SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE DEFENDED
UNITED STATES ARCHBISHOP SALVATORE CORDILEONE
(The following is an excerpt from an interview of United States Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone with the San Francisco Chronicle.)
1. You have been at the forefront of the same-sex marriage debate in California and nationally. You helped raise money for Prop 8, got evangelical congregations involved and campaigned heavily for it. Should the Supreme Court legalize same-sex marriage in California in June, what would your next move be?
I am a pastor and a teacher of the faith. It is responsibility to educate, motivate and inspire people to live by the truths of the Gospel, including using the blessed power we have as free citizens in a democracy to work for justice and compassion in the public square, and so contribute to the common good. When a great public issue like the meaning of marriage arises, of course, it’s my duty as a pastor to speak up. That job description won’t change regardless of any Supreme Court decision. But since the law is also a teacher, when it teaches an untruth (e.g., people of a certain race are inferior to others and can be treated as such, human life in the womb is not worthy of equal respect, or that two people of the same sex can make a marriage with each other) my job gets harder, but it doesn’t change: we need to work every day in our homes, in our parishes and in our communities to rebuild a marriage culture. Too many children are being hurt by our culture’s strange and increasing inability to appreciate how important it is to bring together mothers and fathers for children in one loving home. The basic question is: does our society need an institution that connects children to their mothers and fathers, or doesn’t it? The only institution that does this is marriage. Redefining marriage will mean that our society will have given its definitive answer: “no”; it will mean changing the basic understanding of marriage from a child-centered institution to one that sees it as a temporary, revocable commitment which prioritizes the romantic happiness of adults over building a loving, lasting family. This would result in the law teaching that children do not need an institution that connects them to the mother and father who brought them into the world and their mother and father to each other. Priority number one for me will continue to be looking for new ways to inspire Catholics to live their faith and help rebuild a more loving and successful marriage culture.
2. Why do you think that the Catholic Church should be spending money, time and resources on the same sex marriage battle, when it could be directing those resources toward helping the victims of the rapidly increasing poverty rate? How high of a priority should it be for the Church?
Marriage and poverty are deeply intertwined concerns: an extremely high percentage of people in poverty are from broken families, and when the family breaks up it increases the risk of sliding into poverty, with single parents (usually mothers) making heroic sacrifices for their children as they struggle to fulfill the role of both mother and father. And beyond material poverty there is that poverty of the spirit in which kids hunger for their missing parent, who often seems absent and disengaged from their lives. We all have a deep instinct for connectedness to where we came from, and we deeply desire it when we do not have it.
Promoting stable marriages is actually one of the best things we can do to help eradicate poverty; in fact, it is a necessary, even if by itself alone not a sufficient, part of the solution – that is, we cannot hope to fix the problem without it. The solution to poverty certainly requires a multi-faceted strategy; we need efforts such as job training and placement for those in poverty, quality education for at risk youth, and so on. My Church is also involved in many of these kinds of efforts. But neither are these efforts alone sufficient. To focus exclusively on this, without educating our young people for marriage – teaching them to desire marriage and to develop the virtue necessary to sustain the demanding but rewarding commitment of marriage – would be like putting a bandage on a mortal wound. Rebuilding a marriage culture in which both men and women understand they need to come together in marriage to raise their children is not a distraction from poverty, it’s one necessary part of helping to alleviate poverty.
3. After Rhode Island approved same-sex marriage, you said it was “a great injustice.” But an ABC News poll in March found that 54 percent of Catholics now support same-sex marriage, mirroring other national surveys. Young people are firmly in support of same-sex marriage. Twelve states now allow it. The largest Catholic country, Brazil, has legalized it, as has France. With the Catholic Church attendance shrinking in the U.S., doesn’t the Church’s overt leadership on this issue risk alienating young people? What would you say to a young person — Catholic or otherwise — who is put off by the Church’s stance on this position?
Well, we have a lot of work to do, don’t we? Of course many people these days self-identify as Catholic on surveys like these without actually doing basic Catholic things like attending Mass on Sunday. Many people call themselves Catholic because that is the religion they grew up with and, indeed, they are Catholic, but many are also quite distant from the Church and know little of what their Church really teaches and why. The Catholic Church has been dealing with marriage far more than any other institution in the world: For 2,000 years we have reflected on the importance of marriage for the common good, we have reflected on it theologically and reflected on its mystical significance, we have legislated on it (in fact, much of our civil legislation on marriage came from the Church’s canon law, e.g., the principle that it is the consent of the couple that establishes their marriage and not anything else, such as a contract between their fathers) and we have been engaged on the pastoral level. We certainly have a valuable voice to contribute to this discussion, and, quite frankly, our insights are quite profound, even though it is quite difficult to break through the dominant culture to get this message out to people, especially young people. What I would say to a young person is: “open your mind! I have a treasure to share with you! If you receive it with an open mind and heart your life will be changed, and for the better!” My experience, and that of others I know who work in this field, has been that when young people are exposed to this deeper significance of marriage, and get in touch with their true, deeper desires, they enthusiastically embrace the Church’s teaching. In fact, the most common remark one hears is, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? It would have saved me untold heartache.” And this points to the real problem, which is the fault of us pastors: we have failed to teach this adequately to our young people. That’s why they are distracted by the false messages of the popular culture.
4. Have you met with any gays or parents of gay children since you came to San Francisco so as to better understand their perspective?
Yes, I’ve met privately with gay people when we’ve tried to get to know each other and each other’s points of view better. I cherish that kind of one-on-one dialogue because it puts a human face on our disagreements, and that makes it harder for hatred to grow. I haven’t yet done this in my first eight months here in this archdiocese.
