest will follow in turn” (Lk. 12:29&31).

It is along this line that almsgiving takes on a modern tone. No matter its age-old tradition, it is of great help to our digital age of science and technology. Man’s nature to hoard, to accumulate, to greedily possess things of this earth is deeply ingrained in us. This vicious tendency keeps us stuck to the delusion that money is a guarantee to our life and happiness as it blinds us to the reality that God the Creator alone can satisfy the creature’s deepest longing. Man needs a reminder. Almsgiving precisely provides us that. In his Lenten Message 2011, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The practice of almsgiving is a reminder of God’s primacy and turns our attention towards others, so that we may rediscover how good our Father is, and receive his mercy.”

Season of Lent 2011

2011-03-10T10:01:00.001+08:00

Lenten Season 2011

Ash Wednesday ushers the Faithful to enter into the Season of Lent for them to wade through the many traditional activities and religious practices that prepare them to listen to the God who speaks, look into the realities of their day-to-day living and the mess that they have made of it and, hopefully, to come out with a real appreciation of their true worth as human beings with the given potential to become sons and daughters of the God who made them. Lent is truly a period of grace, a holy season worth going through.

To help the faithful to make use of the time of Lent, the Church offers readings of the Holy Scripture and constant catechesis to bring the good news of salvation to the faithful, explain to them the true meaning of the religious practices that have been handed down through the centuries. The purpose is simple: to bring the faithful into a personal encounter with Jesus. Needless to say,l this is the main purpose of evangelization. Pope Benedict XVI in his address to the Visayan bishops in their ‘ad Limina’ visit last 18 February 2011 expressed the importance of bringing the faithful to a personal meeting with Christ when he said: “Your great task in evangelization is therefore to propose a personal relationship with Christ as key to complete fulfillment.” Then he contended, “ In so doing each Catholic will grasp in his or her innermost depths the life-transforming fact that God exists, that he loves us, and that in Christ he answers the deepest questions of our lives.”

The innermost quest of man to know the meaning of life, to search for life of fulfillment and of happiness, continues. Unfortunately, this pursuit is muddled by the problems that one faces. In the Philippines, extreme poverty, lack of work opportunities, out-migration, widespread lack of food, have served as stumbling blocks to this pursuit to happiness. The common saying that comes out from this: “how can one preach to people with empty stomach?” The Church knows they are all economic ills which are beyond the ambit of its competence. But they do have serious implications to the Church as witness of the Gospel as well as its acceptance by the hearers. Hence, she cannot simply turn away her attention from it. She has to address it. And then there is the spirit of the world that has crept into the Christian consciousness. It comes in varied faces – secularism, consumerism, materialism. The basic message that it proudly preaches to society is man can plot his own destiny. Hence, he can live independently from God and live a life of self-sufficiency, free to choose the path to trod on. Science, technology, new inventions give him this confirmation and assurance. Indeed God is not needed – God is dead.

Lent is the right moment to help our people see themselves again, appreciate their dignity as children of God, re-establish priorities with God as the foundation. To do that, the Church introduces Christ the Redeemer into their lives and help them meet Christ in a personal and intimate manner, that is, not only to know him in their mind , but also to rediscover Him as the One and True meaning of their life, feel His unconditional love. It is then hoped that with the help of the Holy Spirit they may gain that deep insight that would transform the perspective of their whole being leading to a radical change, finally placing Him as the priority of their heart and mind.

So, the Season of Lent with its catecheses, liturgical rites, and other religious practices, does not just teach the contents of our Christian Faith. It is at the same time an instrument, a tool, to help bring the Good News to our people. It too is a medium that has its own hidden message, that is, God is not an idea to be taught, a doctrine to be memorized, set of rules to be routinely followed. Rather, God is a person who engages you and me in a personal conversation and a lively dialogue, a God who listens to the cries of the poor and the lowly, a Jesus who touches the eyes of the blind in order to open them to the beauty of creation, who consoles a weeping mother by raising back to life her son, a Jesus who blesses children, a Jesus who asks for water to drink from a Samaritan woman, a Jesus who cares, a Jesus who is alive.

Lent then gives service to this kind of evangelization, that is, to experience God personally and deeply. It hopes that through these forty days of religious exercises and heavy catecheses our faithful could encounter the true personal God of their Faith.

Pastor Faces Ecclesial Movements

2009-08-02T08:16:00.003+08:00

Some months ago roving catechists of the Neo-Catechumenal Way were knocking at my door, requesting me that they be given that opportunity to serve the Church of Tagbilaran through its charism. May they be allowed to proclaim the Kerygma to the faithful, form communities, and thereby establish the presence of the Catechumenal communities here in Bohol?

I personally know the Neo-Catechumenal Way. Through the years of its existence it has realized more and more that it is a genuine charism within the Body of Christ. It therefore is not just a movement for itself or for its members. It has a purpose and a mission in the universal Church and the particular Churches. It is there to serve and to help build up the Body of Christ. Its reason for existing is to live for and in unity of the Church.

Founded in 1964 in Madrid, the Holy Father himself has been aware of its existence and its contribution to the building up of the particular Churches where they have inserted themselves. Its catechesis founded heavily on the tripod ‘Word of God-Liturgy-Community’ has through the forty (40) years of its existence formed people into communities and led its members to mature faith. John Paul II on many occasions and in different ways, observed closely and spoke highly of the fruits of the missionary drive and the evangelical radicalism of the Catechumenal Way, and expressly stated that it is “an itinerary of Catholic formation, valid for our society and for our times” (AAS 82, 1990). For his part, Benedit XVI, who have been following intently the evolution of the Way, made this remark to the members of the Catechumenal Way: “Your apostolic action intends to take place in the heart of the Church, in total harmony with her directives and in communion with the particular Churches in which you are going to work, making the most of the richness of the charisms that the Lord has awakened through the Initiators of the Way” (Teaching of Benedict XVI II, 1, 2006). Due to the orthodoxy of doctrine and the precious contributions that the Way has consistently manifested in the ecclesial work of the new evangelization, the Pontifical Council of the Laity officially approved the Statute of the Neo-Catechumenal Way on 11th May 2008.

Vis-a-vis this unselfish offer for the opening of the New Evangelization, the priests of the Diocese of Tagbilaran made a momentary pause. They needed time to reflect. Is the new movement not a threat to the organizational set-up decreed by the Diocesan Synod? Does it not do havoc to the parish organizations, programs and activities that have been assiduously put into place and for so many years have served well the community? Will it not create a parallel Church, a group of people, that is, that would follow more the dictates of the Way than the provision of the Diocesan Statute?. Or, in time of conflict, do leaders of the group insist more on following the catechumenal mode of doing things than abiding with the policies laid down by the universal Church? In the midst of the diocesan thrust for the building up of the Basic Ecclesial Communities and the clusters, for deepening the faith of members, and awakening them more and more to the realities of their given rights and obligations as people of God, does the Catechumenal Way help or obstruct it? What will be its role? Uneasiness, apprehension, fear... feelings all that, in a nutshell, are expressed in this query: shall we accept the offer or not?

As the Bishop of the Diocese, I came in to allay these feelings of unease. After all, when we come into it, there is actually no conflict between the institutional and the charismatic aspects of the Church. What is needed is the right attitude. On the one hand the bishop and the parish priests must have a deep paternal attitude towards such new movements. On the other hand, these charismatic movements must have that readiness for discernment.

To establish this right relationship, basic principles have to be invoked. The section of the Code that specifically treats on private associations (Canons 312-329) recognizes and guarantees the continued existence of these faith movements in the Church. They have a right to exist in accordance with their particular charisms. As such the whole Church, pastors and the rest of the faithful, should respect this right. On the other hand, these movements have “grave obligation to let themselves be known as they are in daily life. To offer a partial vision implies to falsify their identity and impede the ecclesiastical authorities from being able make a declaration according to the truth of the ecclesiaslity of the reality”(cf. Luis Navarro, ROME, NOV. 13, 2008 Zenit.org).

In his address to the German bishops in 2006, Benedict XVI said: “Approach with great love the movements and new communities . . . in order to gain an adequate understanding of their reality, without superficial impressions or reductionist judgments... The ecclesial movements and the new communities are not a problem or an extra risk, added to our already weighty responsibilities. No! They are a gift from the Lord, a precious resource to enrich with their charism as the entire Christian community . . . Difficulties or misunderstandings on particular issues do not bring the right of isolation” (AsiaNews.It, Vatican City, 05/17/2008 15:47).

He further stated: “What might be feared is a journey along parallel lines, each for himself, the bishops on one side, the movements on the other. This would mean an impoverishing of both.” Thus Benedict XVI exhorts the pastors to "a service of discernment" and to "correction" of the values of the movements, and at the same time to resist "the temptation of making uniform what the Holy Spirit wants to be multiform, to contribute to the building and growth of the one Body of Christ, which the Spirit himself makes firm in unity". (cf. Ibid.).

With that, I came out with the decision to welcome the offer of the Neo-Catechumenal Community to the Diocese of Tagbilaran, with the provision, however, that the catechists, before starting any activity towards evangelization, must first approach the parish priests and discuss the charisms with them. In any activity after all there is no substitute to a wholesome meeting of minds.

Canon Law and the Filipino Migrants

2009-07-24T10:26:00.001+08:00

It is tragic to note that we are no longer shocked with the fast growing number of Filipinos exiting our country. It bespeaks of an attitude that has become accustomed, if not calloused, to the alarming reality that the phenomenon does not cause us anymore unease. In the midst of this seeming indifference, we are presented with some eight to nine million migrants. The last count up was just seven million some two or three years ago. Now it is nine million, Filipinos all. They are not mere faceless individuals, but warm bodies with human feelings and Filipino needs that constantly call our attention. They are living persons who need food and the basic necessities of life to keep themselves in one piece; rational beings who can foresee the need to provide for the uncertainties of the future, responsible family men and women who in search for a better future for their children, they set out of this country that they love, and settle in a foreign land which they surmise could give them a better tomorrow; human persons who are endowed with rights and obligations, particularly the right to a decent environment that guarantees the protection of their human dignity. In brief, they have to be cared for bodily, psychologically, and spiritually.

The Church in the Philippines has not been remiss in its obligation to extend its Pastoral Care to Filipino Migrants. It is aware of its task to look into the temporal and spiritual needs of its faithful. It is after all wary to the rights of the migrants as well as to all the faithful which the Code enunciated, to wit: “Christ’s faithful have the right to be assisted by their Pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church, especially by the word of God and the Sacraments” (Canon 213). This right is based on the constitutional right of each individual faithful by virtue of baptism. Canon 208 expresses well this basic right in these words: “Flowing from their rebirth in Christ, there is a genuine equality of dignity and action among all of Christ’s faithful. Because of this equality they all contribute, each according to his or her own condition and office, to the building up of the Body of Christ.” Hence, the obligation hangs on the Church in the Philippines to look after the spiritual and moral needs of these Filipino migrants. They may be far from its reach, but the obligation remains in its conscience. Foremost in its mind is what is demanded in the Salvation History – God provided laws and guidelines regarding refugees. When God commanded the Chosen People to be hospitable to foreigners and strangers, as stated in Leviticus 19: 34, God reminded them of the reason for the legal provision, that is, “because you yourselves were foreigners in strange land.” CBCP sees this text as a framework for its pastoral care for Filipino migrants, that is, our people are strangers in foreign lands. It has to look after their pastoral needs, their well-being, peace of mind, growth in spiritual life, and their appreciation of their dignity as human beings and as children of God. The Church in the Philippines has the task to constantly remind them and support them that no matter how menial their kind of work is, they remain children of God and bearers of human dignity. It is for this heavy responsibility that CBCP has to found the Commission for the Pastoral Care for Migrants, and to demand from it a regular report and evaluation of its mission. But nine million Filipino migrants is a number so staggering that the Commission is in a quandary on how to effectively and efficiently meet the demands and expectations of the Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

One of the greatest pains of our migrant workers is the loss of the sense of self-pride. They pine to get it back, but no amount of money that they receive can buy it back. The Church understands the depth of man’s pain when he is deprived of such self-worth. Hence, in its work for Christian justice and charity, its priority is to assist the concerned individual migrants get back their dignity. Hence, the words of John XXIII echoed: “Individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social l institution” (Pacem in Terris, 31). Then he added: “Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services” (ibid, 32). For, every person is precious, people are more important than things, and the value of every institution is whether or not it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person. Pope Benedict XVI in his recent Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” reminds everyone of the precedence of dignity of man over other concerns of development. He said: “I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world’s economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguard and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: ‘Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life’” (n.25; cf. LG 63).

Our migrant workers, nine million of them, have dignity to uphold, human pride to protect, better quality of lives to pine for, meaning of life to keep intact, spirituality to hang on to, so that they can live as human persons and as children of God in foreign places.

Who would articulate and protect their deep human longing? The Canon Lawyers of the Philippines (CLSP) with courage faced up to this problem sometime on April 2009, in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, during their annual meeting in that place. They are aware that they as canon lawyers are called to give their share in the pastoral care of Filipino migrants. Theirs is to look closely into the provisions of law, the social doctrine of the Church, as expounded by Vatican II, the living Magisterium of the Church, the provisions of PCP II and the subsequent acts of the Bishops Conference of the Philippines. These will give them the necessary framework to provide our Church leaders with legal guides to better meet the needs of our migrant workers. This is the task that lies ahead of them.

The People of God, the Liturgy and the Religious Artists

2008-06-10T11:46:00.001+08:00

It was on May 29, 2008 that the bilateral Agreement between the Vatican and the Republic of Philippines to preserve and protect heritage Catholic Churches spread throughout the island was finalized. Ironically, in spite of its weight and significance, it was done in a simple ceremony, one that did not catch the attention of our people.

Signed by no less than Pope Benedict XVI and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, it was considered to be a landmark treaty, for it set into writing the commitment to a mutual cooperation for the proper care of old Churches. As the Nuncio to the Philippines, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, aptly puts it: “It is a fact that what constitutes the cultural patrimony of this nation takes its origin from the Church and was contributed by her agents.” For his part, DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo commented: “Heritage Churches are more than just worldly possessions. They are concrete expressions and enduring representations of profound faith.” Hence, the bilateral pact has deep repercussions in the years to come in the field of religious arts, culture and catecheses.

The Diocese of Tagbilaran looks at this agreement with anticipation. For years the people of God in this local Church has been growing in its awareness at the value of the religious patrimony of their parish Churches. The work of art that they have meticulously conserved in their Churches have given them the sure footing of orthodoxy, one that ever reminds them of the Catholic faith that has been handed down to them. This has shaped their way of reaching out to the God they know and their mode of praying to this Transcendent One. The mode of their prayer, guided by the artistic lines, hues and symbols, painted all over the ceiling and walls of the Church, is within the traditional doctrine of the Catholic faith. Yet, with the passing of time the influx of fresh religious ideas and reflections, new expressions of faith, new ways of identifying oneself with the transcendental reality, has entered into the consciousness of our people. Slowly, new ecclesiastical art and architecture has crept in, influencing at its wake the temptation to break from all past Catholic artistic and architectural traditions.

Not long ago, there came out in the Internet an interesting article regarding the influence of the new theological ideas to our liturgy, visual arts and symbols (cf. H. Reed Armstrong, “Art and Liturgy: Splendor of Faith,” CRISIS, 1814/2N Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, mail@crisismagazine.com). It put forward the idea that man does not need a transcendent God. This he will experience if he just care to take the effort to look intently at his own nature, contemplate on its beauty and goodness, appreciate its innate power and its limitless potentials, reach out for what it is worth for without the intervention and aid of divine grace and the sacraments. In this position, grace is somehow held as intrinsic to nature. A certain professor, a representative of this new theology, once made this statement: "There is now a radical capacity in nature itself, and not superadded to nature, by which we are ordained to the knowledge of God. Thus all dualism between nature and grace is eliminated. Human nature is already graced existence” (ibid.).

Armstrong then concluded: “The effects of this new "lex credendi" have been seen for some time in art and architecture. If man already lives an "engraced" existence naturally, and the sacramental union with Christ is ontologically superfluous, a mere symbol of entrance into a "faith community," then the altar rail (iconostasis, the rood screen) that separates the natural world of the faithful and the supernatural world of the Divine mysteries must go. As Christ is already present in the community, the sacramental presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle is now superfluous and can therefore be removed from the sanctuary precinct. With the traditional concept of the Mystical Body obscured, the images of saints and holy mysteries, a tradition going back to the catacombs, are removed in favor of a single figure of the "Risen Lord" (ibid.).

It is fortunate that our lay faithful and our priests have not succumbed to these strange and alien teachings. They still see themselves as sinners badly needing the redemption promised to them from above, and therefore, weak individuals who are not ashamed in reaching expectantly outward to the Transcendent One who has become one of them, the “Immanuel,” uttering that simple but powerful prayer: MARANATHA – “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”

As the true faith keeps on feeding the heart and mind of our people with the revealed divine realities, ever moving them to deeper contemplation of God, their prayer life becomes more vigorous and potent. To express these experiences and to help them to get them back to God, they need relevant liturgy and sensitive artists.

With the exchange of instruments that marked the forging of the bilateral Agreement of the Vatican and the Republic of the Philippines to protect the religious and cultural heritage of our people, it is our hope that arts in our Churches will be properly cared for and revered. It is also our hope that with this renewed interest for religious arts and the subsequent effort to promote and protect them, we may see the emergence of new artists with fresh visions coming out to revitalize our symbols of prayer, divine longing, and our liturgy. As Fr. Reed Armstrong concluded in his article in the Internet: “Even today, in this age of iron or, let us say, white metal, the Temple of Solomon and the Cathedral of Chartres have not exhausted all the possibilities of getting back to God. There is still something to be garnered from those people with plaster in their hair and fingers full of paint”(cf. ibid.).

The Pastor and His Assistant

2008-05-23T09:29:00.002+08:00

Who is this priest next door? He is young, idealistic, talented, full of energy. He is erratic, though, in his decisions, not so conscious with his time, immature in his ways. Yet, the kids and the teens hang around him, the old adore him, the members of the Parish Pastoral Council drink and laugh with him, the ecclesial communities and new movements love his homilies and short talks. Who is he? He is the parochial vicar, an appointee from the Diocese to help the parish priest in all his ministerial works. He is not necessarily a threat to the person and influence of the parish priest, but with him in the parish is there enough room for both of them? How would his authority stand beside the popularity and adulation of this young upstart? How should he deal with him?

In the eyes of the administration of the diocese, a certain parish is just too big for one parish priest to meet the pastoral demands. He himself has asked time and again for a help, for an assistant who could help him in all activities in the community. And one day his dream comes true. Here comes the parochial vicar assigned to him by the Curia, a priest to his heart desire. But the question in his heart hounds him: can I handle him?

In response to the vague apprehensions of the parish priest on how to deal with his assistant, the present Code of Canon Law has identified and specified the roles and functions of the parish priest and the parochial vicars in the parish. Yet, much has also been left to the discretion of the particular laws and eventually to the working agreement between the pastor and his parochial vicar. Oftentimes, the intertwining of these roles result in misunderstanding and conflicts. Thus, it will be of help to identify the possible flashpoints in their working relationship in order to find a workable solution to it, namely, a) the extent and limits of the authority of the pastor vis-à-vis the parochial vicar; closely related to this, b) their individual rights and obligations; and the most common source of conflict, c) financial arrangement in the parish.

First of all, it has to be established that the parish priest is the proper pastor of the parish. It is to him that the care of the souls of the community is entrusted to be exercised under the authority of the diocesan bishop. He has the ordinary proper power to teach, sanctify and govern those entrusted to his care. The cooperation of other priests and deacons in the care of the souls are desired and most welcome. In fact even the lay faithful, by virtue of their baptism are also invited to partake in this task (cf. Cans. 757, 758, 759, 776 & 778). In a nutshell, the parish priest is the sole head of the parish.

He likewise acts in the person of the parish in all juridical matters and he is to ensure that the parish goods are administered like a good steward who takes good care of the property of his master while the master is away (cf. Cans. 1281-1288).

The parish priest should enjoy a certain measure of stability in the parish thus ideally his to be appointed for an indefinite time. However, the conference of bishops may decide otherwise and set a specific tenure of office of the parish priest in any given parish.

He is entitled to a vacation time of one month annually either continuous or cumulative. Not included from this is the time for retreat which is usually done outside the parish.

On the other hand, the obligations of the pastor could be classified under the following headings:
· Proclamation of the Word of God and Catechesis;
· Administration of the Sacraments and the Liturgy;
· Maintain personal contact with his parishioners;
· Promote the lay apostolate;
· Residence in the parish;
· Offering of the mass ‘Pro Populo’;
· Maintenance and proper care of the parochial books;
· Care of the parish seal and parish archives;
· Informing the diocesan bishop in case of absence from the for more than one week.

On the other hand, he assistant parish priest is also endowed with obligations and rights. Aside from the rights and obligations assigned to all clerics by universal law(cf. Cans. 273-289), the obligations and rights of the assistant parish priest are clearly expressed in canon 548. Paragraph 1 states the sources from which spring the obligations and rights of the assistant parish priest, namely: a) the Code of Canon Law, b) the particular law of the diocese, c) the letter of appointment, and d) the directives or mandate of the parish priest. We can add here that, by analogy, whatever the code establishes in terms of right and duties with regard to the parish priest may also be applied to the assistant parish priest except to those that belong in the strict sense to the office of the parish priest as the juridical person representing the parish. Nonetheless, it is considered more prudent, for the proper exercise of rights and duties and to avoid possible conflicts, to express in the letter of appointment and in the diocesan statutes the correlation between the functions of the parish priest and the assistant parish priest.

