Filipino Catholics Help Expand Catholic Communities in the East

In 2008 when the last official figure came out, there are 350,000 Catholics , mostly from the Philippines and India who lives in Kuwait as immigrant workers. And the flow of these immigrants in Saud Arabia and the Gulf is so massive that Rome is studying how to redraw the boundaries of the vicariates in that area, which today is still a huge vicariate of Arabia, comprising Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain.

In Israel, the rise of Jewish Catholics, formerly unthought of, occurred and the community now counts to about 500 Catholics. And this community is growing as children of immigrant workers from the Philippines and the Sudan attend Hebrew schools, learning the Hebrew language of their foreign-born parents' churches. They attend Mass in Hebrew in seven Hebrew Catholic chapels under the Jesuit priest Father David Neuhaus, who works directly under the Latin-rite Patriach of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal. Those who came from the Philippines numbered some 40,000, mostly Catholic women. Their children, born and baptized in Israel, go to school, learn Hebrew, and assimilate into Israeli society.

This phenomenon is a result of the founding of the Apostolate of Saint James the Apostle, approved by the Patriarch Alberto Gori on 11 February 1955, to address pastoral needs of Hebrew-speaking Catholics, Jews and non-Jews alike. In 2003, the Holy See appointed as head of the vicariate of Jerusalem for Hebrew-speaking Catholics a bishop and Benedictine monk of great ability named Jean Baptiste Gourion. He is Algerian by birth and himself a convert from Judaism. When he died, he got succeeded by priets, Neuhaus being one of them.

Archbishop Vidal Retires

Cebu Archbishop Cardinal Ricardo Vidal officially retires on 13 January 2011 as the Vatican announced the acceptance of his application for retirement four years hence. He became the prelate of the Archdiocese of Cebu on 18 September 1982. Late Pope John Paul II appointed him to the College of Cardinals, and attended the conclave which elected current Pope Benedict XVI on 18 April 2005.

Archbishop Vidal played a major role in the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986 as president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). He mediated in the coup attempt from Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAFM) in 1989. And he became instrumental in the peaceful departure of former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada at the height of EDSA Dos in 2001.

Archbishop Vidal is celebrating his 39th episcopal ordination anniversary on 30 November 2010. Turnover of ceremony will be held in the second week of January 2011 to Bishop Jose Palma, Archbishop of Palo. (Read more.)

God Called Archbishop Villegas Through Bruce Lee

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas disclosed on 6 October 2010, during his 25th year anniversary Mass as a priest, that his teenage idol was kung fu master Bruce Lee, not Jesus Christ. Villegas celebrated the Mass at the newly refurbished St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Dagupan.

In his homily, Archbishop Villegas said, "God called me to follow Him and He called me through Bruce Lee. I was too sickly to engage in martial arts but I was an avid reader of Bruce Lee's philosophy especially these words, 'Be yourself and learn the art of dying.'"

Villegas said Bruce Lee's philosophy touched him deeply. Quoting the late master, the archbishop said, "Be flexible. Be formless. Be fluid. Be shapeless like water. You put water unto a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Water can flow or it can crash or creep. Be water, my friend. Water has the continuity of movement. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying. The cup realizes itself only by being empty. Be yourself."

These words disturbed his sleep and distracted him from his studies. “It left me desiring passionately to learn the art of dying. I wanted to be empty like the cup. I wanted to be formless like water. I wanted to find myself. This search brought me to the gates of San Carlos Seminary in Makati because our high school principal said that was where I could learn the art of dying, like my idol Bruce Lee,” he recalled.

On 5 October 1985, the late Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin ordained him a priest. But his classmates in the seminary never discovered his passion for Bruce Lee as his spiritual directed him not to disclose it then. The priest felt that his classmates might misunderstand him.

His spiritual director taught him though about a wiser man who lived 2,000 years before Bruce Lee, and who said, "If the seed dies, it bears fruits."

“I fell in love with this man wiser than my teenage idol. I laid aside my Bruce Lee album and magazine collection and answered the call of Jesus. ‘Come follow me,’ he said.” [Based on the report by Yolanda Sotelo of Inquirer Northern Luzon]

Good Morning CBCP in Facebook Removed

At the height of the controversial statement of Tandag bishop and CBCP president Nereo Odchimar, threatening President Benigno Simeon Aquino III with excommunication for supporting the RH Bill, the CBCP removed its Facebook account, name "Good Morning CBCP," after hails of criticism assailed it from both Catholic and non-Catholic Facebook users. 