The ministry of the assistant parish priest encompasses all aspects of the parish life unless specific work as been given to him either stated in the letter of appointment or upon direction by the parish priest (Can. 545, ¶2). He is not, however, duty bound to celebrate the mass pro populo which is a personal obligation that belongs to the parish priest nor is he obliged to inform the diocesan bishop in case of absence from the parish for a period of more than one week. However, unlike the parish priest, the parochial vicar does not enjoy a more stable stay in the parish since he may be removed by the competent authority from his assignment for a just cause.

However, despite effort to clarify and delineate the respective functions of the stakeholders in the parish ministry, instances of disagreements and conflicts between the parish priest and the assistant do still occur. This could be minimized if not totally avoided if clerics call to mind the exhortations of Vatican II (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 8) which is echoed in Canon 275 par. 1 which states: ‘Since all clerics are working for the same purpose, namely, the building up of the body of Christ, they are to be united with one another in the bond of brotherhood and prayer. They are to seek to cooperate with one another, in accordance with the provisions of particular law.’

The cooperation and joint pastoral action of the parish priest and the assistant is regulated by the obligation incumbent upon the assistant to report to the parish priest regularly on all pastoral initiatives both planned and already undertaken in the parish. In this way they can truly work together, by common counsel and effort for the good of the flock entrusted to their care. In many parishes the laudable practice has been established whereby the parish priest and the assistant meet together on a regular basis to discuss the pastoral concerns of the parish.

Although the assistant may not act independently, he should be encouraged to keep up to his zest for pastoral initiatives. As it is, the pastor should be solicitous of the inputs and contribution of his assistant in the parish ministry and make him a participant in the pastoral activities in the parish.

The most common cause of conflict between pastors and the parochial vicar is the question of finances be it a question of handling of parish funds, or, the equitable remuneration of the cleric Much of these problems, I believe can be traced back to the antiquated mentality of considering the parish as a benefice.

As regards the first issue, much of the possible conflicts can be avoided if the parish has a finance council as mandated by can. 537. Although the parish priest is the administrator of the goods of the parish, the finance council could give invaluable insight and advise on financial matters. It does not detract from his authority. Rather, it will be a great relief for the pastor if he would be helped in the economic administration of the parish. This will remove the cloud of doubt regarding the use of the parish funds and is in fact a big step towards transparency in the financial affairs in the parish.

As to the question on remuneration, canon 281 ¶1 is quite emphatic in expressing that since clerics dedicate themselves to the ecclesiastical ministry, they deserve the remuneration that befits their condition. I think the basic question that confronts us is how much is the remuneration that befits the condition of the cleric. One of the basic and primary considerations to take here is that such remuneration should be viewed in the light of the special vocation of the priesthood- a sacred ministry which cannot be reduced to something of a purely economic nature. Besides, the canon establishes the general parameter on this regard namely: the nature of his office and the circumstances of time and place.

This problem can be lessened if the diocese will establish a standardized remuneration scheme for clerics as already practiced in some dioceses. It would even be better if the diocese makes provisions for the social welfare of the clergy such as illness, medical needs and old age. These are the main reason why most clerics, especially the diocesan clergy can at times be overly concerned with money matters.

The Locus of Punishments in the Life of the Church

2008-04-29T11:08:00.001+08:00

An institution that spouses communion as its nature, forgiveness and love as necessary expressions of its essence, would seem short changed to find within itself a system that pursues crime and punishment. This is precisely the quandary of some members of the Church who feel that penal system runs counter to the essence of the Church as a Communio. As one Prelate told me: “Laws are strait-jacketed norms of behavior, restrictive in posture, coercive for the children of God who are supposed to be free. What I do is to tell my priests to always pursue the good and avoid by all means into falling into grave lapses that could get them in trouble with law and penalty.”

I am a Canon Lawyer of the 1917 Code - an oldie in any standard. The Church was then conceptualized as a perfect society of law and order; an independent and proud institution where rights and obligations of each member are meticulously defined and respected, defended when impugned, vindicated when violated. Clearly, the aim of the law is to establish and sustain a Church that is just, a visible society that seriously looks after the harmonious and orderly development of the life both of the ecclesial society and of the individual members; a society that is proud to preserve right order. In sum, it looks into the promotion and protection of the common good of the Church. For this kind of society to survive it calls for a legal system that must be objective, that is, the competence and the exercise of its ecclesiastical power must give due emphasis to the external forum. Hence, in the Church a system was established to delineate the internal and external forum, out of which the principle like this come out: “De internis Ecclesia non judicat.” For the law to be objective, the rule of law must be observed, out of which maxims come out like this: “The reason of the law, is not the law”; or, “dura lex sed lex.” Within the nature of this concept, the system moves toward the protection, and in any case, toward the restoration of the social order that may be harmed by the offense. From this point of view, it can be understood why the system has to be strict and objective. Also, it can be observed that the preoccupation of the law and its application by the administration was on judging the pastoral activities from the point of view of right or wrong, validity or invalidity of an act; the offense and restoration of just order. It is along this concept also that penal system is required and needed to be instituted. In fact, this is inherent to any legal system that has for its purpose the proper protection of a perfect society.

However, this kind of legal system suffers a flaw: it gave emphasis on peace and order to the Church, on the rights and obligation of the constituents, on the defense and vindication of justice, that it had somehow veered its focus away from the concept of the Church as communion whose main attention is the salus animarum, the sanctification of souls, the development of the members of the Church as a community based on faith, grace, charisms and charity.

The revision of the Code was inspired by the theology of Vatican II. Here, the Church is immediately presented as a great Mystery, a reality that has temporal, measurable qualities, yet transcends the dimension of the temporal order, straddling that it is on the temporal and the spiritual. As such it is a Sacrament of unity for the world, a sign that effects the communion of all men. In this concept the Church is still a society, an association of men and women with rights and obligations. But the focus is no longer on the external discipline that would guide the proper ordering and the harmonious interplay of individuals or group of individuals as they exercise their subjective rights, but shifts more to the internal life of the People of God who are called to holiness and are living as a community.. Of course, Vatican II still talks about this Church as hierarchical, that is, it is set up as an institution with a variety of offices which aim at the good of the whole body. With a sacred power invested on them, the holders of these offices are dedicated to promote the interest of their brethren, and with free and well-ordered efforts bringing them to a common goal which is salvation. They have to look intently into the internal life of the Church, building up the body of Christ through the law of love.

No wonder that in the revision of the 1917 Code, there were quarters, many of them, would like to remove the penal system of the Code, for it seems to run counter to the image of a spiritual Church, that is built on the strength of faith and love. Granted the weaknesses of human nature, they are ready to concede the introduction of a disciplinary system, but one that adheres less to the rigid concepts of crime and punishment, and more along the lines of a sanctioning administrative system. They appeal to the spirit of Vatican Council II, that gives emphasis to the concept of communion which seems not to jibe with a penal system that is by nature coercive, that defines with strict interpretation the alleged offense vis-à-vis the “allata et probata”, and that inflicts just and proportionate punishments. Perhaps disciplinary regulation of some sort with a touch of some undefined sanctions would do.

But, communion is not an ambiguous feeling nor an imprecise sentiment. Communion is an organic reality that requires juridical form. The community of free individuals, to exist as a real communion, is essentially organic and requires a juridical form. The law does not create a community; the community itself, requiring a juridical form consistent to its nature, enacts the law. Through the years the Church has shaped a juridical form that incorporates the penal system for it serves to protect the dignity of its constituents and defend the dignity of the community and the subjective rights of each individual member.

The Church as a communion has to be protected. Penal sanctions do that service. With this concept, penal law can be considered as a necessary instrument in the service of the salus animarum. Salvation may not be its direct and proper objective, but it offers a ready environment for it to flourish and take effect. The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Constitution “Sacrae Disciplinae Leges” underlined the importance of the Code in the life of the Church as a social and visible unit in these words: “… It is sufficiently clear that the purpose of the Code is not in any way to replace faith, grace, charisms and above all charity in the life of the Church or of Christ’s faithful. On the contrary, the Code rather looks towards the achievement of order in the ecclesial society, such that while attributing a primacy to love, grace and the charisms, it facilitates at the same time orderly development in the life both of the ecclesial society and of the individual persons who belong to it.”

EASTER MESSAGE 2008

2008-03-20T10:43:00.003+08:00

As the light of the Paschal Candle pierces through the murky night of Holy Saturday, ushering on its break the lilting mood of the Easter Vigil that exudes in the song of the “Exsultet”, the people of faith plunges once again into the deep darkness of the Liturgy of the Word to carefully listen to the words of promise and of hope. It is in this holy darkness that the word of God starts again dispelling the chilling fear of death that has for so long terrorized the heart of man, slowly filling it up in an ever increasing intensity with the message of ‘God cares’ and ‘God saves His people’, that soon would blare into the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, bursting into songs of jubilation and “alleluia”. For Christ is Risen! Christ is truly risen!

HAPPY EASTER.

But back to reality. Is it really possible to celebrate a happy Easter in the midst of all these social turmoil and political mess? At times we begin to wonder if it remains reasonable to be optimistic about this country. The fact is that many of us have become cynical, refusing to believe that change can still take place, refusing to hold that a better life is still possible. In fact, some people have long given up – they chose to look for greener pasture elsewhere. Can the citizens of a morally shaken country such as ours capable of genuinely greeting each other with greetings of “Alleluias” and “Rejoice, for Christ is risen”?

The answer is why not? After all the Church sincerely believes that the answer to our sad plight goes beyond socio-economic analysis and political maneuverings. For the start our Church believes that this deep Easter experience of the risen Christ would give us the stubborn hope that blossoms best in moments of darkness and ambiguity; that it would give us the needed courage to pick up again the communal problem of searching for the truth that we have temporarily left off; that we can readily face up to the moral problems, political ambiguities, and social illusions, that have through these years tightly gripped the soul of our country. The experience of Easter could give us the hope to extricate ourselves from the sad situation that we are in, the time when work is scarce, when families are so poor they can no longer live with dignity and little pride, when the greed of those in the corridors of power has drowned away all their shame and decency, when corruption has become “our greatest shame as a people” (CBCP, “Reform Yourselves and Believe in the Gospel”).

This hope is dynamic, alive, vigorous. It pushes us to action. It is alien for people of hope to say that the event of our times is inevitable. A Filipino Christian, whose spirit is soaked with the Easter experience, plunges himself into action, for he knows that at the heart of this topsy-turvy nation of ours rests the love of God. Easter has taught him that God has overcome the world. As Jesus said: “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world” (Jn 16:33).

By action here is meant concrete involvement in the unfolding of our history. Christians who possess the seed of hope in their hearts cannot be passive or indifferent bystanders in the drama which we call “everyday life”. “We can open ourselves and the world and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to truth, to love, to what is good” (Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 35). “Even when we are fully aware that Heaven far exceeds what we can merit”, the Pope says, “it will always be true that our behavior is not indifferent before God and therefore is not indifferent for the unfolding of history” (35). Even when we seem powerless before the enemy, “our actions engender hope for us and for others…” (35).

In other words, the more we engage actively and constructively in the efforts to improve society, the more we make alive the hope that is in us. Conversely, the more indifferent we are, the more cynicism destroys our capacity to dream for a better, renewed life.

And when we act, when we actively involve ourselves in the unfolding of history, the element of suffering becomes all the more unavoidable. Being a consequence of our finitude, suffering is already inevitable, but it can swell into horrifying levels when we labor for truth and justice. We can perhaps minimize it by leading a life of utter indifference. We can close our eyes from falsehood and tyranny, and spare ourselves from hostility.

But is this the Christian option? The Holy Father says, “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love” (37). And with a rather stunning emphasis, he repeats at least three (3) times in the encyclical that the capacity to suffer for truth and justice is an essential criterion, the very measure, of humanity (cf. 38 and 39). To abandon this capacity would destroy man himself. “Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie” (38).

HAPPY EASTER!

Marriage Tribunal, the Judge, and the Cross

2007-11-19T07:56:00.000+08:00

Lodged in the center of the Church matrimonial court is the judge. Off hand one may portray him as a cold individual, withdrawn, stern, detached, unyielding. For after all he is sworn to ferret the truth out of conflicting issues and to hand down objective judgment among the contending parties. So, he must be a serious individual, forbidding in stature. But that is an unfair picture of the most important person in the ecclesiastical court of justice. For if it is true to aver that the judge must be impartial and fair, it is as well true to say that any good judge worth his salt must be humane, possessing that sensitivity of a person who understands well what it is to be human and therefore has a good grasp of how fallen human nature expresses itself in its behavior.

Deciding what justice, mercy and compassion demand is the primary work of the judge. It is no easy task, rarely pleasant, to have to pass judgment on issues wherein the interests of one must give way to the rights of another. And yet that is the burden placed on the shoulder of those who exercise judicial power in the Church. It is a burden that should be felt no less in marriage cases than in other judicial or extra-judicial matters a tribunal is asked to address. Indeed, in marriage cases the burden should be felt even more intensely, as here people’s lives and their faith are affected in powerful ways. The judge cannot set aside his responsibility to judge, to choose, to balance, solely because he is afraid that his decisions might adversely affect the lives of those who come to the Church tribunal for answers.

In law, the judge has to be faithful to the canonical procedures. This is a modus operandi demanded from one who exercises the judicial power, a series of activities that is to be carried out by the judge in accordance with the procedures laid down by the legislator. They are not arbitrary rulings or mere formalisms, but the fruit of proven experience that will shield him from subjective acts or decisions prejudicial to the parties involved.

On the other hand, in his struggle to reach a fair judgment in concrete cases as he faithfully observes the rigor and demands of procedural law, he is at the same time asked to dig deep into his core, touching base with his wisdom born from continuous study of the law and his vast experience. After all he is dealing with the complexity of human persons who are breathing realities with feelings and all. For that he should ever be aware that each concrete case demands a treatment that goes beyond the mere interpretation of the law or its rigid application. Process presupposes a judge who meticulously weighs all circumstances of the case and reaches a decision that is just in the concrete case. It is a mental act, subjective in essence, but in the assessment of the concrete case it takes equity foremost in the mind. This truly is an act of a wise man.

The judge is therefore placed in a delicate task of mediating between the canonical system and the persons submitted to its action; between the majesty of the law and the messy reality of flesh-and-blood individuals who are fighting tooth and nail for their God-given rights; between the matrimonial bond that is defined by law as indissoluble and the spouses who contest that from the start there was no such bond. A grave task it is for any judge. But Mother Church steps in for help. She proposes that he should consider well the personalist objective as presented by John Paul II in his Address to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, 27 January 1997 . Here, the Holy Father observed that the Second Vatican Council’s vision of marriage and family contains personalist aspects. As this view of marriage has entered in the codification of 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Holy Father has been asking what would be the juridical consequences that would necessarily flow from these personalist aspects of marriage and family. His answer is to place the persons at the center of the civility of love. For him this approach will not exclude the law. In fact “it demands it, leading to a rediscovery of law as an interpersonal reality and to a vision of juridical institutions that highlights their constitutive link with persons themselves, which is so essential in the case of marriage and the family” (Address of John Paul II, 27 January 1997, 3). It means that correct interpretation of the law and its application can only happen when the person involved is considered in all his/her reality and duly appreciated. Law is an interpersonal reality; juridical institutions demand the constitutive link with persons themselves. Hence, there is no conflict between law and the interpersonal aspects of marriage. Take for instance the “relations between the spouses, in fact, like those between parents and children, are constitutively relations of justice, and for that reason have in themselves juridical significance. Married and parent-child love is not merely an instinctive inclination, nor an arbitrary and reversible choice, but is rather a love that is due” (op. cit.).

In the same breath the judge, assuming a personalist approach in handling matrimonial cases, should also be aware that making decisions about other people’s lives is to take up a heavy cross. We cannot avoid this burden by removing from the judicial processes those parts which are particularly difficult and those instances where our decisions are likely to be unpopular or unpleasant to the parties in question. To lay down this cross, that is, to attempt to avoid the pain that attends the decision making process is to remove from our deliberations, from the workings of our tribunals, the very thing that makes all that we do human and holy. It is to remove the very thing that connects us with the people we are serving.

On the other hand, to bear this cross must lead to some suffering on the part of the judge who helps in making decisions about people’s lives. But this cross also leads to a recapturing of the life and excitement that comes from the working with the law and the facts, and with the human experience grounding those facts. This cross illuminates the dignity in the judge’s work.

The Locus of the Marriage Tribunal in the Local Church

2007-11-10T09:41:00.000+08:00

It is a reality, though a sad one, that Marriage Tribunal is practically non-existent in many local churches in the Philippines, or, where there is, it is not as visible as to make a difference in the lives of couples and families whose relationships have been tautly strained due to some unresolved marital conflicts. And yet, it is one of the most important responsibilities of the particular Church to extend pastoral care to the family and protection to the marital tie which binds family together. Central to this responsibility is proclaiming the sanctity and permanence of marriage. And while scrupulously protecting the teaching of Jesus on marriage and its indissolubility, the Church also faces stark realities of tensions and stresses among married couples that ultimately end up in the tragedy of separation and even of annulment. The effect is oftentimes disastrous to many of these people, for their faith and their Church remain an important part of their lives.

The universal Church for her part does not abandon these people. In her pastoral concern, she provides that an ecclesiastical tribunal shall be established in every local Church. Its function is to evaluate the validity of the failed marriage in the light of scripture, tradition and the law of the church, to ferret the truth of marriage out of the messy realities of failed relationship, thus helping these people extricate from the marital strain that has been for years tearing out their lives. In dioceses where Marriage Tribunal is set up and functional, many cases have been heard and eventually resolved with a decree of invalidity. As such this nullity process helps many individuals to calm the pent-up anger and disappointment with one’s self and with one’s former spouse. It often brings closure to the hurtful memories, relieving them from the tensions that for a time have taken hold of them. It frees a catholic to marry again or to have a second marriage blessed by the church, thus restoring the catholic to the full sacramental life of the church.

Remembering that the ministry of Jesus was one of healing and reconciliation, the Tribunal is ever mindful of its call to continue that ministry to all who seek its help. Even if it is primarily part of the Church’s judicial system, it is not an impersonal office. It comes in direct contact with people whose lives have often been deeply scarred by the harrowing experience of a broken marriage. Hence, the personnel who are assigned to the Tribunal are expected to have practiced the highest sense of confidentiality, compassion and understanding. They need to be aware of the fact that they are often dealing with people who are still hurting deeply, people who at times feel very alienated from the Church, people who are laden with a great deal of guilt.

By and large, applicants to the Tribunal are mostly separated. But many of them acknowledge that having escaped from the shackles of an unhappy marriage they are now facing a new set of problems. Very often people who approach are more than one-time angry, depressed, disappointed, hurt, battered, unjustly treated. Not only have they had dreams shattered by a broken marriage, but often as they reveal their life-history, they speak of their parents’ unhappy and possibly, violent marriage, of childhood trauma, sexual abuse, of earlier broken romances, of exploitation. The story of the relationship and marriage in question can be filled with every kind of human suffering.

For a Catholic, there is an even deeper pain, given that the permanence and the sanctity of marriage is such a central part of Catholic teaching and living. There can be a heightened sense of failure, a feeling of having let the side down.

Separated couples very often feel a great deal of alienation from the church. This may be caused by unhelpful treatment from priests, family or fellow Catholics, but most often it simply arises from their own sense of shame or failure. The approach to the Tribunal can be the means of their being accepted by the official Church in a way which can help them once again feel “at home” in the life of the church. The increasing number of separated catholic can also help enormously in this regard. Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation on Family life “Familiaris Consortio” has written movingly on the pastoral care of the divorced and separated people. “The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.” (Cf. Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II)

It would be worthwhile for Tribunal personnel to refer the clients to the local parish or community groups, organizations, ecclesial movements, or individuals who may be of help in the long yet necessary process of coming to terms with their life issues. It should be noted with utmost consideration that the Tribunal is not able to solve all the problems or heal all the hurts which flow from a broken marriage. Not every approach for an annulment will result in an affirmative decision. For those petitions which are successful there will be the opportunity for the parties to contemplate a new marriage or have an existing one validated and blessed by the Church.

For the unsuccessful, there will be the satisfaction of knowing that they have tried. Hopefully there will have been some healing through the whole process. Further pastoral care can be recommended to them by the Tribunal staff. Tribunal work can be tremendously pastoral and rewarding. As with any form of ministry, it can be very much a two-way process and most people who have worked in the Tribunal would acknowledge that they have learned a great deal from the people they have served. They witness at times untold heroism, a great effort to be faithful to God and to the Church even in the most trying circumstances. They see in many beautiful personalities and tremendous growth which has come about through accepting their suffering in union with Jesus. As my Judicial Vicar describes it: “It can all be a very humbling experience to have people share with us the deepest secrets of their lives.”

Marriage and Its Religious Dimension

2007-10-30T10:15:00.000+08:00

The perception of marriage in its flesh and blood realities can be gleaned from cases submitted to a Church court for resolution. It is from these messy, if not unknown, elements of the contested matrimonial bond that the truth of marriage is ferreted out.
Leafing through the acts and decisions of the Roman Rota the Holy Father, the late Pope John Paul II, discovered a tragic pattern in marriages submitted for resolution. He found out in rhythmic regularity that marriages which broke down are unions wherein the spouses have ruled out the religious dimension of marriage. I am wondering whether this discovery may also be true in other matrimonial courts.

Along this vein Pope John Paul II in his address to the judges of the
Roman Rota, highlighted the importance and the significance of the religious dimension of marriage and the family. He cited the phenomenon of many recent matrimonial cases and observed that there is a pattern. The pattern is the diminishing awareness of the spouses of the significance of the sacramentality of the Christian marriage. Spouses do not consider anymore the transcendence of Christian marriage, its intimate meaning, its intrinsic supernatural value, its positive effects on the conjugal life and family. He also observed that secularism has much to blame to this modern phenomena in Christian marriage. He said: “Today’s strongly secularized mentality tends to affirm the human values of the institution of the family while detaching them from religious values and proclaiming them as fully independent of God. Influenced as it is by models of life that are too often presented by the mass media, today’s mentality asks, ‘Why must one spouse always be faithful to the other?’ A person of faith can easily answer that question; but a person who is cut off from that religious dimension of marriage is in a quandary. Caught in a crisis, this person of no faith “will even reformulate the preceding question in this way: why it is always necessary to love the other spouse even when so many apparently justifying reasons would lead one to leave?”

Confronted with such a phenomenon, the Holy Father enjoined the audience to help the families to value the significance of the sacramentality of marriage in their own lives. He also urged them to always consider the religious dimension when dealing with sacramental marriage. He said: “The consideration of the sacramentality highlights the transcendence of your function, the bond that links it to the economy of salvation. The religious dimension should for this reason permeate all your work. From handling scientific studies on marriage to the daily activity of the administration of justice, there is no room in the Church for a vision of marriage that is merely immanent and profane, simply because such a vision is not true theologically and juridically” (op. cit., 6).

Down the centuries the Church has maintained with insistence the ever-enduring doctrine of marriage and its sacramentality. When it talks on the union of man and woman in a perpetual and exclusive contract of giving and accepting each other in the rite of marriage, it has to be taken within the context of a sacrament and therefore within the area of faith. Christian marriage is more than a piece of legislation; more than the union of a male and a female hit by a chemical reaction called love. It is a sacred union. It starts with the free choice of the man and the woman in love, mutually surrendering themselves to each other which they do by entering into marriage whose meaning and values do not depend on them alone but on God himself. For God is the Author of marriage, delicately endowing it with proper laws and regulations. And more. Due to the reality of sin, making him/her prone to the temptations of the flesh and the pride of life that oftentimes sours the relationship between man and woman, God saw to it that union of man and wife become a source of grace, elevating it into a sacrament. Here the spouses are caught up by the Christ who gives that great promise: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Marriage therefore bestows that sacramental grace to “perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace they help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children” (cf. CCC, n. 1641). To ease out this religious dimension, therefore, is detrimental, if not suicidal, to the union.

Pastoral Statement on Oil Exploration in Bohol Strait

2007-07-23T13:55:00.000+08:00

To our dear People of God and all men and women of good will.

Sometime in June to July 2007 a seismic survey was conducted in the seawaters of Panglao, Dauis, Maribojoc and Loon, Bohol. It is a procedure that determines the volume of oil deposit under the sea by the use of sounds and echoes. It was conducted by a foreign company named NorAsian Energy Ltd. (NAEL) with the approval of both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). According to the contract awarded by our government to NAEL, the survey shall be followed by an extensive oil drilling program possibly next year.

For our part, we, the Clergy of the Diocese of Tagbilaran, have listened to the sentiments of our people, carefully studied the issues at hand and prayerfully reflected on them. Prodded by this we come out with this Pastoral Statement making a moral judgment on the seismic survey as well as provides moral guidance on the planned oil drilling project.

Our Moral Judgment on the Seismic Survey

1. We are appalled to learn that, given the nature of the seismic survey and its short and long term impact to human and marine life, the local communities and their officials as well as other groups who have a stake in the area were not duly consulted before the survey had been undertaken.

The DOE and NAEL simply disseminated information in their websites. As regards informing local people, they coursed it through the newly elected local officials on a very short notice. In view of this behavior, it is difficult not to conclude that right from the very start the DOE and NAEL did not intend a consultation but simply an information.

2. We are disappointed to learn that the seismic survey, conducted on an exploration site that had been officially declared by the national and local governments as a marine protected area (MPA), was suddenly granted by the DENR a Certificate of Non-Coverage (CNC), thereby exempting it from stringent measures required by the laws of the land that seek to preserve the nation’s ecosystem.

Needless to say, the exploration site boasts of numerous marine sanctuaries and coastal based resource management programs. It is also home to a thriving and world-famous eco-tourism industry that provides livelihood to hundreds of families and a source of pride of every Boholano. Millions of pesos have been spent by local government units (LGUs) and non-government organizations (NGOs) for the establishment and maintenance of these projects, not to mention the amount of creativity and energy that the local people have invested into them.

What has happened to our laws such as the Philippine Environment Impact System Act (PD 1586) and the Local Government Code of 1991 (Sections 26-27) to name a few? If we use the recently concluded seismic survey as a litmus test of committed and responsible governance, we dread to see the day when the integrity of our ecosystem will again be put in harm’s way and the pertinent laws be arbitrarily shelved off in favor of an energy-hungry nation.

3. We are saddened to know that, given the adverse effects that the survey had on the livelihood of those dependent on either commercial or small-scale fishing, the DOE and the NAEL did not seek the participation of the local people and draw a clear and dependable mechanism of just compensation.

Why is it that in almost every government sponsored or approved project that has the prospect of good return of investment (ROI) for foreign corporations, it is our poor and marginalized brother and sister Filipinos who are asked to sacrifice? Granting, without admitting, that it is their turn yet again to forego for the greater good, isn’t it right that they be guaranteed with a just compensation?

Our Moral Stance on the Oil Drilling Program

Beyond the seismic survey, the risks of an oil drilling program are far greater. Lest there be a repeat of the mistakes, we wish that the decisions and conduct of all stakeholders shall abide by the following moral principles:

1. Activities meant to improve the economy should “not (to) be left to the judgment of individuals or groups who possess too much economic power, nor of the political community alone…It is only right that, in matters of general interest, as many people as possible…should participate actively in decision-making” (Gaudium et spes, 65).

In this light, let us exhaust all peaceful means to prevent the oil drilling program from proceeding unless the DOE and NAEL shall disclose to the public the details of the service contract and other agreements, conduct consultations that are wide in scope, accessible to all stakeholders, honest and transparent to affected communities, and broadly participative in working out decisions.

2. The defense and preservation of the common good such as the natural and human environments should not be left to the dictates of market forces but to a strong juridical or legal framework based on “the need to respect the integrity and cycles of nature”(Sollicitudo rei socialis, 26; Centesimus annus, 40).

In this light, we call on public officials concerned to courageously apply the full force of our environmental laws to the oil drilling program even as we urge all NGOs and other groups to take the lead in exercising vigilance on this regard.

3. “The fulfillment of the needs of the poor” and their “active participation in economic life” is a moral criteria that “must pervade all plans and legislation for development” (Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, 314).

In this light, and in view of the greater risks to both human and marine life, it is a serious moral obligation for those who will derive profit from the natural resource to set up a mechanism of just compensation before the oil drilling begins and with the participation and approval of those who may bear the possible harm or loss because of human error or accidents.

4. But over and above these moral imperatives, the principle of equitable sharing of revenues should be observed. The history of oil exploration is replete with examples of individual and corporate greed and insensitivity to the people in the locality. A repeat of this sad experience is possible if Section 29 of the Local Government Code shall not be honored: “Local government units shall have an equitable share in the proceeds derived from the utilization and development of national wealth within their respective areas, including sharing the same with the inhabitants by way of direct benefits.”

This law is in perfect accord with the church’s moral teaching: “The economic prosperity of any people is to be assessed not so much from the sum total of goods and wealth produced as from the distribution of goods according to the norms of justice.” Justice demands that, “with the growth of the economy, there should occur a corresponding social development so that all citizens will benefit equitably from an increase in national wealth” (Mater et Magistra, 73-74).

In this light, let us do everything we can to prevent the oil drilling program unless a mechanism of equitable sharing of revenues shall be in place so that, instead of dole-outs or piecemeal projects dependent on the whims and so-called charity of the corporation or the allied politician, the revenues accrued to the inhabitants of the localities shall be guaranteed by law and shall empower them to take the path of integral development. While the bounty of God’s creation in the Bohol Strait is a national wealth, it is however first and foremost a local wealth. Inasmuch as the local people are its primary stewards, they ought to be the first beneficiaries.

Conclusion

Will the blue sea of Bohol Strait remain the pure essence of life-giving water to the present and future generations, or will it degenerate into a murky water of non-life, an ugly reminder of our indifference and irresponsibility? Let us listen to God saying: “Today I offer you a choice of life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life and then you and your descendants will live” (Deut 30:19-20).

The choice is ours. With Mary, the patroness of our diocese, at our side, it is time to act on behalf of life so that “all may have life and have it in its fullness” (Jn 10:10).

Most Rev.Leonardo Medroso, DD, JCD
Bishop of Tagbilaran 17 July 2007

The Local Community, the Tourists and the Works of Art

2007-06-22T10:14:00.001+08:00

In the six months of my stay in the Diocese of Tagbilaran, I have seen and savored the beauty of creation that is Bohol and the grandeur of human ingenuity as expressed by the many antique Churches spread out in several parishes of the province. It is no wonder that thousands of foreigners as well as local tourists come in droves to this place through cars, planes, and fast crafts. This experience caught me off balance, a bit puzzled of what to do with this overwhelming phenomenon. I know that the great influx of visitors bespeaks of the greatness of the place, but as a religious leader I have to contend with religious questions that come with the issue at bar. For one how will tourism affect the religious sensitivity and culture of our people? These old yet stately Churches have been there for centuries to receive and serve the native congregation that has been for years “of one heart and one soul,” worshipping the God whom they have known as their Provider and Savior and serving one another as an expression of their awareness as one Christian community. It has been out of these Churches, complete with intricate works of art in images, signs and symbols for evangelization, liturgy and devotion, that a culture which is typically Boholano was born and has developed and matured. Now these same Churches are frequented by tourists and other individuals whose interest are far from being inserted into the religious life of the native folks. Can a World Heritage Church be adapted to a mixed congregation of worshipers? How can it meet the needs of both the local community and the amorphous group of tourists and visitors?

Faced with such realities, I have to dig deep into the accepted teaching of the Church on religious iconography and the discipline that it has established to regulate the proper actions related to the Churches and works of art. Here I come across the traditional teaching that the patrimony of the Church is profoundly connected with the truths of faith. Through the years these works of art have served the mission of the particular Church to come up with a response to the deep religious longing of man for the transcendent, to provide contemporary individual the tool to experience more vividly the religious wonder at beauty and wisdom captured in images, lines, and hues. Faith after all has that innate power “to express itself in artistic forms and historical witness that have an intrinsic evangelizing force and cultural valence before which the Church is called to pay her maximum attention” (cf. John Paul II, Motu Proprio “Inde a Pontificatus Nostri initio, March 25, 1993).

Liturgy is the formal expression of this faith. It is the official worship of the Community that is formed by this faith, the stance of the People of God in its attempt to reach out to the Infinite whose nature is Truth and Beauty. As such it has to be articulated with beautiful signs and symbols. With the purpose of drawing the worshipers’ mind and heart to God, liturgy has to make use of what is refined and artistic. They should be fitting expressions of the congregation’s faith. They are not mere additives or decors, but essential language of the soul in contact with the Creator. Originally they ooze out from a lowly man in contemplation with the divine, from an artist’s encounter with God in prayer, from a contemplative’s intense gazing with the God made visible.

Of course, God is so transcendent and therefore unutterable. He who expresses this transcendent God has to be reminded: “Take off yours shoes, for you are stepping on sacred ground” (Ex 3:5). But the Church well knows that this Holy One “did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human estate, and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross” (Ph 2:6-8). It is this utter emptying of Jesus that the gap between the transcendent and the lowly mortal is bridged. This is also the reason why the Church through her artists could depict the transcendent in works of art. As Theodore of old once remarked: “If, then, Christ has become lowly for our sake, how could the signs of lowliness not be visible, suck as color, tangible forms, a body? By means of all this and in all of this he now can be “circumscribed”. Those who do not accept this, really destroy salvific plan of the Eternal Word” (Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, 35f).

The sacredness of the signs and symbols in the liturgy and in the structure of the Church comes from an interior vision of an artist in his act of stretching out his God-given talent to touch the exalted One with the end in view of expressing it in lines, colors and images. In turn these images, signs and symbols, coming as they are from a deep contemplation of the artist, have appropriated that innate power to lead man to awe and wonderment, to profound prayer and meditation. As such these artistic images, signs and symbols have become proper instruments for the service of Liturgy and catechism. It is along this line that Cardinal Ratzinger made this incisive remark: ” The complete absence of images is incompatible with faith in the Incarnation of God. God has acted in history and entered into our sensible world, so that it may become transparent to Him. Images of beauty, in which the mystery of the invisible God becomes visible, are an essential part of Christian worship. There will always be ups and downs in the history of iconography, upsurge and decline, and therefore periods when images are somewhat sparse. But they can never be totally lacking. Iconoclasm is not a Christian option”(Copyright © 1999 - 2007 by Adoremus: Ratzinger, “Art, Image and Artists. Sacred art, inspired by faith, both reflects and informs the culture Part II).

It is because of this intimate connection of faith and artistic works that it has devolved to the bishop the primary task to materially conserve these treasures, to protect them juridically, and to spread and deepen the faith. The Code blandly expressed this obligation in Canon 386, “§1. The diocesan bishop is bound to teach and to illustrate to the faithful the truths of faith which are to be believed and applied to behavior. He is himself to preach frequently… §2. By whatever means seem most appropriate, he is firmly to defend the integrity and unity of the faith to be believed…” The Second Vatican Council is more explicit on this matter when in bold lines it enjoined them: “Ordinaries are to take care that in encouraging and favoring truly sacred art, they should seek for noble beauty rather than sumptuous display…. Bishops should be careful to ensure that works of art which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or through lack of artistic merit or because of mediocrity or pretense, be removed from the house of God and from other sacred places ” (SC, 124).

The norm then that the bishop has to observe in the fulfillment of his task to promote and take care of the Churches and the works of art has to be based on the restless hunger of man for God and the corresponding response of the Gospel as contained in these signs and symbols. After all there is in every man, whether he is a tourist or a native Christian, that space that can only be filled up by a God experience. The very structure of the Church and works of art convey the transcendental content that the local community and the tourists could gaze on and contemplate. That these works of art may have become stale tools to effectively reach the modern soul may be a valid observation. But as they reflect the great Mystery they have that innate power of prodding tourists to reflect. Meantime the authority of the particular Church has to take up the necessary adaptations in order that these works of art could reach the soul of the tourist without sacrificing the religious sensitivity of the local community.

The Woman and Her Dignity

2007-06-13T20:54:00.000+08:00

With so many distorted images of a woman as portrayed by modern society, a muddle, if not confusion, has been created regarding the true dignity of the woman. It is on this state of bewilderment that it is good to revisit the Sacred Scriptures to know the woman from her origin, to see what God says of her.

It is interesting to note that in the first pages of the Sacred Scriptures the woman, immediately after she was given the light of day, was placed as the object of the frontal attack of the devil. It was not man but the woman that the serpent assaulted. The temptation in paradise that brought man down to the knees of the devil started with Eve.

It is also worth noting that in the Book of Revelation Chapter 12, the devil appeared as a huge red dragon which had seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. Its tail dragged a third of the stars from the sky and dropped them to the earth. It stopped in front of the woman who was “adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labor, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.” The dragon was waiting for the child to be born so that he could snatched it from the mother and immediately destroy it by eating it up.

The attack against the dignity of women comes in thousand and one guises. But one of the most devilish attacks that the world today is experiencing is pornography. It is a most pernicious symptom of the decline in the awareness of human dignity, a pathetic result of man’s effort of splitting sexuality and love, which he has wittingly or unwittingly acquired along with his contraceptive mentality. It has become widespread, even reaching pandemic proportion, touching even the young people barely beyond the age of reason. Because of its addictive nature, our society seems helpless to ever muster that needed will or that means to significantly stop the availability of pornography. Worse still pornography is becoming more and more socially acceptable. What was considered pornographic years ago is now shown on billboards, rental movie cases, internets, etc. This trend has made it virtually impossible to avoid at least some exposure to some pornography. In fact, one Bishop of the United States has noted that the general public is so used to its presence that modern society has become numbed to many of the destructive images, nay, clamoring for more and more images and more revealing images. The hunger for this gratification seems insatiable. One such kind of porno comes out as innocent commercials, using the beautiful bodies of women as come on for the products to be sold in the market. A hard liquor is advertised in T.V. with ravishingly beautiful young woman with a hair flawlessly cascading to her half naked body, clinking the glass of brandy for a toast to a glass of brandy held by an adult male with a well chiseled body and uttered words that are simply suggestive. Attacks like that are becoming more and more common to our media and communications.

Even children are not spared from these pornographic presentations. The author Tankard Reist has made a sad commentary on what our adult world is doing to our children, sexualizing them at their tender age. He said that the problem of the premature sexualizing of girls is one of the most serious issues confronting us as a society at the present time. Girls are being turned into sexual objects earlier and earlier.

The messages they receive through popular culture is that to be attractive, to be accepted by society, you have to dress and behave in a sexual manner. There are now lingerie clothing lines for preteen girls, and bras for girls under 10, T-shirts with sexual slogans, and even a pole dancing kit complete with a DVD that features "sexy dance tracks" for 6-year-olds. Is this not the true picture of some of our own mothers who are dressing up and make-upping their 6 years old girl to look like a young woman, sexy and beautiful to behold, just so she could win the beauty contest in the school?

Popular lines of dolls for girls feature sexy clothing. Gossip magazines aimed at a preteen readership also encourage girls to behave in a sexual manner, with pages devoted to grooming and relationships -- even with older men.

In advertising catalogues, children are dressed up, made-up and posed in the same way that adults are. This suggests that children are interested in, and perhaps open to, approaches for sex.

Yes, the attack against the dignity of women is persistent and relentless. But, back to the question. Why is the woman selected as the object of the attacks of the devil, using her to destroy human dignity as a whole?

There are so many answers to this question, but I believe that one of the most interesting and plausible response is the very dignity of the woman itself. She has with her the womb, the part of her body that gives life to another. It is the sacred sanctum wherein God Himself educes a new human life – a life that He calls His own Child. It is the sacred place where you and I come from. As Psalm 138 beautifully describes God’s action in creating the human you and me: “It was you who created my inmost self, and put me together in my mother’s womb; for all these mysteries I thank you: for the wonder of myself. You know me through and through; from having watched my bones take shape when I was being formed in secret, knitted together in the limbo of the womb” (13-15). This is the womb that Satan hated so much, for from that womb comes the Son of Man. Mark the story of the Fall of Man. Man was given hope by the image of a woman who was bearing a Child and trampling the head of the serpent. Mark the Woman in the Book of Revelation: She was not alone; She was with Child. And that Child is set “to rule all nations with an iron scepter” (12:5). It is from this womb of the woman that we have come from, eventually making us children of God.

Yes, the dignity of the woman has to be upheld. Its protection is the protection of the human race.

The Cultural Heritage of the Catholic Church

2007-05-25T20:47:00.000+08:00

The Agreement (Accordo) made between the Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines last April 21, 2007 on the cultural treasures of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines hardly stirred any ripple of excitement in Philippine society as a whole. This is a tragic occurrence for this reflects a state of a soul that is anemic to a Filipino culture that is elevated to works of art and to a faith that is expressed in images, arts and lines. As it is the affair seems to be of no serious import. It seems that many of us are still in the mental mold that considers the cultural patrimony of the Church as belonging to the historical past whose proper place is the moldy archive or remodeled museums. It has nothing to do with the current buzz and modern ways of our life with its up-tempo technology, its fast dizzying pace, articulated in music, arts and letters that are attune to the uneasy soul of the modern man. If at all, its usefulness may be confined to its power of attracting some artists who have the eye for the fine things in life; or, of drawing some tourists of sound cultural background who still marvel and appreciate the works of art that have incredibly withstood the rough nature of time of relegating everything along its path into the limbo of forgotten things.

And yet the cultural patrimony of the Church is such a priceless legacy that the Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines took the effort to put together their authority to preserve, restore, catalogue, protect and care for them. Each within its own competence and within its own way of appraising the values of these cultural goods entered into this agreement with the common purpose of protecting these works of art. They know that cultural goods reveal the creative capacity of artists and craftsmen who have been able to draw artistic lines on what is visible the religious experience and the prayer life of the Christian community of Filipinos.