This move is unfortunate because it can be negatively interpreted as running away from the truth, and failing to stand by it despite the heat of criticisms. At the height of the hostage incident, when critics hit hard on the website of the Office of the President, Aquino never attempted to run away from his critics. I expect at least as strong a stand as that in face of criticisms, as that how people's sentiment can be clearly heard. But here we are, CBCP just folded off. How sad indeed.

This deplorable move forced me to visit the CBCP Online website to catch their attention on such a mistake as removing its Facebook account. I wrote two comments entitled "Reported Excommunication Threat" and "Removal of Good Morning CBCP from Facebook" to bring a reminder on these errors across, on the Disclaimer of Bishop Nereo Odchimar.

UPDATE
As of 3 October 2010, Good Morning CBCP came back to Facebook. Although my Discussion topic on the threat to excommunicate PNoy, where I posted four points why such a move was not a bad idea, can no longer be found. My first post on 11 September 2010 in the page entitled "Church Receiving Shares of PAGCOR Gambling Income" was still there.

Bishop Odchimar Plays Selective Politics on Contraceptives

Bishop Nereo Odchimar, head of the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported saying that PNoy "could be excommunicated for declaring his government would provide birth control to those who asked for it." This is an admission that bishops of the Catholic Church in the Philippines have lost moral influence on her own members, and instead play politics with the government leadership as a deperate move to control government policy instead of doing its job in effectively evangelizing the Catholic faithful.

One unpalatable taste to this move is the bishops' silence when previous administrations did nothing to remove birth control program that had been ongoing for decades in the country. Observers cannot failed to doubt the real motive for this action against a government who had been serious in destroying graft and corruption in public service.

Another suspicious part of this announcement is the idea that the government leadership who let the people choose in what method of family planning to adopt must be singled out for harassment when the leadership felt helpless to even implement such excommunication threat to those who may have already used artificial birth control in managing their family size. Who then will be more guilty of the "moral crime," the president who supported an already existing program or the people who actually used artificial birth control methods?

Retired Prelate Stood Ground Against Jueteng

Retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz continue to stand his ground against illegal gambling syndicates that run jueteng in the country. Founder of Krusadang Bayan Laban sa Jueteng (Peoples' Crusade Against Jueteng), his group gather information about illegal gambling syndicates in the country to expose them. Recently he said that up to 12 dioceses in Luzon and the Visayas benefit from jueteng payola. [See Triumps page for his accomplishments in this crusade.]

PCID Calls Muslim to Join Fight Against Violence

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue calls the believers of Islam to join Christians in their fight against violence. [See Vatican News page.]

Three Tragedies in the 21st Century

What tragedies in the Church in the Philippines we have right now are not all there was apparently. But for a start, this gives us important information on how these cases had been handled by the local regular leadership. These cases include the charge of murder against Msgr. Candido Umali of St. Vincent Church in Gumaca (Quezon) in 2002 for killing an altar boy, of child abuse against Fr. Jose Belciña of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Danao City (Cebu) in 2006, and of the apparent death by suicide of Fr. Baltazar Acompañado of St. John the Evangelist Church in Naga City (Camarines Sur) in 2010. [Details can be found in the Tragedy page.]

The Pain of Muted Scandals

The most painful part in the life of the Christian community in the Philippines is the muted violation of the vow of chastity among certain priests hidden behind the eyes of the people of God under the fear that a scandal may bring the faithful to perdition. For Catholics who know their New Testament books, it is understandable for the Apostles to continue to stay married while performing the commission that Jesus commanded them to do. The Apostles, and Catholic clerics in extension, have the basic right to have a wife, as what Saint Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians (8: 5): "Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Kephas?"

But the Roman Catholic Church having committed to follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle to the Gentiles have chosen since the Early Church period, and instituted the vow of chastity that candidates to priesthood and consecrated life freely made in order to give his life fully to the Lord and in the service of the people of God. Saint Paul testified that those who were not married at the time of their call to discipleship have chosen to stay unmarried for the gospel of Christ. "Yet we have not used this right," he wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 9: 12,14), "On the contrary, we endure everything so as not to place an obstacle to the gospel of Christ... the Lord ordered that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel." The same demand from the clerics to live by what they preach remains, even if priesthood is a sacrament in the life of the Church.  