The Republic of the Philippines has seen in the cultural heritage of the Church a priceless stock of the aesthetic ingenuity and human wisdom of the Filipino artists and craftsmen. For the State this heritage makes up a composite of the creative works of its sons and daughters, geniuses who have been able to express in artistic lines, images and letters the deep Filipino sentiments towards the Transcendent. As such they have human values and, therefore, secular worth. As such they fall within the State’s domain to care and to protect.

For the Church the value of the cultural patrimony is its faith content. After all works of art in the Church are not purely secular. Church art is a human product, but it participates with what is sacred. For in the tradition of the Church, real work of art breathes its life from the theology of the Word made flesh. The sacred can be expressed in art because the Sacred, who is God Himself, has taken a human flesh and blood. As Christoph Schonborn concludes his investigation on “God’s Human Face”: “There exists an intimate connection between the whole concept of the arts and the concept of the mystery of Christ as God and man. The Incarnation not only transformed our knowledge of God, it also changed man’s view of the world, of himself, and of his activity in the world” (p. 238).

It is because of this theology of the incarnation that Church art has down through the ages been used extensively for catechesis and liturgy. Using the variegated work forms of art, such as painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, mosaic, the artists in the Church have been able to convey the message that transcends earthly reality. They greatly help the soul in its search for the divine. Hence, art in its various forms is in the Church not just for decorative purposes, but is there to help its members to keep in touch with God, to adore Him, to worship Him. As Jesus Christ, the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), brought man back to God, so works of art that are enlivened by spiritual inspiration have that uncanny power to assist the soul find His God. As expressions of the human spirit, these works of art bring man closer to his Creator.

It is therefore not surprising that the Church has always held in high esteem the ministry of arts, safeguarding the artistic treasures belonging to it. As the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy puts it: “The Church has always held the ministry of the arts in the highest esteem and has striven to see that all things set apart for use in divine worship are truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful, signs and symbols of the supernatural world” (“Opera Artis,” Circular Letter on the care of the Church’s Historical and Artistic Heritage, 11 April 1971).

Such is the worth of the cultural heritage of the Church in the Philippines that the Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines, each within its competence, converged “for the conservation, appreciation and proper use of the cultural heritage” (Agreement, Art. III). For this Agreement to take effect in the concrete, it spells out two important provisions, namely, 1) the Holy See will work through the Apostolic Nunciature and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines while the Republic of the Philippines will work through the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA); 2) in the conservation, appreciation, and proper use of the cultural heritage of artistic and historical significance owned by the ecclesiastical institutions and organizations, the designated parties of the Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines shall see to it that the implementation of the Philippine legislation regarding the cultural heritage of the nation shall be harmonized with the norms of Canon Law and the exigencies of the pastoral activity of the Church (cf. Agreement, Art. IV).

The Holy See and the Republic of the Philippines have taken the initiative to safeguard the cultural treasures of the Church in the Philippines. It is hoped that the ecclesiastical authorities should be stirred up by this act and take up the chore of treasuring the cultural patrimony within their domain. As the Congregation for the Clergy underlined it: “In our own times as well, bishops, no matter how hard pressed by their responsibilities, must take seriously the care of places of worship and sacred objects. They bear singular witness to the reverence of the people toward God and deserve such care also because of their historic and artistic value” (ibid.).

THE TRUTH OF MARRIAGE

2007-04-20T11:28:00.000+08:00

Marriage in its flesh and blood realities can be gleaned from cases submitted to a Church court for resolution. From this perspective, the truth of marriage is to be ferreted out from the messy, if not unknown, elements of the contested matrimonial bond. The judge has much to say on the matter. As a minister of ecclesiastical justice, he is supposed to know the real meaning of marriage, to be faithful to the application of the law to the case at bar, as well as true to the standard practices of the Tribunals of the Holy See.
In the recent Papal Allocation to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota delivered last 27 January 2007, Pope Benedict XVI strongly reminded the judges of their serious mission to always uphold the truth of marriage as handed down by the revered Tradition and Magisterium of the Church in the resolution of matrimonial cases. He said: “In this perspective, the love of truth emerges as a point of convergence between procedural research and the pastoral service of the person. We must not forget, however, that in causes of the nullity of marriage, the legal truth presupposes the “truth of the marriage” itself” (“Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2007).
Needless to say any Church judge is to approach every case with a pastoral bias. But this pastoral concern of the judge for the parties under litigation should not in any way compromise the objective truth of marriage. In judging the minister of justice should be reminded of the Church doctrine that states: “The indissolubility of marriage does not derive from the definitive commitment of those who contract it but is intrinsic in the nature of the “powerful bond established by the Creator” (John Paul II, Catechesis, General Audience 21 November 1979, n. 2; ORE, 26 November 1979, p, 1). People who contract marriage must be definitively committed to it because marriage is such in the plan of creation and of redemption. And the essential juridical character of marriage is inherent precisely in this bond which represents for the man and for the woman a requirement of justice and love from which, for their good and for the good of all, they may not withdraw without contradicting what God Himself has wrought within them.”
In contested marriage, the judge is confronted with a matrimonial bond that is lived out in flesh and blood by the man and woman who freely bound themselves as husband and wife. Christian marriage is indissoluble. This is a property that is essential to marriage; without it there will be no genuine Christian marriage. It is lived out by the husband and the wife who effected the matrimonial bond by the acts of their will. Faced with the traditional doctrine of the Church on marriage and the realities at hand, the judge who is a minister of justice of the Church, should take into account that the totality of the truth of marriage, indissolubility of marriage included, is something given. It has to be defended at all cost.
Meantime, the Pope observed that within the modern cultural context which is marked by relativism and juridical positivism, marriage can conveniently be manipulated by the couple. In fact, there are groups who arbitrarily declare that the union of husband and wife is a mere social formalization of emotional ties. As such marriage is believed to be based on the subjective will of the couple. After all marriage, so they say, as established by the Church as an intima communitas vitae et amoris”, the intimate partnership of life and love (cf. GS 48), is an “ideal” to which “normal Christians” are not bound to follow. Eventually the theory leads to a denial of the existence of an indissoluble conjugal bond.
The Pope raised his fears that such a dangerous trend may influence the attitude of Church judges. In the name of , if not in the guise of, pastoral concern, the judge may be led to the false assumption that for the good of the persons concerned the process of the declaration of matrimonial nullity is merely a legal means to achieve subjective claims, a sort of “regularization” of an irregular relationship of a given husband and wife. With that assumption the judge can easily be misled to that posture of not considering anymore the objective validity or nullity of his/her/marriage which seriously look into the truth of his/her personal status . As the Pope himself put it: “We must not forget, however, that in causes of the nullity of marriage, the legal truth presupposes the “truth of the marriage” itself.
In truth, it is God who created man as male and female. As such He gave them the power to unite forever those natural and complementary dimensions of their persons. As Jesus put it: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder”. St. Augustine in his commentary on St. Paul’s instruction regarding the juridical relationship between husband and wife, made this bold declaration: “The Apostle attributes so much of a right to this fidelity (of the covenant of marriage) that he calls it a power, saying ‘a wife does not have power over her own body but rather her husband does, likewise a husband does not have power over his body, but rather his wife does’] (De Bono Coniugali, 4, 4).
Hence, the indissolubility of marriage is not based on the subjective commitment of those who contract it. It is intrinsic in the nature of marriage bond itself as established by the Creator” (John Paul II, Catechesis, General Audience 21 November 1979, n. 2; ORE, 26 November 1979, p, 1).
People who contract marriage must be definitively committed to it because marriage is such in the plan of creation and of redemption. And the essential juridical character of marriage is inherent precisely in this bond which represents for the man and for the woman a requirement of justice and love from which, for their good and for the good of all, they may not withdraw without contradicting what God Himself has wrought within them.

EASTER MESSAGE 2007

2007-04-10T12:49:00.000+08:00

Like the pealing of the parish Church bells that pierces the silence of the early dawn of Easter Sunday, the voice of the Christian soul renewed by the refreshing grace of Holy Week breaks out with the great proclamation of hope: “Christ is risen; Christ is truly risen.”

This message of Easter, however, is not just a doctrine that emulates the spirit of man, neither is it a mere story of a past happening. It is a celebration of today, a breaking of the news that Christ is truly risen today. In the liturgy of the blessing of the new fire during the Easter Vigil, I was suddenly struck by the rite of inscribing some symbols into the Paschal Candle. In it was to be etched the year 2007, but over and below it are the giant Greek letters of ALPHA and OMEGA, the symbol of the resurrected Christ. He is the Beginning and the End of everything, Jesus Christ who is yesterday, today, and forever. Christ the resurrected is contemporary. His resurrection was not just an event of the past: it is a current occurrence of which message of hope is directed to the modern Filipino.

This then is the joy of Easter, the joy that is the fruit of an experience of the triumph of Christ over death and over all the negative incidents that endlessly impinge on the spirit of man. The resurrection of our Lord strongly affirms that life is stronger than death, that love is more potent than hatred, that good is mightier than evil. Resurrection brings home the bliss of Easter: “We are free: we are free to be good; we are free to love; we are free to live.” The Holy Father, Pope Benedict the XVI, spoke of this freedom in his Easter Vigil message when he said: “In the resurrection of Jesus, love has been shown to be stronger than death, stronger than evil. Love made Christ descend, and love is also the power by which he ascends. The power by which he brings us with him. In union with his love, borne aloft on the wings of love, as persons of love, let us descend with him into the world's darkness, knowing that in this way we will also rise up with him.”

It is along this faith of the resurrection that the Church wants us to take up our life again with all its precariousness and complexities. In the growing poverty of our people, the corruptions and differing crimes in society, the politics of compromises and shady transactions, the violence committed to the weak and the defenseless, the trafficking of women, the sexual abuses of minors, the spiritual emptiness and the weak moral fiber of our leaders, in all these the children of the resurrection should not grow faint and withdraw. On the contrary they should be there in the thick of all this mess, deeply engrossed in the great work of reshaping the face of the Philippines. With much love, compassion and determination they sure will make a difference.

HAPPY EASTER.

The Lay Faithful and the Priests

2007-04-02T20:25:00.000+08:00

As a pastor of a particular Church, I have been wondering how to effect the harmonious and dynamic relationship between the lay faithful and the priests that would lead not only to the appreciation of their dignity but would also maximize the exercise of their functions as priests, kings and prophets in the parishes. It is true that Canon 208 provides for close collaboration among the faithful when it states: “From their rebirth in Christ, there exists among all the Christian faithful a true equality regarding dignity and action by which they all cooperate in the building up of the Body of Christ according to each one’s own condition and function.” But it does not spell out in the concrete how it looks like and how this could be realized. The early Christian community in Jerusalem as described in the Acts of the Apostles with the members’ concern for one another motivated as they were by the celebration of the Eucharist is usually conjured as the model of how cooperation in the Church would appear. But the complexity of the world of today simply demands for other Church models that would strike that dynamic relationship among its members.

Meantime, a glimmer of it was recently shown me in the Chrism Mass in the Diocese of Tagbilaran. As a new pastor of the place, it was my first time to preside on the liturgy. And there I saw a model how the clergy and the laity could more effectively work together in the building up of the Body of Christ on earth. It was Monday of Holy Week. Priests gathered together in the morning and had a short recollection in preparation for the Chrism Mass and their renewal of their commitment as priests in the Church of Tagbilaran. For a wider perspective of their priesthood they took as their speaker a lay man in the person of Mr. Frank Padilla, the founder of the CFC. In the early afternoon, the lay faithful came in and congregated in the Cathedral, made a recollection with the bishop of Tagbilaran himself as the speaker. After that they made the Holy Hour and Stations of the Cross as their prayer for the priests. It was only after these separate preparations that the Chrism Mass proper was celebrated. It was a Liturgy to behold: the lay people praying for their priests; the priests renewing their commitment to serve the lay faithful with renewed vigor and enthusiasm, the bishop absorbing them all in his own person and office, bringing them all up to God, pleading for His choice blessings for the particular Church, the Diocese of Tagbilaran.

In the ministry of governance, the bishop has the pastoral obligation to assist the lay faithful to understand and to accept the kingly gift that they received in baptism. According to Benedict XVI in his address to the bishops of Provinces of Louisville, Mobile and New Orleans, this kingly office is first expressed in that “royal freedom which enables the faithful to overcome the reign of sin in their own lives and, by serving Christ in others…, to guide them to that King whom to serve is to reign” (ZEO4120520). And since for the lay faithful the exercise of this kingly office is directed to the spread of the Kingdom of Gospel through secular activities, imbuing, that is, the world with the Spirit of Christ so that justice, love and peace may reign, the bishop has to encourage them through catechesis and continuing formation, to recognize their distinctive dignity and mission. As the Pope continued his exhortation: “This means that the laity must be trained to distinguish clearly between their rights and duties as members of the Church and those which they have as members of human society, and encouraged to combine the two harmoniously, recognizing that in every temporal affair they are to be guided by their Christian conscience, since there is no human activity – even in the temporal order –that can be withdrawn from God’s dominion” (ibid.; also, Vatican II, LG, no. 36; also, Canon 227)).

The implication of the words of Benedict XVI is that the lay faithful should not remain as the “long hand of the hierarchy”, a group that moves only when mandated by the bishop and their pastors. They should be empowered. Empowerment here means due recognition of the legitimate freedom of the lay faithful to undertake on their own the apostolate due to the baptism that they received. They are commissioned by the Lord Himself, expected to undertake the spread of the Gospel in their own right and to perform their functions as priests, kings, and prophets by the sheer fact that they are baptized and confirmed. It too means that they have their distinctive role in the mission of the Church. “They live in the world…They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others” (LG 31). And more importantly, it demands from the hierarchy the proper discernment to appreciate the workings of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They are in the world and they are there precisely to reinvigorate the Church in places where the clergy cannot reach. Many of them receive charisms for the building up of the Church. They are not aliens nor are they enemies of the Church; neither do they intend to put up a parallel Church, competitors for the allegiance of the people. They are there because “their specific vocation and their mission is that of expressing the Gospel in their lives and, in that way, of inserting the Gospel as leavening into the reality of the world in which they live and work” (John Paul II, “The Task of the Laity to Permeate”, L’Osservatore Romano, October 15, 1980).

The lay faithful, that is, the young men and women who are acting as leaven of the secular world and the hope of the future of the Church, the married couples who lived the love of Christ in their homes and families. and all the men and women who bring the Gospel to their homes, workplaces, politics and the to the world as a whole, are invaluable members of the local Church. An appreciation of their secularity, their distinctive gifts and apostolate will lead to a greater commitment and shared responsibility.

The bishop has to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit who is forever, living, working and speaking in the baptized individuals and groups of individuals. He should know how to discern the workings of the Spirit, the rich variety of charisms and ministries which are poured upon some lay members for the building up and renewal of the Church. This of course demands from the pastor the conscious effort to listen, to discern, to appreciate, and even to put up structures of communion and participation.

The lay faithful praying for their priests, the priests renewing their commitment to
spend their lives to bring to the lay faithful the Word and the Sacraments, the bishop working for the fruitful collaboration and harmonious cooperation between these two members for the building up of the Body of Christ, was mirrored in the Mass of the Chrism last Holy Monday in the Cathedral of Tagbilaran. It is our fondest hope that this picture of communion and participation in the liturgy be soon transported to the day to day living of the Christian Faithful in the local Church in Bohol.

SOCIAL SECURITY OF THE DIOCESAN CLERGY

2007-02-22T13:39:00.000+08:00

The busy chore in the parish which includes among others the looking after the spiritual needs of the people entrusted to his care, the setting up of the organizational systems and needed structures, the building up of BECs and taking care of faith communities and other movements, teaching the children and forming the youth, giving guidance counseling to married young couples and troubled families, the keeping up of the physical plant of the community, all these programs and activities could engaged the parish priest so much that he forgets that time is not always his. Before he realizes it, illness is getting a hold of him and the advancing age is slowing him down. And there he is alone and untended.

The Church true mother that she is would not like that scenario to happen to her priests. She knows very well the all out dedication of her priests in the ministry, their heroism in giving up their own personal dreams and ambition for the sake of Kingdom. She too remembers full well she started as a small community in Jerusalem and yet with polled resources could support one another as well as the poor and the needy ( cf. Acts 4: 32): for “they held everything in common” and “distribution was made to each according to need” (Acts 4:35). It is on this account that she comes out strongly with this stipulation in law: “Provision must also be made so that they (clerics) possess that social assistance which provides for their needs suitably if they suffer from illness, incapacity, or old age” (Canon 281, §2). This law is actually a juridical formulation of the desideratum expressed by Vatican II which states: “In countries where social security has not yet been adequately organized for the benefit of clergy, Episcopal Conferences are to make provision…for the setting up of diocesan organizations…for the proper support of priests who suffer from ill health, disability or old age” (PO 21). The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines specified more this provision of the Code and in terse language stated: “When…priests retire from years of service in the Ministry, the Church should see to it that their respective Dioceses continue to support them…. “ (PCP-II, Acts, 561).

Here the dioceses in the Philippines are enjoined to dig deep into their own creative selves to devise workable system that would meet squarely the plight of her ailing clergymen. The task at hand is not at all easy, especially for poor dioceses that have to depend mostly on the love offerings and contributions of the faithful. Other dioceses have to contend with old financial systems that may have incorporated the social security of their members, but are in fact failing to meet the needs of the aging priests.

A case at bar comes to the fore. In one of the clergy meetings this issue surfaced when a member of the aging priests of the diocese presented to the body an innovative system that would somehow help the sick priests in purchasing their prescribed medicines. The idea is this: make collection boxes with a big-letter message painted on them as, “Support Our Aging Priests (SOAP)” and place them in strategic places in the parish churches. Simple or crude the idea brings home the message that the aging priests are overwhelmed with the mounting expenses that they have to defray. Seven thousand (P7,000.00) to nine thousand pesos (P9,000.00) as monthly expense for maintenance medicines is simply staggering for any priest whose monthly earning is only P9,000.00. They need support; they beg for help. Who could help them if not the generous lay faithful? After all, it is the lay faithful who through the years have been the beneficiaries of the services of these ordained ministers. In fact, this doctrine is already enshrined in the Code which states: “The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers” (C. 222, §1). And so, the idea was hatched.

But that idea did not take away the obligation of the diocese to take care of its priests in need. The presbyterium understood well the plight of their brother aging priests. And so they came out with two resolves: first, ask the aging priests to desist from the planned collection boxes; second, the diocese will resume the serious talk on the social security system of priests. These resolves are based on the conviction of the presbyterium who sincerely believed in the principle enunciated by the Second Vatican Council (PO 20): “Completely devoted as they are to the service of God in the fulfillment of the office entrusted to them, priests are entitled to receive a just remuneration. For ‘the laborer deserves his wages’ (Lk 10:7), and (1 Cor 9:10) ‘the Lord commanded that they who proclaim the Gospel should get their living by the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9:10).

The SPIRITUALITY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTS

2007-01-31T15:55:00.000+08:00

It was one of those busy week days in the office that the chime of twelve became a welcome respite from work when a weak knock at the door called my attention. At my instance the door opened and there appeared one of my young priests who looked haggard and lifeless. In words that could hardly be heard he said: “I am burnt out, Bishop. Priesthood has no more sense to my life; prayer is a drab; I feel empty.”

A sad story that can rend any bishop’s heart. For it usually happens to his priests who are full of energy, full of idealism, active in the apostolate, dedicated to prayer life. And there they are, just five or six years from the ministry, already burnt out. What has gone wrong?

One of the reasons surely is the spiritual life of the diocesan clergy. To have a tight grip of one’s spirituality in the parish is not that easy. Every day he has to make do of it. The demands of the ministry simply leaves him no regular time to his prayers and meditation. Soon he will be dried up, will start longing with a drag sigh to the lost ideals that he had once acquired in the seminary. Is there a way to sustain him in his spirituality or recapture it when it is ebbing?

I believe there is. After all the source of his spirituality is on hand. For, the spirituality of the diocesan clergy and his effectiveness in the ministry is to be found from the very exercise of his priestly ministry. The priest becomes what he administers; he grows in spirituality according to the way he fulfills his priestly ministry; he becomes holy because he deals with holy things. This concept was already given an initial yet authoritative account by the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, when it boldly stated: “A ministerial spirituality requires the priest to exercise authentic, i.e. truthful ministry. He attunes his heart and demeanor to the meaning of his ministerial actions. He will not be content simply to speak the Word of God. He will live according to the Word he preaches. He will not be satisfied with merely a valid administration of the sacraments. He will administer the sacraments with care, with faith and pastoral love. He will not simply command. He will seek to be an example of one who heeds the Word of God and thus be a light to others” (IV, n. 537).

This is so because the sacramental character that has been etched deeply in the person of the priest is for real. It touches the ordained individual at the very core of his being. Ordination is no mere designation to an office, nor mere bestowal of rights and obligations, nor simple definition of the roles and functions of the priest, of his job descriptions. It is an ontological and spiritual configuration of a quality that sets the ordained forever as priest of God in aeternum, transforming him into a spiritual and moral leader, a dispenser of holy things. . As the late John Paul II, addressing to the priests in his Letter “Novo Incipiente Nostro, delicately puts it: “Your priesthood imparts to you a pastoral charism, a special likeness to Christ, the Good Shepherd. This quality belongs to you in a very special way. All the laity, the great community of the People of God, our brothers and sisters, are expected to work for the salvation of others, as the Second Vatican Council stated so clearly. You priests, however, are expected to have a concern and a commitment greater than and different from that of any lay person. And this is because you share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ in a way that differs essentially and not only in degree from the manner in which they share” (Par. 5).