And yet a few, if not many, priests violated this vow and the local bishop hid this fact from the eyes of the community for a fear of scandal. Have not the community as part of the body of Christ the right to know, they who still will share the burden and the pain of this truth? Does the community of Christians include both the lay faithful and the clerics? Or, do clerics have the special privilege of fathering children outside marriage, hiding the truth from the people, and getting away with it?

This same judgment of local bishops had been the source of the heavy burden that Pope Benedict XVI is carrying right now in relation to hidden offenses of certain psychologically-challenged priests against children many decades ago, and just recently came to the public's attention.

In the guise of misplaced compassion, the bishops have chosen to hide the truth in the darkness instead of letting it face the light. Instead of letting the priests who have chosen to break their vows move on into married life, and like loving fathers help them make a better transition into a different state of life, the bishops have chosen to hold on to "a vocation" that may no longer have been there. Many priests responsibly left priesthood and requested to be laicized for their respect of the office of pastor that they hold before the Christian community. And theirs were commendable and courageous decisions that respect both the sacraments of the holy orders and that of matrimony as the office of the pastor of the church of Christ.

The call to priesthood in the church that Jesus Christ left to Saint Peter, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, is the call towards a celebate and chaste life. And once those children came out of that priesthood, had vocation remained the same and the will of the Lord may have allowed the shift of the state of life? Does disrespect of the two sacraments the thing to go these days? There is a clear difference between a sin that happened in a peak of weakness and two separate lives being lived--maintaining a female partner and children while keeping the office of the pastor of the church of Christ.

While muted, this scandal of priests with women partners and children remained a scandal all the same to the faithful who had close relations with the people involved. And I personally knew men who felt the call to the vocation of priesthood who left the seminary, disillusioned that breaking of vows provides the reward of keeping the priesthood and the "wife" and the children at the same time, even among those who are involved in the formation of new priests in certain seminaries. A few even had their children and "wife" while they still studied in seminaries, and "miraculously" became priests with these family responsibilities in tow.

These muted scandals are more painful wounds to the side of Jesus hanging on the cross to pay for our sins. And human cowardice had brought the local clerical leadership into the deceptive tactics of Lucifer who proposed a choice between the painful truth and the comfort of fearful darkness, and the local regulars concerned have chosen the darkness with wise justifications. The Church of the Lord had been under attack since its early years, but how unnerving it is to see those pastors who supposed to lead the flock sided with the Lord's enemy.

How long should the clerics allow themselves to be the tool of purging for the lay faithful through their irresponsible decisions towards erring priests?

One of the major reason for the painful tragedies in the life of the universal Church, including that of the Church in the Philippines, is the fear of some bishops to clean up their ranks in the service of the truth in accordance to Jesus' exholtation on us to live our lives in truth for the rest of it. Controversial deaths of priests having liaisons with women or found in places not expected of a man of the cloth are just a tip of the iceberg in this muted scandal in the Lord's church in the 21st century. May the Lord nudge these pastors and regulars hard enough to wake them up from their stupor and numbing sleep. The Lord is watching, and should feel an extreme weight of the responsibility in leading the flock in the right road to salvation by following the same in their own lives and not under "special privileges" given to the man of the cloth.

While this call for renewal must be heard, the call for Christian holiness does not involve the fleeing of the early disciples when faced with the way of the Cross in this 21st century world. The fearful Apostles, except for Saint John, fled when Jesus took the way of the Cross in order to save mankind. Leaving the Church in any sight of pain is a cowardly action when the people of God must band together to help renew the Kingdom of God that Jesus left to his Apostles more than 20 centuries ago.

Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, aptly said in his Palm Sunday homily this year: "I, as Archbishop of Dublin, am committed to working with all of you who wish to renew our Church, to purify our Church from all that has damaged the face of Christ. These have not been easy days for me personally. But with the many believers who wish to journey together on the path of renewal, I know that that path will inevitably be a way of the Cross... The challenge is not to follow the shortcuts of the disciples who found that fleeing was the quick and easy answer... Our challenge is to be like Jesus who, with all the anguish and fear it entails, does not flinch or waver in remaining faithful to the will of his Father, even at the price of enduring the ignominous death on a criminal's cross."