And so, the spirituality of the diocesan clergy can be found in act of doing the pastoral ministry as priest. And this cannot be realized more than in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist whose liturgy urges the community and more so, the priest presider, to enter into that space and moment when God himself is acting and that all are drawn into that action of God. There is that highest moment in the liturgy of the Eucharist when the difference between the action of Christ and priest’s own actions are mysteriously merged into one reality, the fulfillment of what St. Paul meant by “being united to the Lord” and thus becoming “one spirit with him” (cf. 1Cor 6:17). God’s action is what is essential; man’s action is cooperation.

In the Holy Mass the priest should be caught up in that great act of God transforming him into His embrace. For any priest it should be a high moment when he takes the bread and the cup in his own hands, relating at the same time the narrative part of the Institution wherein he commences in the third person – “He took bread… He blessed it… he broke it… he gave it…” - and then, suddenly, carried on by the flow of the liturgy he shifts the pronouns from the third person to the first when he pronounces the words of consecration. The priest no longer says: “This is His (Christ’s) body; this is His Blood”; he rather utters: “This is my body” … This is my blood…” The third person has become the first person, identifying the priest with the very person of Christ Himself. And the priest states those words as a matter of fact. For he knows that he takes, blesses, and breaks bread in persona Christi. In that one sacred act, following the great “Oratio” of the liturgy of the Eucharist, he brings into it the core of his being: he is an ordained priest, whose character of ordination made him one with the person of Christ the Head. The transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is made possible because he is a priest with the sacramental power to transform it. That should set any priest to pause and think. As one Filipino archbishop described it, “when he breaks bread and passes on the cup, he should be humbled in the realization that what is so easy to accomplish through his transforming words, he finds it difficult to transform his own life and bad habits in his day-to-day chore.”
It is on this regard, that the Holy Father Benedict XVI once commented: “True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities. Instead one must be led toward the essential “action” that makes the liturgy what it is, toward the transforming power of God, who wants, through what happens in the liturgy, to transform us and the world” (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000 Ignatius Press, p. 175).

It is also along this vein that the late Holy Father John Paul II waxed eloquent in exhorting the priests to give due reverence to the Holy Eucharist. In his letter to the priests entitled “Dominicae Cenae, he said: “In reality, the ministerial and hierarchal priesthood, the priesthood of the Bishops and the priests, and, at their side, the ministry of the deacons – ministries which normally begin with the proclamation of the Gospel – are in closest relationship with the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the principal and central raison d’entre of the Sacrament of the priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist, and together with it” (n.2). In his enclyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the same Pope carried on the same line of thought. He said: “If the Eucharist is the center and summit of the Church’s life, it is likewise the center and summit of priestly ministry. For this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ, I repeat that the Eucharist “is the principal and central raison d’etre of the sacrament of priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment of institution of the Eucharist” (n. 31)

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: ITS IMPACT ON THE ARENA OF POLITICS

2007-01-08T09:58:00.000+08:00

January 12, 2007

The convergence of various cultures, legal systems and religions has through the years produced peculiar effects in the relationship between the State and the Church in the Philippines. The various powers that colonized the country have left an indelible imprint in the country’s laws and life and consequently worked together in shaping up the relationship between the Church and the State. That there is a separation of Church and State is a fact. This is amply evidenced in the various constitutions of the country . The problem is the nature and style of separation. What does separation of Church and State mean? This paper will try to handle and answer this nagging question from the canonical point of view and the Conciliar teachings.

The Philippine Constitution describes this relationship in this manner: “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination and preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.”

Simply put, the separation of Church and State doctrine as expressed in the present Constitution implies two things, namely, 1) that no religion may be established as the official religion of the State nor prohibits the free exercise thereof; 2) that the State shall not favor one religion over the others. It logically follows from the aforementioned that the State shall allow the free exercise and enjoyment of any religious creed or conviction one may choose to adhere to.

The present code of canon law, on its part, maintains and rightfully claims the moral personality of the Catholic Church and the Apostolic See by divine ordination which serves the basis for the autonomy of its jurisdictional authority and character and independence in the human community . It further lays claim, among others, the freedom to preach the gospel and to render moral judgment on any matter of human affairs ; to establish and direct schools; to promote formation and education in the Catholic religion at all levels of education; to train its own ministers; to appoint and send papal legates; to establish the matrimonial regimen for its faithful; to acquire, retain or sell temporal goods for the attainments for its own goals; to punish with penal sanctions those of the faithful who commit delicts; and to judge its own cases. It goes without saying that that each of these stipulations presupposes the fundamental purpose of affirming the Church’s autonomy vis-à-vis temporal powers, and, its “inherent,” “exclusive,” “native,” “original” freedoms and rights “independent of civil power.” They are not actual presentation of the relations between Church and State, nor are they practical guidelines on how separation of Church and State should be carried out in day-to-day transactions and political interactions. But they do provide the ready foundation for the establishment of such relation together with the Church’s conviction that it has supreme authority over its juridical code. By virtue of her mission to spread the gospel message and to unify the spirit of all, the Church stands forth as sign of that unity which allows honest dialogue. It requires mutual esteem, reverence and harmony through the recognition of lawful diversity.

The Church and the State, has for numerous times, shown a great level of collaboration in a number of issues as evidenced by the various concordats the Church has established with different states. While the authority of the State is limited to the temporal affairs of man and the Church on the spiritual matters, recent events have shown that the Church has been more and more concerned with the development of man for as members of society, the members of the Church has the same duty to promote the common good as does the State. It is in the arena of politics that the separation of Church and State is being most often invoked.

CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS ACCORDING TO VATICAN II

The most fundamental principle governing Church-State relationships is that the Church has a very specific purpose in the world and it is not constituted as an entity opposed to the State. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind the Conciliar statement of Gaudium et spes, no. 76, which puts this issue in its proper perspective. Several important points must be highlighted in this statement. First, the Church affirms the natural and supernatural dimensions of each and every human being. Even though the direct and primary concern of the Church is the transcendental dimension, it has inherent right to use temporal or earthly realities to accomplish its mission. Second, in accomplishing its mission, the Church does not look for any privileges or special concessions from civil authority, which would compromise its intrinsic and essential goal, that is, the salvation of each human being. In other words, the Church is not going to enter into any deals, which would taint the sincerity of its witness. Third, in view of its mission, the Church should have true freedom to preach its message. The message concerns the faith, society, moral judgments in matters relating to politics, but especially the fundamental rights of human beings and salvation of souls. The Church merely claims its inherent right to witness to and stand up for human rights and salvation of souls and do so with courage and authority. Fourth, the Church does not exercise political or temporal power. Therefore, the means it has the right to use are those, which correspond to the Gospel message. The Church can in fact become a leaven in the political arena by preparing and encouraging suitable persons who would work for the welfare of all people according to the Gospel message.

THE CHURCH AND ITS INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICAL LIFE

If politics is to be understood in a broad sense, that is, the community’s pursuit of the common good, then the Church cannot but be involved in it. The common good embraces the sum total of conditions of social life by which individual, families, and groups can achieve their own fulfillment in a relatively thorough and ready way.

Christian involvement in political life is actually based on the commitment of Christians in the world. For more than 2000 years people of the faith has actively engaged themselves in the life of the world, submitting themselves to duly constituted authority, willingly cooperating with it, in accordance to the dictates of their conscience and the light of the Gospel, in the work for the pursuit of the common good. For these people “man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality.” As one early Christian writer put it: (Christians) reside in their own nations, but as residential aliens. They participate in all things as citizens and endure all things as foreigners… They obey the established laws and their way of life surpasses laws… So noble is the position to which God has assigned them that they are not allowed to desert it.”

With history sweeping men to live in democratic forms of government, the call of the Catholics to actively participate in the affairs of the State becomes more urgent. For in these societies the citizens are suddenly pushed to the forefront of governance, making them active participant in directing the body politic. Christians are no exception to this demand. After all, the life of a democracy cannot be productive and fruitful without the active and responsible involvement of everyone. Here the Christians are expected to contribute their share to the development of political solutions and legislative choices which could benefit the common good. In concrete the right of suffrage and other civil rights have made this active participation possible. The result to such active participation of all citizens, including the Christians, is observed by the Holy See as indeed encouraging, making life more in tune with the dignity of human person. As Cardinal Ratzinger noted: “The great strides made in our time give evidence of humanity’s progress in attaining conditions of life which are more in keeping with human dignity.”

There is another urgent reason why the Christian citizens of today are asked to be more involved in political matters. With an eye adept for right moral judgment the same Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith observed that the evolution of civil society into a more democratic and more participative society has spawn a mentality and a position that is alarming. It is called a pluralistic mentality, a conceptualization that eventually leads to cultural relativism. In the name of freedom the promoters of this tendency envision a system that govern the acts and behavior of man. This system oftentimes runs counter to the standard of natural ethics and sound morality. Called ethical pluralism, it sanctions the decadence of the principles of natural moral law. It teaches citizens to claim complete autonomy with regards to moral choices that they make. It also facilitates the lawmakers to enact laws that are oftentimes unethical and even immoral in the pretext that they are just respecting the freedom of choices of the citizens. It is precisely because of the emergence of these ambiguities or questionable positions that the Church comes out with a document to clarify some important elements of Church teaching in this area. At the same breath it is calling all Christian citizens, in the face of these dangerous modern tendencies, to be more actively involved in the political affairs of the State. The “Doctrinal Note” of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith put the imperative this way: “If Christians must recognize the legitimacy of differing points of view about the organization of worldly affairs, they are also called to reject, as injurious to democratic life, a conception of pluralism that reflects moral relativism. Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society”

With that in view, we can safely conclude that active participation in the politic life of the nation is all the more imperative to all Christian citizens.

Here in the Philippines participation of the Church in politics is active, vocal, visible. To put it bluntly, the Church is actively involved in the political as well as in the socio-economic affairs of the nation. In fact, it is because of this that oftentimes it has been accused, mistakenly perhaps, of too much interfering in purely temporal affairs, of transgressing the constitutive principle of separation of Church and State. But, when we come to reflect on it, has our participation in the political life of the State been sufficient? Or, has the Church been effective in its participation in view of her mission to evangelize society in general and politics in particular? Has the common good been sufficiently met through this participation? With the presence of the massive graft and corruption in the country can we rightly conclude that the Church has failed in her mission?

To properly answer these queries, let us go first into the history of the Church in the Philippines in the area of its participation in politics and in other socio-economic activities of the nation. Let us take a brief review of our history. Here, we will find out that involvement of the Church in temporal affairs and therefore in politics, has undergone an interesting evolution. Msgr. Lope Robredillo, a priest of the Diocese of Borongan, was once commissioned by the CBCP Permanent Council to undertake a brief historical survey of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines from 1945-1995. In that study, he made this interesting conclusion:

“In describing the 50 years of its existence, it is important to take into account the ecclesiological framework within which the conference operated and moved, as well as the changing and diverse historical experiences of the Filipino people which shaped it. As is true of particular churches in other nations, the major shift in ecclesiological paradigm in the Philippine Church, which entailed changes in values and orientations, transpired in the Second Vatican Council. Accordingly, the history of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines may be conveniently divided into two major parts: a) Before the Second Vatican Council and b) After the Second Vatican Council. During these two periods, it can be observed that when the CBCP responded to the various challenges which the particular situation of the Country presented, it did so within the possibilities of its perception and ecclesiological framework”

Before Vatican II, the Church in the Philippines has been shaped by the theology of the Council of Trent with an ecclesiology that concerns with a Church as a social institution. In this concept the Church is a society and the Hierarchy possesses the power of jurisdiction and governance. The rest (the faithful) is considered as mere passive subjects of this power. Its mission is the salvation of souls while the means to achieve it is grace that can be had through the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the sacraments. Of course, within this parameter involvement in politics and in socio-economic affairs of the Nation is narrow and limited. Its concern was mostly religious. In the area of temporal affairs, the Church engages itself in works of mercy and charity, a kind of social welfare. When Vatican II, however, came out with its ecclesiology that declares that the Church is People of God, it opened a novel way of understanding participation in the temporal spheres. A shift was created and a dramatic shift at that. It may not be that immediate, but certain and gradual. Church in the Philippines slowly assimilated in its system the social action which is directly derived from this concept of the Church as People of God. Justice and peace has become the focus of its activity. At the time also dramatic events in the country hastened its growth and development. The declaration of Martial Law certainly created a situation whereby the leaders of the Church could dig deep into the ecclesiology offered by Second Vatican Council and could thereby respond with determination and confidence to the challenges at hand. People of God concept has been the ready source of inspiration and empowerment by the Church in the Philippines in its bitter struggle against the dictatorial rule. EDSA 1 may perhaps be the culminating point of the Church involvement in the political affairs of the country.

In all we can say that the Church in the Philippines, after the Second Vatican Council, has never wavered in her commitment to participate in the political affairs of the civil society. For it is sure in its stand. Its main reason is: integral evangelization. “The task of the Church,” PCP II declared, “in announcing a message of liberation, of saturating every strata of humanity with the values of the Good News will necessarily have political repercussions, for the values of the Kingdom of God often serve as countersigns to prevailing political systems and practices.” After all politics is not over and above the natural law and the moral law. Politics has moral and religious dimensions that the Church has to look into and be involved with.

However, the more urgent reason why the Church in the Philippines actively participates in the political affairs of the state in recent times is the existing graft and corruption of our society. It is not just the fact that the Philippines is listed as among the first ten of the most corrupt nations in the world that the Church is pushed to go on in its involvement in politics. But it is rather the tragic effects that graft and corruption has done to our citizenry, our system of governance, our values, our morality, the plight of the poor and the needy. As the Bishops Conference eloquently expressed it: “Why has the Church been usually pro-active in addressing the subject of politics since the end of World War II and especially since the Martial Law years and the restoration of our democracy in 1986? There is one main reason: Philippine politics – the way it is practiced – has been most hurtful of us as a people. It is possibly the biggest bane in our life as a nation and the most pernicious obstacle to our achieving of full human development”

In this regard, the Church in the Philippines had summoned support from all levels of society. In particular, it addressed the laity to be more active in politics as this is precisely the sphere wherein they are called to transform the world in the spirit of the Gospel and according to Christian values and conscience. PCP II put it loudly: “In the Philippines today given the general perception that politics has become an obstacle to integral development, the urgent necessity is for the lay faithful to participate more actively, with singular competence and integrity, in political affairs. It is through the laity that the Church is directly involved. .. Our Plenary Council stands on record to urge the lay faithful to participate actively and lead in the renewing of politics in accordance with values of the Good News of Jesus”

Hence, the Church has to involve itself in political life, understood in the broad sense, of the State. The Church has the right to preach the gospel without hindrance, to teach its social doctrines and to discharge its duty among the people of God. It has, likewise, the right to express moral judgments, even on matters touching the political order, whenever basic personal rights or the salvation of soul makes such judgment necessary . It is precisely because of this that the Church and the State, while respecting there respective autonomy, have to collaborate with each other for the protection and realization of the common good. Recently the relationship of the Church with the State has been described by the Philippine Bishops as one of ‘critical solidarity’ .

While collaborating with the State, the Church retains its native and inherent right to speak out in prophetic wisdom against any form of injustice or violation of the moral, social, political and economic order.

THE ROLE OF THE BISHOPS AND THE CLERGY IN POLITICS

As pointed out earlier, the Church may teach moral doctrines covering politics but cannot actively take part in partisan politics. It is in the latter that the clergy are prohibited from getting involved. Yet, there is no provision in the present Constitution, which bars the clergy and the religious from partisan politics. It is by virtue of the Church’s own laws and tradition that prohibits the clergy and religious from any involvement in partisan politics . Canon 287, § 2 contains a negatively formulated juridical norm for the clerics and therefore precise and strong in its prohibition. It states: “They are not to have active part to political parties and in governing labor unions unless, in the judgment of competent ecclesiastical authority, the protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good requires it.” Like canon 285, § 3, which prohibits the clergy from holding public office, this restriction on political activity is based on the distinctive role of the clergy and the laity. Needless to say, political activity ordinarily belongs to lay persons.

It is the responsibility of the clergy to promote unity in the community. They are ordained and configured to take care of all the faithful, not just segments of the community as members of political party. The Church therefore prohibits the clergy from involvement in partisan politics since they are considered symbols of unity in the Church and in the community and certainly partisan politics is, by its very nature, divisive. For them to take an active part in partisan politics, with its wheeling and dealing, compromises, confrontational and adversarial positions, would be to weaken their teaching authority and destroy the unity the represent and protect .Consequently, the clergy, “witness of future things, should keep a certain distance from any political position or effort.”

The bishops and the clergy, like all citizens, have the right to make their own choices . Together with the faithful they are in fact, obliged to take a clear action when the human person requires help, when human rights are to be defended, and to work for peace and justice . In expressing the choices they are to avoid giving the impression that their opinions are the sole legitimate ones. They are, however, to refrain from intervening in partisan politics unless there is an issue of just social order. In this regard, the late John Paul II made a strong position: “Presbyters who, in generosity of their service to the evangelical ideal feel the tendency towards immersing themselves in political activity, in order to contribute more effectively to healing political life, by eliminating injustices, exploitation and oppressions of all kinds, are reminded by the Church that, along that road, it is easy to see oneself involved in party struggles, running risk of collaborating, not in the birth of a just world, to which we all aspire, but rather, to new and worse forms of exploitation of poor people. They should know, in any case, that they do not have the mission or charism from on high for that endeavor in political action and participation”
This prohibition is, however, not absolute. Whenever the defense of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good requires, the prohibition could be removed on exceptional cases. With the condition that the evaluation of the circumstances which justifies cleric’s participation in politics falls upon the legitimate ecclesiastical authority and is never left to the personal judgment of the clergy. Specifically, it would require the consent of the bishop, after having consulted the presbyteral council and also, if the case requires it, the bishops’ conference.

New Year Message

2007-01-08T09:55:00.000+08:00

The approach of the new year 2007 again augurs fresh hope for new beginning. It evokes anticipation, better tomorrow, bright days ahead, no matter the dark ominous shadow at the heel of the old year that is fast fading to the irretrievable past. For lodged deeply in man’s being is that stubborn hope that springs eternal.

Hope, however, does not work on a vacuum. It feeds on perceived reality. And as different people have different ways of perceiving realities, it is no wonder that man’s hope to survive or succeed differs. One places his hope on the market and therefore gauges his better tomorrow with the economic growth or, at least, stability. With the growing strength of the peso vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar, some Filipinos hope that we are at last in a break through towards quality life, development, and progress. At least this is what the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey told us as bannered by the Philippine Star December 29, 2006 issue: “Despite a spate of natural calamities and political upheavals in the year just past, most Filipinos still look to the New Year with hope.” Others hope that globalization will somehow catch up with us and sweep the Philippines to finally reach the economic tiger status in the region offering to the Filipinos life that approximates first world citizens. Others place hope in the discovery of science, the growing wonders of the chips in the cyberspace world and the virtual images they create, the advance of technology, human endeavors and unheard of inventions. All help to fuel man’s hope for the new year, notwithstanding the challenges on its train.

No matter the boast of modern man, however, he is still disturbed with fears and apprehensions lurking deep in his being. Can he survive the ever growing challenges of life, the precarious peace based on a bilateral agreement of contending parties, the deep-seated hatred of one class against the other, the insatiable hunger for more power and wealth among the rich and powerful in the face of poor people stretching out their gaunt hands to reach out for a piece of dry bread or a bowl of rice to stave off the gnawing pain of hunger, the graft and corruption in public office, the bombings, summary killings, robbery and petty thefts? It is no wonder that one great scientist in the midst of all these staggering discoveries made by man, the power they have unleashed, the riches they have helped to amass, pensively made this wry statement: “I just hope that after all these discoveries man will wake up to find the universe friendly.”

The Church perceives reality from the perspective of faith. Its hope for man and for the society in which he lives is based on the belief that God is not a distant God, but a God who hears the cry of the poor, a God who cares, a God who takes on human flesh and blood and dwells among His own, a God who dies that the whole creation might live. It is this God who is the hope of man. As St. Paul spiritedly put it: “Indeed, the whole created world eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God… because the world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8: 20 & 21). It is this kind of hope that the Church offers to a humanity that is caught up in shivers due to the spate of so much violence and wanton killings. It is based on the perception that Christ conquered sin, death and all that are connected with it. In Him and with Him we too can conquer sin, death and all the ugly things and occurrences that ever rear up to destroy human life and values. “If God is for us, who can be against us” (Rom 8: 31)?

And so, when the believer greets you “Happy New Year”, he is expressing his deep conviction that human life is not only friendly - it is worth living.

Happy New Year to one and all.

LITURGICAL RECEPTION

2006-12-17T14:29:00.000+08:00

Tagbilaran Cathedral ( December 14, 2006)

First of all, may I express my sincerest thanks to the Holy Father through the Apostolic Nuncio, in having confidence in me, entrusting to me the People of God in Tagbilaran. I am aware of the high status of the Diocese, its lively faith, the number of its vocations to the priestly and religious life, the faith qualities of its priests and religious, recognized not only here , but also in the whole world; the number of bishops that it has contributed to the Church in the Philippines; the responsible and the ever apostolic lay faithful who have kept on leavening with the Gospel values the different levels of society, the family, the schools, campuses, politics, offices, and recreation areas. Aware of these realities my knees shake with trepidation and apprehension.

Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to my immediate predecessor, Bp Leopoldo Tumulak, A man of deep faith, a bishop respected highly by peers, the bishops and archbishops in the Philippines, the adopted and accepted father of the men in uniform in our land, he is a man of no air, no pretensions, no guile. What you see is what he is: Bp. Tumulak. With so much happiness. He came to me and gives me all the ecclesial and ecclesiastical tips that I have to know. Bishop Leo, I will always be indebted to you.

Thirdly, to Ricardo Cardinal Vidal goes my sincerest thanks for his gracious acceptance of my invitation to give the homily on the occasion of my installation. Needless to say h e is the most sought after homilist, especially on occasion like this. It is not just his personality that attracts the audience, it is his home grown wisdom and direct way of expressing these nuggets of advises and tips to the bishops who are embarking in the difficult mission of shepherding God’s People that makes him popular.

Fourthly, I am extending my thanks to all the bishops and archbishops here present, especially the sufragan Bishops of Cebu. Your presence gives me the necessary strength to face the odds that come my way in the process of shepherding.

People of God in the diocese of Tagbilaran, the priests, the religious and the lay faithful. I come here to answer a call. It is a call to faith, call to a deeper faith as expressed well in the story in the Gospel where a man exclaimed: “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.” A bishop lacks faith, a bishop has no faith? Well, that is my story, capzulized in my motto “ Ambula Coram me” “walks before me.” This motto I directly took from the story of Abraham, the father of faith. He was a man who heard a call one day, a call to a great promise-a promise that he, who was there 75 years all will have a child in his old age. He believed in the call. But it demanded from him the abandoning of his own land, his relatives, his acquaintances, his friends and undergo a journey that would take him to far distant country – a country that will be given to him. He believed and therefore he walked, making a long journey until the promise was fulfilled. He was given the promised child. But more than the child, he had found God- he had discovered the faith. That is my life. I am looking, searching for the faith. For nineteen long years, I made that journey in the Diocese of Borongan. There I have not only close encounter with God: I experienced him in different guises, in the raging typhoons that oftentimes razed down the houses as well as the means of living of my people; I experienced him in cries of the children and poor people, the wails of hungry children asking for food, the problems of the husband left behind by their wives to seek jobs in far away countries. I saw God in the meetings of the priests, in the Masses that I had celebrated with religious sisters. I saw God in the first Diocesan Pentecost Vigil Celebration way back in 1988, who made his presence felt through the strong winds, chilling thunder and lightings, and heavy torrents that soaked the people to the bones. Yes, in my journey in the Diocese of Borongan, I still have doubts in God’s providence, I still lacked that childlike trust of Abraham, the simple faith of Mary who said: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.”

Ilalandumong mga pulong sa atong Inahan Santa Maria Kinsa miingon: “Sulugoon lamang ako sa Ginoo, matuman unta dinhi kanako ang imong mga gipamulong!” Yes, upon yesterday morning of my pompous arrival in your beautiful island province, I said to myself, “Now I would be a Boholano! And a story recoiled in me. . . a story I know I haven’t read. . . though surely. . . I . . . many times had heard it, about this acclaim that Jesus is a Boholano! Now I can claim and recite with you the “Hail Mary” prayed in your Bisayan dialect: Maghimaya ka Maria, napuno ka sa grasya, ang Ginoong Dios anaa kanimo, Boholanon man ikaw sa mga babaye nga tanan, ug BOL-ANON MAN USAB ang bunga sa tiyan mo nga si Jesus!

It is my perception that the occurrence of the last October 17, 2006 when the Holy Father sent me his message: to . . . leave behind Borongan and make a journey in Tagbilaran. . . is God’s Providence! He wants me to deepen my faith here in the Diocese of Tagbilaran. I still need to make a journey, to undertake more steps in this beautiful Diocese of Tagbilaran.

….Before I forget let me heartily express my sincere Gratefulness and prayerful Farewell to the people I am leaving behind. . . . . . DAMO NGAN DAKO NGA SALAMAT.

So, dear People of God in the Diocese of Tagbilaran: I am here as a pilgrim! Ania ako isip usa ka Magpapanaw sa Diosnong Pagtoo! I am one who is to make a religious journey in your midst, searching for God! Selfish does it sounds – but, not it is! You too are in this journey with me, for that is the meaning of being constituted as the People of God, a people together in a journey, a people in a pilgrimage! Magkuyog kita niining Balaang Panaw uban sa Pagtoo, hiniusa sa Paglaum ug giniyahan sa Paghigugma! Together . . . You, the priest, women and men religious, the lay faithful, and I, - - - we hope to find this God who declared: (1 Pt 2:9) You, however, are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people he claims for his own, so that you may announce the praises” of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light!

CIVIC RECEPTION

2006-12-17T13:57:00.000+08:00

Tagbilaran City – December 13, 2006

To be extended an honor with such a grand magnitude as to involve the whole city of Tagbilaran, stopping on the one hand all other activities in order to concentrate on the affair of receiving me; and inviting the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines to come over here and play the active role of introducing my person and office to the citizens of Tagbilaran, is for me a dizzying experience, incredible in its unfolding. Bothered and bewildered, I have been asking the question: “Who am I to deserve all these?”

And yet, there you are, the generous individuals, officials of the city, who are geniuses in anticipating the need of one who is new in the place; persons who could feel and perceive the critical role of the bishop’s office in the temporal affairs of the citizens; sensitive persons who believe in the importance of introducing a new comer to the community. With one brilliant stroke you save me from otherwise going around the city, introducing myself as the new bishop of Tagbilaran. This for me is not just pure hospitality – it is a warm welcome. Thank you.

The office of the Bishop is constituted not for honor but for service. A bishop is clothed with all the regalia, not that he may be looked up to, but for all to perceive that ecclesiastical dignities are not to be clung on to, but to be stripped off for the sake of the people who are to be served, much like what our Lord did in the last supper. He took off his clothe as Lord and Master, and took on the rag of a slave, picked up a basin and pitcher of water, knelt before each of the Apostles, washing off the dirt from their feet, and kissed them. Distinctive work of a slave, but he was not ashamed to assume it. After all that was his mission when he said: “I came not to be served, but to serve.” Or, as Jesus declared after the washing of the feet: “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’, rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do” (Jn 13:12-14). Later, this act of Jesus who humbling himself to serve his brothers was picked up by St. Paul, exhorting the early communities to follow the kenosis of Christ. He said: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2: 6-8).

It is within this framework of service that I acceded to come to Tagbilaran. This happened last October 17, 2006, when the Holy Father instructed me to come here. Drilled in the virtue of obedience, I consented to his instruction. After all, a wish of the father is a command to the child. And so, I am here. I am here within the framework of service. Briefly expressed, I come here to see how the faith is lived and expressed in a Boholano way so that I too could live and express the Christian faith in a Boholano way. Your faith and my faith, welded together in the dynamics of study, reflection and prayer; our listening together to each other, studying together, caring for the poor, the sick and the marginalized in society , these acts will blend together, so I hope, as a beautiful hymn to praise our God, the be-all and end-all of everything.

It is also within this framework that I came to establish a relationship you, the representatives of the State. The State is a perfect society that looks into the common good of the citizens in the here and now, the temporal order of things. The Church is not against the State; nor the office of Bishops set up to oppose civil policies.. I am here to look after the faith of the People as well as the conduct that naturally flows from the faith. In the act of complying this work, it may happen that conflicts may occur. But I believe that these conflicts could only be in the level of perception. Human that we are, our perception of realities may not always square off; interpretations may differ. But they can easily be resolved, not by the invocation of the principle of separation of Church and State, but by serious dialogues. Here, the need for always the keeping the communication open for both sides is called for. The Church ever listening to the State, the State ever listening to the Church: that is the ideal of any good working relationship. After all, we are serving a common subject: the people.

Again, thank you for your warm welcome and great hospitality.

LEARN FROM THE FOREST

2006-12-17T13:43:00.000+08:00

Once there was an aging king who, after long years of leadership, wished to hand over his kingship to his son, the only heir to his kingdom. The problem was that his son was far from being prepared for the huge responsibility. He was imprudent, rash, and decadent. He had so much to learn to be a true leader and a good servant. Yearning his son to be a good king, the old king thought of a way to teach his son the lesson he needed. And so one day he asked his son to spend some days in the forest. The son, although mystified by his father’s order, immediately consented to the demand because he dreamed to be a king right away.

After two days in the forest, the impatient son went back home. The king excitedly asked his son what he had learned.

The lad answered, “I saw how beautiful the trees are, how dark and dangerous the forest is, how cool the stream waters, how fresh the morning dew, how freezing the night in the forest.”

“In that case you have learned nothing,” the king desperately said. “Go back to the forest and let the forest teach you what you need to learn,” the king commanded.
Puzzled and dismayed, the lad went back to the woods. He could in no wise understand what he had to learn from the forest and how to learn it. As he wondered and pondered, the mystery and marvel of the forest enchanted him. And for six months he stayed deep in the forest. After six long lonely months he went back to his father.
The king was delighted to hear what his son had to say. “What have you learned?” he asked.

The son humbly explained, “I am not sure of what I have really learned. I just realized that everything in the forest bears a subtle shade of meaning to each other. I saw the mystical nuances of things as I enjoyed the music of the gushing stream and the singing crickets. As I discovered how vulnerable the beasts could get when afraid, and how they wail when wounded. As I saw how splendid the sun is as its rays pierce through the leaves and break through the darkness and depth of the forest. As I noticed how lovely the insects behave and how painful they sting. As I observed how the birds find their resting place in the twilight and how cold and dark the night can be. As I discovered when the leaves shall fall, and how and why they fall. Until suddenly I felt that I belong to the forest. I am one with the forest. I found out that something greater than me connects everything in the forest and makes sense of everything. I may not know how the forest really works but I think the forest is one big paradise where everything is one – a rhapsody that does make sense.”

Finally the king said, “My son, you are now ready to be a true good king.”
I may not know how Borongan really works but I was able to learn that it is one big wonderful rhapsody where everything makes sense. And I thank God that He has given me many wonderful years so I could be with the people and be one with the people – and so to be able to listen to them, to live with them, and to love them and be loved by them. Borongan taught me a lot for over nineteen years. The connections and nuances of so many things. The subtle shadows of meaning in the smiles and sorrows of real people and in their silent joys and simple hopes. In their pains and struggles. In their faith and in their love. Having learned so much from Borongan, I asked myself: Have I become a better servant-leader? That I cannot tell. What I can only tell is that, like the king, God always wants us to learn more and beyond -- because there is always something more to learn. God can lead us even to where we don’t expect to be if only to teach us what it means to love and how to love better. For over nineteen years, Borongan has been teaching me a lot … until now. “Until now” … because starting today I will learn from Tagbilaran. I took the purifying pain of letting go and leaving the place and people who taught me a lot about life and love that is Borongan. Now I am here with you, hoping to learn how to love better and how to walk better with God and closer to God … with all of you, my dear people of Tagbilaran.

The Dress Code of the Priests

2006-12-05T20:11:00.000+08:00

The Time magazine in its anniversary issue of the 13th November 2006 carried among others an article that highlights the danger of global warming and the need to come out with pro-active laws and worldwide consultation to put a stop to climate change. The proponent of this refreshing move is J. McAllister. He cites as one of the main causes of global warming the distorted value that human beings have gradually imbibed in the course of their long relationship with nature. They have formed the attitude of discrimination, taking good care of one and abusing the other. For one, “we”, the author of the article continues, “tend not to look after what isn’t, strictly speaking, ‘ours’, so resources used in common get abused”. Legal scholars, so he says, call this tendency “the tragedy of the commons.” The author is not just speculating for this can readily be observed in the way man mistreats with abandon the environment, particularly, the atmosphere, the air, the water.

A similar negative tendency has also been observed in the Church in the ordained minister’s attitude regarding the clerical dress. Clerical attire is the official garb that is to be used by the clergy in his social life, the ecclesiastical uniform supposed to be worn by them in their public appearances. This is an attire that should distinguish the clergy from the rest of the faithful. The universal law came out with specific regulation obliging those who receive the sacred orders to wear this uniform in public as an integral part of his external decorum. Canon 284 expresses it this way: “Clerics are to wear suitable ecclesiastical dress, in accordance with the norms established by the Bishops’ Conference and legitimate local custom.” In compliance with the mandate of the universal law the Philippine hierarchy issued specific norms regarding the ecclesiastical uniform that could serve at the same time as an executory decree enjoining all the ordained ministers in the Philippines to follow. It states: “The proper clerical attire approved by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines are as follows: 1. cassock or religious habit; 2. clergyman’s suit; 3. trousers of dark one-tone color, with the clerical collar. The shirt may also be either polo-barong or barong tagalong, with a distinctive cross” (Testera, Florencio, Canon Law Digest of the Philippine Catholic Church, Manila, 1987, pp. 13-14).

The reason for the obligation of wearing the clerical dress code, however, is not at all based on the intention of setting up an elitist class in the Church, a sort of a status symbol for the clergy, installing them not only apart from the rest of the faithful in the ecclesiastical community but also as possessing a higher stateliness and dignity. The real purpose of the ecclesiastical garb is to serve as a public testimony, a manifestation to one and all that the one wearing an ecclesiastical dress is a cleric, that he belongs especially to God. It is an outward manifestation of the uniqueness of the priestly ministry.

Unfortunately, history has somehow warped the perception of the ecclesiastical garb. There was a time when the Church has experienced the tragedy of ecclesiastical elitism, the tendency, that is, of the clerics to be granted special treatment in the community, to be exempted from some obligations, and to be favored with more and more privileges than the rest of the members of the ecclesial community. To be a cleric at that time is to possess a privileged position in society; to be a cleric is to be considered as one special. The Second Vatican Council tried to eliminate these clerical privileges. It did so by introducing the concept of the People of God, leveling thereof the dignity, rights and duties of all the faithful in the Church. In this concept all the baptized are considered equal. That should have settled the problem of elitism in the Church until another reactionary movement came to the fore. This time it emphasized on what was common to all. Steeped with Vatican II theology and doctrine, some members of the Church made that generalization which states: everything ecclesiastical is elitist. Applying this conclusion to the ecclesiastical dress code, some clerics shirk from wearing the clerical uniform, stating that to wear the official dress is to pose as one who is an ecclesiastic and, therefore, exclusive, snobby, elitist. Hence, they prefer to go in public in t-shirts or in ordinary clothes. It is not that they are necessarily ashamed of their identity as priests or that they have a weak sense of their clerical identity. Rather, they do not like to get the attention of people, who because of the uniform give them privileged treatment, or else be looked at with suspicious and leery glances. They prefer to be left alone, free and unperturbed.

In spite of all these, the Church is insistent that her ordained ministers wear the ecclesiastical garb. The reason is simple. The ecclesiastical dress is an external sign, a symbol that is replete with meaning. The clergy who wears it is sending a message to the community of believers as well as to the people in general. The message of the Gospels that the clergy is commissioned to transmit is expressed with words and communicated effectively with external signs, easily understandable to the world of today that is so sensitive to the language of images. To quote the words of the late Pope John Paul II, to wit: “Ecclesiastical dress, therefore, is a sign which makes it easier for others to approach the ministry that the priests represent. In the present society, in which the sense of the sacred has become so diminished, people have even more need of those calls to God, which cannot be disregarded without a certain impoverishment of our priestly service” (John Paul II, Letter to the Vicar of Rome, 8 September 1982, in L’Osservatore Romano, October 18-19, 1982).

The clergy is an ordained minister and he must be known as such. It is true that the transformation effected by the Sacrament of Ordination is something spiritual. It configures the one called to participate in the priesthood of Christ the Head of the Church, conferring on him the spiritual power to act in the name and, oftentimes, in the person of Christ. As such the priestly feature and power of the ordained, although ontologically real, is spiritual. It therefore goes beyond physical appearances and cannot be fully expressed by mere external signs and symbols, much less can it be truly and faithfully articulated by a mere dress or garb. The priestly character of the ordained minister can only be expressed by the authentic life of the minister, his sincerity to live up to the demands of the priesthood and his faithfulness to the mission to which he is called to. The ecclesiastical dress is not external sign of his priesthood; it is his spiritual and priestly life.

But the reasoning suffers some flaws. The Church who legislates on the proper dress for her clergy is not purely spiritual. She is a realist, sacramental in its language as it is incarnational in its view of reality. The spirit can be expressed in something physical; God can be experienced in the burning bush; the Word can be seen and can be touched in the flesh; the child can be transformed into a son of God through the pouring of water with the Trinitarian invocation; the ordained can be known by the ecclesiastical dress he wears. Through the centuries the Church has believed in the value of physical signs and external symbols that point to something that is otherwise imperceptible to the human senses. It has continued on to its practice of pouring water to a child to show the power of the Holy Trinity cleansing the creature from its inherited sin and transforming it into a true child of God; of taking on the species of bread and wine into the altar of sacrifice to make of them the sacramental presence of the Body and Blood of Christ for the redemption of man.

The spiritual reality of the priesthood imprinted in the person of the ordained minister has to be expressed and communicated to the community to which he is called to serve. His life, his behavior, his prayer life, his decorum, his language, all of them have to communicate and articulate the reality of the priesthood he had once been configured. To be known as such, so the Church enjoins, the ordained minister has to wear the proper ecclesiastical attire.

The People of God and the Bishop

2006-11-22T20:35:00.000+08:00

It is amazing how simple events as the announcement of a transfer of assignments could trigger a series of realizations. This happened to me some time last October 17, 2006, when the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines called me up by phone relaying to me the decision of the Holy Father to transfer me to the Diocese of Tagbilaran. Drilled for so long in the value of obedience, I acceded to the Holy Father’s order without comprehending at that moment the full impact of my ready consent. But not for long. It soon dawned on me. Left alone after the call, I started seeing the implications of the transfer unfolding before my gaze its stark reality. I began to realize the full import of what a diocese is. In law it is objectively and therefore coldly described as a portion of the people of God constituted as a particular Church or a community of the Christ’s faithful entrusted to a Pastor in a definite locality. As such parting would not be that heavy. But the Church of Christ in the Eastern part of Samar is not just a cold organizational system or a group of baptized Christians welded together through the Gospel and the Holy Eucharist; organized to respond effectively to the divine call to holiness. The Diocese of Borongan is first and foremost the “waray-waray” people in Eastern Samar who through the sacrament of baptism and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist were called together to a pilgrimage, to a spiritual journey that has to be undertaken in the province where the rising sun is first seen. This is a portion of the people of God, men of flesh and blood, of deep emotions and sensitive feelings, persons who are capable of forming their own spiritual vision and spinning out social dreams backed up with their own assumed mission and self-induced commitments, group of individuals who are proud of their own language, customs, culture, way of life. For nineteen years I have journeyed with this people; I have been happy with them, comfortable with their behavior and way of living, one with them in their dreams, their frustrations and disappointments, in their prayers and hope for a better tomorrow in Christ. Now, with the impending transfer I realize that I am leaving the people whom I have learned to love and cherish.

The people of God concept is introduced by the Second Vatican Council to describe the Church, for it conveys the foundational structure of the Church as a social structure. It points out the nature of the members that compose it, defining, that is, their radical equality. Baptism is the source of this equality, endowing to all the same dignity , the same rights and duties, the same means of salvation and the same faith, conscious at the same time of their responsibility for the common purpose of the entire Church on the spiritual level. All are Christ’s faithful.

To gestate, nurture and look after the constant growth and maturity of this people of God, Christ instituted the sacrament of ordination, by virtue of which those who are called and properly formed are configured to Christ the head of the Church, endowing in them the power to perform His threefold functions for the sanctification and governance of the Church. Through this configuration of service, the principle of equality among the members is not eroded. Rather, the principle of variety is established. It is true that by virtue of the sacrament of order the ordained ministers are configured as essentially, and not just in degree, different from those who are not ordained. They have acquired the threefold ministerial functions of Christ, participating in His priestly, kingly and prophetic offices. Their configuration to Christ is a configuration to act in the name, and sometimes in the person, of Christ the head of the Church. But they remain of the same dignity with the rest of Christ’s faithful.

At this juncture, it is helpful to emphasize the harmonious conjoining of these two principles. The principle of equality needs the principle of variety for the people of God will not grow to full maturity without the close pastoral care of the Bishop and his priests. On the other hand, the principle of variety needs complete acceptance of the concept of radical equality, for the reason that its existence is precisely to be of service to the priestly, kingly and prophetic people of God. Hence, as the people of God can only grow and develop properly when it is entrusted to its proper Pastor; so the Pastor can only grow and properly develop when it is faithfully extending its priestly ministry to the particular people of God entrusted to his care. It is within this concept that Canon 369 defined the diocese as: “a portion of the people of God, which is entrusted to a Bishop to be nurtured by him, with the cooperation of the presbyterium, in such a way that, remaining close to its pastor and gathered by him through the Gospel and the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, it constitutes a particular Church. In this Church, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ truly exists and functions.”

When the Diocese of Borongan, Eastern Samar, was entrusted to me as its Bishop some nineteen years ago, I was conscious of my task in inserting myself to the life, ways of living, behavior, language and custom of the Estehanon. It is only by being opened to them, vulnerable and totally transparent to them can I fully fulfill the commitment of shepherding them. At the start of my mission with them I have tried to nurture them with the Word of life and the Holy Eucharist, the sacraments and the prayers of the Church as demanded of me from my office. But, I soon have found out and discovered that the words of God and the sacraments can only be effectively passed to the people when their realities to save have first to pass through the weak flesh of the Pastor; that people can only be nourished by the Word and the sacraments, if the Bishop himself is effectively nourished by them. Conversion, journey towards holiness of life is not just the journey of the people of God apart from the Bishop; nor is it just the journey of the Bishop apart from the people of God. It has to be the joint journey of the Estehanon and myself their Bishop. With this critical realization I was gradually inserted into the rhythm of the life of the Estehanon. I have been journeying jointly with them.

And then, without my suspecting it, the request of the Holy Father came loud and clear: go to the Diocese of Tagbilaran. That definitely cuts my pastorship with the Diocese of Borongan, my pilgrimage with the Estehanon. Soon, I have to be inserted into the life and faith of the people of God in the Diocese of Tagbilaran. It would be another journey of faith, another promise to keep, further miles to go. Henceforth my faith life depends on my being inserted into the people of God in the Diocese of Tagbilaran.

The Parish Priest and His Mystique

2006-11-03T09:22:00.000+08:00

In the society of man made ever more sophisticated and complex by globalization, the parish priest in the countryside is left to fend for himself to hang on to the image of a priest that is both consonant to his vocation and relevant to the modern day world. He may possess the necessary qualities and powers of a leader, but the fast shifting values of the globe has a way of gradually affecting the confidence he has on his priesthood. And yet, I am still convinced that the role of the parish priest in society today is irreplaceable. For one he has so much to contribute to modern man especially in the realm of sensible living, offering to him the lasting meaning to life and the divine resonance that could calm his human heart ever restless for eternity.

Some weeks ago I received an official letter from an office of a foreign embassy in Manila requesting the diocesan Curia to hand over the same letter to a small far away and forgotten parish in Eastern Samar. The letter contains a very important message, consulting, that is, the simple parish priest regarding the veracity and the authenticity of the document that bear the birth data of a resident in the parish. A simple parish priest, one who does not have the sophistication of the man of the world, now being consulted by a first world country. No big deal really, but it does show the respect society has not only for the parish, the rightful owner of the parish books, but also for the parish priest, the official keeper of these records.

When Benedict XVI proclaimed that a priest is a man of the spirit, a “pneumatic man,” a man awakened and driven by the Holy Spirit, he means that every priest has spiritual powers. He is charismatic. Charism is a spiritual power that is granted not for the benefit of the receiver. It is granted to some chosen few with the purpose that it be used for the good of the Church. Hence, the charism that the priest receives through ordination is not for his own keep, but is granted to build up the community of the faithful in the name and, at times, in the person, of Christ the leader (Christi capitis). That is no ordinary charism. It is the charism of Christ Himself, the expression of His life and mission, as it is described so well by St. Luke in his Gospel, using the words of Isaiah the prophet: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord” (Lk 4: 18-19).

To state that the parish priest has the charism of Christ and shares His life and mission, may sound blown up, presumptuous. But it is not. The Magisterium of the Church is firm on this teaching and its reality. In the document “Pastores Dabo Vobis”, the late John Paul II stated: “The priest shares in Christ’s consecration and mission in a specific and authoritative way, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, by virtue of which he is configured in his being to Jesus Christ, head and shepherd, and shares in the mission of ‘preaching the good news to the poor’ in the name and person of Christ himself’ (n. 18). In a more familiar way, the document declared: “Our priestly life and activity continue the life and activity of Christ himself. Here lies our identity, our true dignity, the source of our joy, the very basis of our life” (n.18).

The quoted document is almost like saying that the simple priest of the Church is Christ Himself reincarnated. But that is who the priest really is. At least that is how the Magisterium described him when it said: “The priest finds the full truth of his identity in being a derivation, a specific participation in and continuation of Christ himself, the one high priest of the new and eternal covenant. The priest is a living and transparent image of Christ the priest” (n. 12).

In my ministry as bishop of the Diocese of Borongan, I have many times been shamed by my lack of belief on this teaching of the Church regarding the reality of the charism which every priest possesses. I placed more weight on the natural endowment of the priest than the spiritual power that he receives from the Holy Spirit. A case at issue happened recently. This occurred when some individuals from a barangay parish in the southern part of my diocese came one day to my office with reports, complaining that their parish priest does not know how to preach, that he goes on and on rambling in his homily with no topic being covered, that he is wasting their time. The reported parish priest is a very good minister of God, humble, plain, simple, dedicated to the work in the parish. And so I was taken aback at the report. But the complaint was there and I had to do something about it. And so I called the priest, asked him about the issue at hand and listened to his accounts. I then instructed him to always prepare his homilies, have them written, and read them from the ambo during the Holy Mass on Sundays. The priest, obedient that he was, obliged. He wrote his homilies religiously and read them to the congregation as instructed. It went on for a month or two and I thought everything went on all right with my order. I soon forgot about the whole thing when one day the parishioners of the said pastor came in flock to me, pleading that I would remand my instruction regarding the written and read homilies of their pastor on Sunday Mass celebration. They said his prepared and written homilies lacked the life that is needed to support them in their day to day life as Christians; that his homilies before the instruction had been much better, inspiring that is, and full of life; that they had touched the very core of their being, live words of a pastor who knows his people. Yes, I soon realized that homily is life: that his life was his homily and his homily was his life. I have to take back my instruction, to my chagrin.

The parish that the pastor occupies is not just a human institution, a man-made organizational structure created by the Church for the systematic and efficient shepherding of the parishioners. The parish is first and foremost the creation of the Holy Spirit. Its composition, organizational set-up, offices, the visions and missions, the program of activities, may look like an ordinary human organizational system but at closer scrutiny it contains powerful spiritual elements needed for a community to be built up as the new People of God in the locality. These are the People who are called by the Word of God, sanctified by the sacraments, brought together as one around the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and served by the parish priest.

That is why the Church normally does not entrust the parish to anybody except to a priest whose ordination made him a pneumatic person, a man possessed with the charism of a spiritual leader. In exceptional cases, as in the scarcity of priests, when some parish activities are entrusted to persons who are not priests, the bishop must appoint a priest who directs the pastoral care with the power of the pastor. The parish is truly conceived by the Church as the center of spirituality and Christian living in a given locality.

The parish priest by the fact that he is ordained is himself imbued with the spirituality needed for the task of taking care of the souls in the area. Through ordination he is configured to Christ as the teacher, pastor and moulder of saints. Canon 1008 of the CIC in broad lines paints the priest in this manner: “By divine institution some among Christ’s faithful, are, through the sacrament of Orders, marked with an indelible character and are thus constituted sacred ministers; thereby they are consecrated and deputed so that, each according to his own grade, they fulfill, in the person of Christ the Head, the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling, and so they nourish the people of God.”

That the bishop appoints the priest to be a pastor of a certain parish implies that the priest possesses the qualities needed for pasturing the flock. The Church is particular on this. Hence, the provision in the Code specifies that the parish priest must “be outstanding in sound doctrine and uprightness of character, endowed with zeal for souls and other virtues, and possessed of those qualities which by universal or particular Law are required for the care of the parish in question” (cf. Can. 521, § 2).

Consequently, the parish priest is not just an institutional leader. He is a truly charismatic leader, one who possesses powers and competences for the proper exercise of the threefold functions of sanctifying, teaching and governing the baptized individuals in a fixed locality, welding them together and forming them into a community of believers called the parish. That is the mystique of the parish priest.

The Relevance of the Pastor in Globalized World

2006-10-24T11:52:00.000+08:00

Some three weeks ago a program in TV got me glued to my seat. It was an interesting show at least for me. It touched on the intimate life of the priest, his vision in life, his frame of mind, his ministry. What set me at edge though was the unexpected question that veered sharply on the relevance of the priest in a globalized world. All these came out from the “Private Conversion” show of Mr. Boy Abunda who invited Msgr. Pepe Quitorio as the guest of the program to answer all his queries, including the ticklish ones. As a whole Msgr. Pepe answered very well the questions. But his response to the specific issue regarding the relevance of the priest in a globalized world, though satisfactory, lacked the depth and breadth that can salve the ebbing confidence of the pastors on the face of the fast changing globe of man.

Actually, the process of globalization has not spared the parish priests from its effects, affecting even those living in far flung places. Suddenly thrust into the world that is fast shrinking due to high technology and the concomitant process of globalization, the parish priest is bewildered and bothered by some realities that are happening unexpectedly in his parish. They are events that change the social behavior of some parishioners, touch deeply his life as the appointed parish priest of the locality, challenging even his leadership and authority. What is the place of the parish priest in a society that has become so complex and sophisticated? Is the content of his message saleable? Are the sacraments still accepted as means of salvation, capable of liberating modern man from the meaninglessness of life? Or, is the priest still needed by society; or, is he just a mere commodity, one who is there in Church as a figure head to be approached only when needed? In short, is he relevant?

Some months ago a parish priest from an island parish barged into my office. With the heavy steps of a man with a problem, he came out with his tale of woe. He was deeply hurt. “I am relegated to a mere commodity in the parish, Bishop,” he complained. “Imagine, a group just came to my rectory in the late afternoon, asked me to hear the confession of the youth who are having a youth camp in the parish. I got mad for a while for they never had that elementary courtesy and decency to discuss with me as parish priest regarding the youth camp. I feel like taken for granted, a non-existent individual in the parish, an old useless priest. They could have approach me beforehand, tell me about their plan of putting up youth camp, discuss matters with me. In that way, I would know what they are doing in the parish, make out my role in the activity and the religious services that I have to extend in the program. But, no, they just came in, asked for the sacrament of reconciliation for the youth, and expected me to do their bidding. But what hurt me more is the response of one of them: ‘But we thought we do not need your permission, Father. This is an out-reach program of our community. But our national and regional leaders is aware of this activity. Our group is transparochial’”

Knowing the priest I just could not summarily dismiss him with a pat on the back and the cliché: “Don’t worry, Father. I will call the attention of the organizers and discuss with them this matter.” No, he is a very sensitive priest, a dedicated pastor, a deeply religious person with a fierce love for the parishioners, particularly the marginalized. And so, his complaint was serious.

To by pass the pastor in doing an out-reach activity in the parish is, to say the least, not proper, no matter how laudable the apostolate may be. It is first of all an affront to his authority as the duly appointed pastor of the parish. As pastor it is his bounden responsibility to know what is happening in the parish, ensure that the faithful under his care participate abundantly in the means of salvation, that is, the word of God, the Sacraments, prayers, charitable work. He has to promote preaching and catechesis, liturgical life and public worship, associations of the faithful, and the variegated forms of the apostolate and social actions. It is within this purview that Canon 519 declares: “The parish priest is the proper pastor of the parish entrusted to him. He exercises the pastoral care of the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, whose ministry of Christ he is called share, so that for this community he may carry out the offices of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling with the cooperation of other priests or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of Christ’s faithful, in accordance with the law.”

It is part of his responsibility, therefore, to be vigilant and sensitive to any activity in the vicinity, including the out-reach program for the youth, seeing to it that it ultimately promotes the building up of the Christian faith in the community. Otherwise the parish will be splintered, a parallel church created. And so the hurt of the pastor at bar is not just based on a flimsy snobbish act of the charismatic group. Its reason is deeper.

But the greater pain that the pastor suffers in his not being consulted on the out-reach program is his being considered, consciously or unconsciously, as a useless servant leader. By not consulting him, the charismatic group seems to declare that they do not need him, that he is a religious leader who does not possess the power to inspire and form the faith of the members, a spiritual director who cannot guide parishioners along the right path, a pastor who cannot feed his flock with his homilies and catecheses, who cannot sanctify with the sacraments, cannot own the collective dreams and visions of his parishioners, define their goals and objectives, organize them and make them into a community of members who care for one another.

Not to consult the pastor in the activity of the parish is tantamount to saying that he is a useless servant leader, unlike the leader of their charismatic community whose dynamism has inspired thousands of members to take up into their lives the radicality of the Gospel. The pastor does not possess any charism; He is not charismatic.

They have not known that every priest has charism; that any ordained minister is charismatic. To take a priest as a mere product of an institution that ordains him through the rite of ordination is a myopic view of what a priest really is. Priesthood is an office, a spiritual office that cannot be occupied by anybody who is not spiritual, that is, a person who is genuinely called to this office. To be a priest is to be called by God. The man who is called by God has to contend with this spiritual call, undergoes the long process of transformation that the Holy Spirit has stirred up in him. To receive, therefore, the order of the priesthood, is to respond to that call of God, the stirring of the Holy Spirit in the deep recesses of his soul. Any priest is a creation of the Holy Spirit; he is charismatic. It is along this line that Pope Benedict XVI once observed: “It is important that the spiritual office, the priesthood, itself be understood and lived charismatically. The priest himself should be a "pneumatic," a homo spiritualis, a man awakened and driven by the Holy Spirit” (Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements, Joseph Ratzinger, 1999, Crossroad).

Raising the Image of the Parish

2006-10-04T08:56:00.000+08:00

It is rather unusual, but definitely significant, that the Pontifical Council for the Laity took a serious look on the parish, that ultimate unit of the institutional structure of the Church. This occurred just recently when at the instance of the Council a good number of Cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people gathered together in Castel Gandolfo. For three days, from September 20, 2006 to September 24, it discussed the theme: “To Rediscover the Parish: Paths of Renewal.”

As it is the Pontifical Council of the Laity is not directly involved with the affairs of the parish. The reason for its existence is after all the “promotion and coordination of the apostolate of the laity and, generally, in those matters respecting the Christian life of lay people” (Pastor Bonus, 131). It is due to this entrusted mission that they took the initiative to call together the ecclesial communities and faith movements to Rome to confer with the Holy Father regarding the place of the charisms in the Church, invited archbishops and bishops for conference in the City for consultation on the charismatic phenomena and their proper locus in the institution of the Church, patiently encouraged and steadily guided these communities, reviewed their statutes, set standards for lay formation, took the lead in the preparation for the World Youth Day Celebrations, and all such activities. Hence to veer its attention to the parish life is strange, if not interesting.

For sure it is not to intervene in the affairs of the local Church. It is rather to revisit the parish to see its potential as the proper locus for the gestation, growth and missionary activities of these charismatic communities and lay movements. Concretely it was to discuss how the parishes respond to the needs of the lay faithful, the clergy and the faith movements. The Holy Father who was invited to the conference, appreciated the initiative of the Council in taking interest in the parish which he believed plays a central role in Catholic life. After all, he said, “the parish should be understood as a family of Christian families" And then, he added: “A new face of the parish is possible and that is a task for everyone: priests and laymen together” (CWNews, September, 2006).

Needless to say a similar topic was already discussed by the same Council sometime in November 2004. It was on this occasion that Cuzman Carriquiry, the undersecretary of the Pontifical Council, declared: "More and more, the field of action for the laity passes through their concrete participation in parish life." His reason for saying this is his observation that Catholic families today are mobile, constantly moving in and out of parishes. “To meet these new pastoral challenges,” he continued, “ it is very useful for the parish to be acquainted with the various lay associations active in the area” (CWNews, Nov. 2004).
With this development the local Church, particularly the parish, should take another hard look into itself and appreciate the treasures that it possesses. Come to think of it, the parish by design plays the fundamental role in the spiritual life of the faithful, for it is linked to the sacramental structure of the Church, the permanent core in which Christ acts through the Holy Spirit. As John Paul II succinctly put it: “The parish is the ultimate presence of the Church in a territory.” Before him Vatican II described this unit of the faithful in this way: “This Church of Christ is really present in all legitimately organized groups of the faithful, which, in so far as they are united to their pastors, are also appropriately called Churches in the New Testament” (LG 26). In short, the parish possesses all the elements for salvation, that is, the baptismal font, the table of the Holy Eucharist and all the other sacraments that were established by Christ in order to gestate, give birth, nurture to full stature the sons and daughters of the Church.

To uplift the parish life, however, the pastor should not just be contented with having the sacraments and dispensing them to the faithful. The preaching of the Word of God, constant catechesis, missionary activities within the parish, pastoral plans and organizational set-up are needed for the parish to be alive and participative. It is on this level that the parish priest should realize that he cannot do it all. He has to look around, discover the charisms of the lay faithful, the lay movements and faith communities that are sprouting in the locality. They are not activated by Holy Spirit for nothing. They are there ready to be availed of as agents and close collaborators in the pastoral endeavor of the parish. In his talk to the priests of the Diocese of Albano, the Holy Father said: “The parish priest cannot do it all! It is impossible! He cannot be a "soloist"; he cannot do everything but needs other pastoral workers. It seems to me that today, both in the movements and in Catholic Action, in the new communities that exist, we have agents who must be collaborators in the parish if we are to have "integrated" pastoral care” (ZE06092401).

However, to call these charismatic movements and communities to work in the parish, integrating them into the program and work of the parish, demands from the pastor and the faith communities much prudence, wisdom and patience. As John Paul II exhorted the bishops in a meeting in Rome in 1999: “Your first task, in fact, is to open the eyes of your heart and mind to recognize the multiple ways the Spirit is present in the Church, to reflect on these and to lead them to unity in truth and charity”( ZENIT990620).

The first task of the pastor is to recognize the specific charism of each group and respect it for what it is. It is this charism of the founder that renewed the parishioners to the faith, sustained them to this new found spirituality. Ecclesial movements and faith communities have therefore their own unique way of expressing the faith. That has to be respected; their uniqueness to be upheld at all times.

For their part, the lay movements and faith communities must be aware that their faith is not somewhere in the air, but exists in the concrete reality called the local Church, nay, the parish. Any movement is a concrete ecclesial reality, the reason for its existence is in its communion with the Church. This is a communion that has to be lived in relation not only to the Roman Pontiff, but most especially to the local Church where the initial discernment of the charism has been done. The Pontifical recognition is indeed an honor, but not at all a license for the community to declare independence from the parish life and structures. Rather, it is a constant reminder to the community to integrate itself deeper into the parish life. As the document Christifideles Laici wisely admonished the charismatic communities: “No charism dispenses a person from reference and submission to the Pastor of the Church” (n. 24). Hence, communities have to listen to the invitation of the parish priest to be integrated to the existing parish structures. Sensitive issues have to be ironed out, frictions doused off through constant dialogue, childish jealousies sloughed off.

To rediscover therefore the parish is a twofold task. It is the task of the members of the faith communities and lay movements to discover their true identity, that is, they are not just members of renewal groups, but they are first and foremost sons and daughters of the parish. Secondly, it is the task of the parish priest to discover within his own parish the vast wealth of pastoral and spiritual opportunities deeply hidden by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the members of these lay movements, ready to be tapped for the renewal of his parish.

Bp. Leonardo Y. Medroso, DD
Bishop of Borongan

The Dignity of the Lowly Parish

2006-09-27T11:21:00.000+08:00

It is heartening to note that even at the thick of so many engagements and commitments, international as well as regional, the Holy Father has still the time to focus and give quality attention to the importance of the lowly parish in the faith life of the believers. In his September 22, 2006 discourse to the group of some 100 lay men and women gathered together by the Pontifical Commission of the Laity, he called for a serious revisit and renewed appreciation of the central role that the parish plays in spiritual life of the people.

It is the “family of Christian families”, a locus where the believers individually as well as with their families assemble to hear the words of the pastors, to pray and celebrate the Holy Eucharist together, and to share their goods with those in need. The parish should be seen as a faithful copy of the first Christian community in Jerusalem. The Pope hopes and prays that the community of the early Christians in Jerusalem described graphically by the Acts of the Apostles will be reincarnated in parishes, which include not just the bustling urban ones but also those lowly parishes found in the country side and in the far distant towns and villages.

Some years ago to say that the parish must play a central role in the believers’ spirituality is unthinkable. People would rather talk of centers of spirituality where they congregate, pray, confess their sins, ask for consultation and seek spiritual guidance. In their mind is the monastery of some ascetic monks, or of some pious contemplative nuns, or some shrines that answer petitions, even the desperate and hopeless ones, a house of some religious congregations known for piety, or, even, a university chapel run by religious priests or sisters of deep spiritual mooring. But a parish to be the center of spirituality?

There was a time when parish priests were bitterly complaining regarding the strange behavior of some faith communities and renewal movements. With seeming disdain they snubbed the programs and activities of the parish. They held their own prayer meetings and assemblies, had their own out-reached programs and apostolate, invited priests as speakers and motivators, lay leaders as spiritual guides, criticized the too institutional and therefore lifeless activities of the parish.

The reason that they gave to this behavior is the nature of their communities, they are, so they said, they are transparochial. What it tries to say is that the charismatic communities are beyond the jurisdictional grasp of the parish priest. After all, they owe their spirituality and life not to the parish and its programs, but to the charismatic leader that draws them to conversion and renewal.

At surface the ground for the snobbery is valid. But when one delves deeper into the reality of their spiritual life they will be surprised to realize that parish has much to do with their conversion, that the baptismal font is the source of their rebirth. It is baptism that makes one a child of God, a member of the Church, a subject of ecclesiastical rights and obligations. Conversion is actually a return to this original grace of baptism; renewal is the return to this original conversion. “No one can enter into God’s kingdom without being begotten of water and Spirit” (Jn 3: 5).

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XI, in his August 31, 2006 discourse to the parish priests of the Diocese of Albano gathered together in Castel Gandolfo spoke articulately on the importance of the parish in the life of the Catholics. He said: “Baptism is a newness of life in the sense that, as well as the gift of biological life, we need the gift of a meaning for life that is stronger than death and that will endure even when, one day, the parents are no longer alive. The gift of biological life is justified only if we can add the promise of a stable meaning, of a future which, also in future crises -- which we cannot know -- will give value to life so that it is worth living, worth being creatures.”

The baptismal font gives life and meaning; the parish possesses this font by right; the parish priest administers this sacrament. That is the central role which the parish plays in the life of the faithful.

Moreover, the parish has the table of the Eucharist. To have this table is a right, not a concession. Here, Christ’s permanent presence is celebrated in the daily celebration of holy Mass. It is around this table of the Eucharist that the parish priest is given that unique role of bringing together the families, the young and the old, men and women, the rich and the poor, all of them to pray and celebrate together the Holy Eucharist. “Nourished by the Eucharistic bread, the parish grows in Catholic communion, walks in full fidelity to the magisterium and is always ready to receive and discern the different charisms that the Lord inspires in the People of God,” thus affirmed the Holy Father. And he continued: “From constant union with Christ, the parish draws vigor to commit itself ceaselessly in the service of brothers, particularly the poor, for whom it is in fact the first point of reference” (Benedict XI, Discourse to Sacred Congregation of the Council of the Laity, September 24, 2006, Castel Gandolfo).

Such is the dignity of the lowly parish. It has an irreplaceable role in the spiritual life of the Catholics in the place where it is established. To by pass it is a mistake.

+Leonardo Medroso, DD
Bishop of Borongan

LAIKO

2006-09-19T13:46:00.000+08:00

NATIONAL LAITY WEEK

LAIKO, the Secretariat that guides and promotes lay apostolate in the Philippines, to celebrate the National Laity Week running from September 24 to October 1, 2006, is coming up with modest yet well-designed and functional program of activities. It has chosen love as the theme expressing it in a more specific way with this caption: “Building a culture of love.” This is a response, so it deftly explains, to the sorry “heartbreaking events that unfold before us everyday brought about by the seeming hatred and apathy between men that seemed to paint in us a dark future, a remote possibility of establishing a civilization of love in our midst”.

For me the week long activity may come and go just like that, a thick mist that for a while is there, but without a moment’s notice is gone. What matters to me though is the full confidence and poise that the lay faithful have been developing through the years. This is clearly shown in the way they put up this week long program. It has maturity and class. For me its strong message is couched in the small letters found in the printed leaflets that they sent to the dioceses in the Philippines. It states: “The call to transform this world as a community radiated by love in not limited to our pastors, nuns and religious as well. All of us [that is, the lay faithful], born out of love, generated from love, have been called to actively work for the creation of heaven in our midst where love, peace, unity and understanding prevail.” With these words, the lay faithful, wittingly or unwittingly, defines artistically the identity and mission of the lay faithful.

Sanctifying the temporal realities, leavening the world with Gospel values, building up
in the here and now community of men and women a culture of love , is the mission proper to the lay faithful. This is their exclusive domain recognized by the Church law when it attributes to the lay faithful the right as well as the duty to freedom in temporal affairs. The Code provides: “To lay members of Christ’s faithful belongs the right to have acknowledged as theirs that freedom in secular affairs which is common to all citizens. In using this freedom, however, they are to ensure that their actions are permeated with the spirit of the Gospel, and they are to heed the teaching of the Church proposed by the magisterium, but they must be on guard, in questions of opinion, against proposing their own view as the teaching of the Church” (Can. 227).

Terse words yet the import of the Canon 227 provision is worth noting. First, it empowers each of the lay faithful the right to act in secular life on his own initiative and to assume full responsibility in temporal affairs, without involving the Church in his decisions nor claiming that his own personal opinions as if they were the teaching of the Church. Secondly, in temporal matters the lay faithful are declared autonomous, independent to the governance of the Church’s Hierarchy. Needless to say secular affairs as such are not within the jurisdictional authority of the Church. The Church has to respect their laws, proper values, their autonomy. Hence, the lay faithful who are specifically called to engage in these secular affairs of society have that right to conduct these activities in freedom (whether in politics, the family, office, places of work). Oscar Cruz, the incumbent archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan, expressed this freedom from the hierarchy in these words: “The Laity does not need any authorization, much less any permission from the competent Church authority to engage themselves in social transformation work, considering precisely that such an engagement is their own calling from no one else but the Lord Himself and affirmed by conciliar pronouncement” ( O. Cruz, Call of the Laity, p. 176). Lastly, Canon 227 implicitly declares that the lay faithful have the right to the religious freedom within the civil society. They are bona fide citizens of the republic. As such the State cannot discriminate against them for the fact that they are Christians.

But secular matters are not just program of temporal actions, nor are they mere political maneuverings and transactions, nor an ideology. Products of free human acts, they have moral dimension. As such they are somehow subject to the natural law and sometimes even to the positive divine law. In view of this, Christians “in every temporal affair are to be guided by a Christian conscience, since not even in temporal business may any human activity be withdrawn from God’s dominion” (cf. LG 36). Besides, the lay faithful are called to Christianize society. This demands a good grasp of Christian faith and morals. For that to happen the hierarchical structure of the Church intervenes in secular matters through the teaching on faith and on the moral rules that govern human conduct. It also comes in to provide the faithful with the necessary means for the salvation of the world. This intervention, however, is not meant to give conclusive solutions to secular problems which are proper to civil society and its citizens. It is there to show the moral and spiritual dimension of the secular life. Otherwise, “where the organization, evolution, and development of secular life is concerned, the principle of the incompetence of the Church and the freedom of laypersons prevails” (Code of Canon Law Annotated, edited by Caparros, Thorn, p. 199).

Shaped and influenced by this conciliar and canonical doctrine, LAIKO comes out this year with the National Laity Week. Through it they strive to “rediscover the immensity of God’s love in all creation; to rediscover one’s vocation as an active agent in building a culture of love, to share God’s love in the spirit of Christian charity; to experience the transforming power of the Eucharist in building the culture of love in the community.” Noble objectives they all are, dreams and ambitions of our lay faithful who are living out their Christianity in the world. We wish them success.

+Leonardo Y. Medroso, DD
Bishop of Borongan

In Praise of the Laity

2006-08-07T09:04:00.000+08:00

In one of the recent TV interviews ANC featured a lady lawyer. She was sharp, articulate, well-informed, educated, but unknown in the image world. And so, she appeared in the TV screen and just like that vanished from view, a forgotten entity. But somehow there has remained after she left a faint message that states: “sex education is so sacred a subject to be tinkered on by anybody. It has better be handled in the home than in the school.” That lady lawyer is an ordinary Filipina, a citizen of the country. Yet, more than that, she is a lay woman in the Church.

There are many of her kind. Like her they are unrecognizable, faceless people in the crowd, inconspicuous in society. But they are carrying within themselves the Christian faith to which they are deeply committed. These are the lay men and women of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Because of this faith, they are there in the halls of Congress listening attentively to the discussions and deliberations regarding reproductive health, marriage, population control. They can be seen in the corridors of congress, entering the offices of senators and congressmen, talking with them, explaining, elucidating, clarifying, arguing for the pro-life stance of the Church on the issues of marriage and family life.

They are expressing their faith in the political and public life of society. Others are living out their faith in other modes and modalities, such as in the family, in offices, in different fields of work, depending upon the condition where they are called. But all of them have one common element: they are offshoots of the vocation of the laity, namely: to be in the world, to influence the temporal order with the Word of God, to seek their salvation in the condition of life where they are found. This is the qualifying element of the divine calling of the lay men and lay women of the Church. The Code puts it this way: “According to each one’s own condition, they are also bound by a particular duty to imbue and perfect the order of temporal affairs with the spirit of the gospel and thus to give witness to Christ, especially in carrying out these same affairs and in exercising secular functions” (C. 225, § 2). Their mission then is to be considered in the light of their being in this world, their secularity. They seek the Kingdom of God by immersing themselves in the temporal things and ordering them to God (cf. Lumen gentium, n. 31); they are to sanctify the world and sanctify themselves in the world (cf. Ibid., n. 31). This secularity characterizes the laity as belonging to that condition common to all the faithful in the Church, that is, the participation in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, the mission, the vocation to holiness, the apostolate, and all the rights and duties (cf. Lumen gentium, nn. 34 and 35).

They differ from the ordained ministers and from those living the consecrated life precisely because they are in the world and commit themselves to the affairs of the world. It is true that they share with the ordained ministers and the religious men and women the common priesthood of Christ. They, however, differ from them because they are in the world and are committed to the affairs of the world. Thus, for them even their work becomes a reality that is offered to God, the family is a place of holiness, social relations are opportunities to live their Christian vocation (cf. Apostolicam actuositatem, n. 7).

Today, to be in the world is not easy, but messy. Ask the laity and they will tell stories of woes and wails, of derision and rejection, of disdain, snobbery and downright insult. One of the reasons for the unfriendly treatment is the fast changing spirit of the times. The world of our society and public life is evolving into a complex reality. It is on the one hand making great strides in attaining standard quality of life that is in keeping with human dignity. It likewise is progressing in its sensitivity to the common good, in its awareness and sense of responsibilities towards poor sectors of society. Yet, one can feel at the same time a subtle yet pervading spirit that tends to disregard the laws based on the nature of man, tendencies which Cardinal Ratzinger called cultural relativism (cf. Ratzinger, Doctrinal Note on some Questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life, 24 November 2002). This relativistic attitude gives birth to tolerance to any kind of moral choices; it admits of pluralistic ideas and policies. It offers to citizens that false claim that they have complete autonomy in their moral choices, while it influences politicians, particularly lawmakers who, sensing the pluralistic tendency of the citizenry, are emboldened to enact laws and policies that ignore the dictates of natural ethics and succumb to ephemeral cultural and moral trends. Pushed on by this tendency, citizens and lawmakers have come to the conclusion that there is no moral law rooted in the nature of the human person.

It is within this pernicious environment that our lay men and women are asked to give their witness. Fortunately they are well formed that to deny the centrality of the person is evil. For them respect for the human person is fundamental, basic in any human interrelationships and social activities. Rights of the human person have to be protected not only in private life, but also in public. Honed with this social doctrine of the Catholic Church, many of them come to the conclusion that participation in politics is a call of the time, a necessity, an urgency. This is in consonance to what Vatican II exhorted when it stated: “The protection of rights of the person is, indeed, a necessary condition for citizens, individually and collectively, to play an active part in public life and administration” (cf. GS 73).

And these lay men and women of the Church have taken up the challenge with flair and grace. They are Christians giving pure witness to the Gospel values – they are Christ, so to say, in the world. As such they obey duly constituted authority, for they believe that authority ultimately comes from God. They follow the exhortation of Peter who said: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution… Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil, but live as servants of God” (1Pt 2:13, 16). Yet, they are well aware that their involvement in public life and politics includes as well the right and even the duty to voice their just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2238). It is after all their mission to inject into the bloodstream of Philippine politics the needed Christian values.

"LAIKO" REVISITED

2006-08-01T11:22:00.000+08:00

Those first few days of July 2006 were turbulent ones in the arena of politics. The bishops themselves were not kept off the hook. In fact they were in the middle of varying speculations and suspicions, negative perceptions and rash conclusions. Media picked them all up, made stories about them, feasted on them. One malicious accusation that prominently came to the fore was their alleged interference in purely political affairs. In the midst of all these rumors and tall tales one prominent member of the Conference boldly remarked: “We do know the principle of separation of Church and State. We have not interfered in politics. But we have to support the initiatives of our lay faithful who are fighting tooth and nail to put Christian values into our political system” Well said, indeed. For after all the bishops as pastors of the flock are required to be always there to guide and shore up the faithful.

It is within this context that the Council of the Laity was founded. Its main purpose is to institutionalize the support that the bishops in the Philippines have to extend to the lay men and lay women. Since 1995 it has been popularly known as Sangguniang Laiko ng Pililipinas (in short, LAIKO). It is “the implementing arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in promoting nationwide initiatives and coordinating national programs of the laity”.

Its existence goes back to the year 1950 when the Philippine Hierarchy, perceiving the great potential of the laity in the apostolate of the Church, established the Catholic Action of the Philippines (CAP). It was envisioned to be a juridical body of national stature directly mandated by the Philippine hierarchy “to promote and effect a more concerted and vigorous participation of the laity in the work of the Catholic Church” (cf. “Preamble: Catholic Action of the Philippines Constitution of National Directing Bodies”, 1950). It is headed by a bishop, who is elected by the conference of the bishops and presented to the Holy See for confirmation. CAP’s other more important objective is to further enhance communication and improve rapport between the clergy and the laity.

In 1973, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines decided to change the name of this coordinating body into the National Council of the Laity. Its name, for the some good reasons, was then changed into the Council of the Laity of the Philippines.

Through the years the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pililipinas has continued to subsist on and work in accordance to the establishment of the 1950 CAP Constitution. CAP has never been abolished nor has its Constitution been amended. As such LAIKO has operated according to this Constitution. And since it is based on the pre-Vatican II ecclesiology and juridical system of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, it operates within the framework of the lay faithful which differs from that defined by the Second Vatican Council and the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

To remedy the situation and supply the lacuna, LAIKO/CLP has along the way adapted and appropriated the doctrine of the laity as was laid down by the Conciliar documents of Vatican II, the succeeding Church norms, and especially, the 1983 Code of Canon Law. In 1974, for example, after the ASI survey of the effectivity of CLP, it streamlined the lay apostolate, restructuring it according to the three “munera” of Christ, namely: priestly, prophetic, and kingly functions. Hence, the lay apostolate was categorized into: 1) Liturgy and Worship; 2) Education and Formation; 3) Service and Welfare. In 1975, the CBCP approved the guidelines for the formation of the Council of the Laity of the Philippines. By 1976 the CLP started to hold regional seminars all over the country to orient priests and lay leaders on the new structure for lay apostolate. In May 1977 the first national convention of the Council of Laity of the Philippines was held. This was to culminate the series of the regional seminars. Henceforth, it was decided that national convention be held every two years. Then, in 1980 it launched itself into the campaign for the formation of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in all parishes. In 1991 prodded by the PCP II mandate for renewed evangelization as guideline, it undertook a two pronged thrust: the building of the Church of the poor; and the restoration of the Church of the Home.

With such adjustments and incorporations, the LAIKO/CLP has effectively managed to cope with the demands at hand. Its effectivity has contributed in no small way towards the gradual appreciation and development of the vocation and mission of the lay as well as towards the harmonious working of the clergy and the laity. As a Secretariat the Council of the Laity have worked with much flourish and effectiveness with the Episcopal Commission on the Lay Apostolate (ECLA).

The laity deserves this stable and never ending support of CBCP. After all, the laity are the vanguards of how faith and Christian life should be lived out in this world, particularly in the family, in work, and in the world of politics. These are the lay men and women of the Church about whom Pius XII once uttered these words: “Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church” (Pius XII Discourse, February 20, 1946: AAS 38, 1946).

The Ecclesial Movements and the Parish

2006-07-28T17:48:00.000+08:00

The Couples For Christ (CFC), just days after their 25th anniversary celebration, sent a strong letter of appeal to all the active bishops in the Philippines. In a nutshell it states: “Please accept us in your dioceses and respective parishes. We love God and our Mother Church, and are zealous to proclaim the good news of Jesus to all. May we be given the opportunity to share that love with others and bring Christ to the ends of the earth.”

I am personally struck by the tone of the letter. It sounds like the voice of a stranger at the door pleading for admittance; of an outsider who begs to be accepted as part of the household. And yet they are not strangers in the parish. They are familiar faces, close relatives and friends, all genuine residents of the dioceses and parishes. Baptized that they are, they are duly recorded in the parish book, expected to participate in the activities of the community in worship and in the apostolate. They are in short the lay men and women in the parish. It is a fact, however, that for some time many of them were mere passive members of the parish, Catholics in name but not in life, indifferent to the call for the apostolate and work of mercy. And then, one day they were there in the Church, singing and dancing in groups, praising the Almighty, invoking the Holy Spirit. For them the Holy Mass ceases to be a routine to comply or an obligation to go over with. It is a celebration; it is life. Hence, they attend the Mass with much devotion and gusto. They are also seen taking care of the old and orphans; they build houses in remote barangays; they are with the poorest of the poor helping out with their livelihood programs. And, look how they love their family. These were the same lay men and women of yesterday, residents in the parish, now transformed by the CFC.

In a way, they are strangers to the parish, for they attain a spirituality that does not come from the pastoral program of the parish; nor from the inspiring homilies of the parish priest, of the sacraments that the pastor has faithfully administered to his flock, of the great example of his life. And so, like strangers, they are knocking at the door of the parish waiting to be received.

But why does the CFC or any other ecclesial community seek the acceptance of the parish? What is there in the parish that it is seeking? Is there something still deficient in the ecclesial community that only the parish can supply? Or, is there perhaps the possibility that the ecclesial movements and faith communities can eventually supply that deficiency and replace the role of the parish in their spiritual needs?

The Parish and its Significant Role. By design the parish is irreplaceable. It has a unique and fundamental role in the spiritual life of the faithful, for it is necessarily linked to the sacramental structure of the Church, the permanent core in which Christ acts through the Holy Spirit. The parish is, as the late John Paul II finely observed, the ultimate presence of the Church in a territory. It is, in some sense, the Church itself, close to the homes of her sons and daughters. It is the common home of the faithful, the first place of the incarnation of the Gospels. It is a mother who with its preaching of the Word, the baptismal font, the Mystery of the Lord’s Supper and the other sacraments gestates, gives birth, nurtures to full stature its sons and daughters. Vatican II expressed this doctrine beautifully in these words: “This Church of Christ is really present in all legitimately organized groups of the faithful, which, in so far as they are united to their pastors, are also appropriately called Churches in the New Testament” (LG 26).

Based on this theology the parish is defined by law as an organizational structure of the Church. It is not an association of the diocese, but part of its structure. It is a group of the faithful that the bishop must establish in the diocese for the convocation of the faithful around the Eucharist and the development of the liturgical life (SC 42). Structurally, it represents a part of the diocese, entrusted to the bishop with the assigned pastor as his cooperator in the care of souls (CD 30).

The parish is therefore a pastoral organization established by the bishop in his diocese. It is not an autonomous institution, but an entity that is dependent upon, yet integral to, the diocese.

Within the context of these Conciliar teachings, the Code of Canon Law defines the parish as: “A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably established within a particular Church, whose pastoral care, under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, is entrusted to a parish priest as its proper pastor “ (Can. 515, § 1).

The Role of the Ecclesial Movements in the Parish. The parish therefore is the locus wherein the faithful is placed to meet their Creator in the Word and the sacraments, the place where they respond to the exigencies of evangelization. However, it is limited in its resources. It cannot for instance contain every possible form of Christian life, whether individual or group. It is in this area that every parish has to be open to the workings of the Holy Spirit, that more often than not are manifested in the irruptions of ecclesial movements and faith communities.

John Paul II had oftentimes in the past expressed his optimism and confidence in the capacity of these movements to renew the Church’s apostolic action. There are parishes, he said, that are languishing, turned into mere “providers of pastoral services.” It is precisely in these cases that the role of the movements is not only providential, but important. They produce mature Christian personalities, conscious of their own baptismal identity, their own vocation and mission in the Church and in the world. They offer a significant testimony to what Christian life should be. In his enclyclical Redemptoris Missio John Paul II said these prophetic words: “When these movements humbly seek to become part of the life of the local Churches and are welcomed by bishops and priests within diocesan and parish structures, they represent a true gift of God both for new evangelization and for missionary activity properly so-called.”

Meantime, the zealous pastor of the parish, to fulfill his mission to the lay men and women entrusted to his care, has drawn up the pastoral program of the parish, complete with vision, mission, plans, organizational set-ups, programs, objectives, and activities. This pastoral organizational set-up and plans are supposed to be the standard program of the parish. Will it not be disturbed or disrupted by the insertion of these ecclesial movements into the life and activity of the parish? To this apprehension, it is good to again listen to and reflect the words of the present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, who in his homily of the Mass at the opening of his Pontificate said: “My true program of government is that of not doing my will, of not following my own ideas, but of listening, with the whole Church, to the word and will of the Lord and of letting myself be guided by him, so that it is he himself who guides the Church in this hour of our history.” In other words, in the Church uniformity is not the ideal, it is catholicity which admits of plurality, diversification.