1. You have been at the forefront of the same-sex marriage debate in California and nationally. You helped raise money for Prop 8, got evangelical congregations involved and campaigned heavily for it. Should the Supreme Court legalize same-sex marriage in California in June, what would your next move be?
I am a pastor and a teacher of the faith. It is responsibility to educate, motivate and inspire people to live by the truths of the Gospel, including using the blessed power we have as free citizens in a democracy to work for justice and compassion in the public square, and so contribute to the common good. When a great public issue like the meaning of marriage arises, of course, it’s my duty as a pastor to speak up. That job description won’t change regardless of any Supreme Court decision. But since the law is also a teacher, when it teaches an untruth (e.g., people of a certain race are inferior to others and can be treated as such, human life in the womb is not worthy of equal respect, or that two people of the same sex can make a marriage with each other) my job gets harder, but it doesn’t change: we need to work every day in our homes, in our parishes and in our communities to rebuild a marriage culture. Too many children are being hurt by our culture’s strange and increasing inability to appreciate how important it is to bring together mothers and fathers for children in one loving home. The basic question is: does our society need an institution that connects children to their mothers and fathers, or doesn’t it? The only institution that does this is marriage. Redefining marriage will mean that our society will have given its definitive answer: “no”; it will mean changing the basic understanding of marriage from a child-centered institution to one that sees it as a temporary, revocable commitment which prioritizes the romantic happiness of adults over building a loving, lasting family. This would result in the law teaching that children do not need an institution that connects them to the mother and father who brought them into the world and their mother and father to each other. Priority number one for me will continue to be looking for new ways to inspire Catholics to live their faith and help rebuild a more loving and successful marriage culture.
2. Why do you think that the Catholic Church should be spending money, time and resources on the same sex marriage battle, when it could be directing those resources toward helping the victims of the rapidly increasing poverty rate? How high of a priority should it be for the Church?
Marriage and poverty are deeply intertwined concerns: an extremely high percentage of people in poverty are from broken families, and when the family breaks up it increases the risk of sliding into poverty, with single parents (usually mothers) making heroic sacrifices for their children as they struggle to fulfill the role of both mother and father. And beyond material poverty there is that poverty of the spirit in which kids hunger for their missing parent, who often seems absent and disengaged from their lives. We all have a deep instinct for connectedness to where we came from, and we deeply desire it when we do not have it.
Promoting stable marriages is actually one of the best things we can do to help eradicate poverty; in fact, it is a necessary, even if by itself alone not a sufficient, part of the solution – that is, we cannot hope to fix the problem without it. The solution to poverty certainly requires a multi-faceted strategy; we need efforts such as job training and placement for those in poverty, quality education for at risk youth, and so on. My Church is also involved in many of these kinds of efforts. But neither are these efforts alone sufficient. To focus exclusively on this, without educating our young people for marriage – teaching them to desire marriage and to develop the virtue necessary to sustain the demanding but rewarding commitment of marriage – would be like putting a bandage on a mortal wound. Rebuilding a marriage culture in which both men and women understand they need to come together in marriage to raise their children is not a distraction from poverty, it’s one necessary part of helping to alleviate poverty.
3. After Rhode Island approved same-sex marriage, you said it was “a great injustice.” But an ABC News poll in March found that 54 percent of Catholics now support same-sex marriage, mirroring other national surveys. Young people are firmly in support of same-sex marriage. Twelve states now allow it. The largest Catholic country, Brazil, has legalized it, as has France. With the Catholic Church attendance shrinking in the U.S., doesn’t the Church’s overt leadership on this issue risk alienating young people? What would you say to a young person — Catholic or otherwise — who is put off by the Church’s stance on this position?
Well, we have a lot of work to do, don’t we? Of course many people these days self-identify as Catholic on surveys like these without actually doing basic Catholic things like attending Mass on Sunday. Many people call themselves Catholic because that is the religion they grew up with and, indeed, they are Catholic, but many are also quite distant from the Church and know little of what their Church really teaches and why. The Catholic Church has been dealing with marriage far more than any other institution in the world: For 2,000 years we have reflected on the importance of marriage for the common good, we have reflected on it theologically and reflected on its mystical significance, we have legislated on it (in fact, much of our civil legislation on marriage came from the Church’s canon law, e.g., the principle that it is the consent of the couple that establishes their marriage and not anything else, such as a contract between their fathers) and we have been engaged on the pastoral level. We certainly have a valuable voice to contribute to this discussion, and, quite frankly, our insights are quite profound, even though it is quite difficult to break through the dominant culture to get this message out to people, especially young people. What I would say to a young person is: “open your mind! I have a treasure to share with you! If you receive it with an open mind and heart your life will be changed, and for the better!” My experience, and that of others I know who work in this field, has been that when young people are exposed to this deeper significance of marriage, and get in touch with their true, deeper desires, they enthusiastically embrace the Church’s teaching. In fact, the most common remark one hears is, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? It would have saved me untold heartache.” And this points to the real problem, which is the fault of us pastors: we have failed to teach this adequately to our young people. That’s why they are distracted by the false messages of the popular culture.
4. Have you met with any gays or parents of gay children since you came to San Francisco so as to better understand their perspective?
Yes, I’ve met privately with gay people when we’ve tried to get to know each other and each other’s points of view better. I cherish that kind of one-on-one dialogue because it puts a human face on our disagreements, and that makes it harder for hatred to grow. I haven’t yet done this in my first eight months here in this archdiocese.
UNITE OR SAY GOODBYE TO THIS ELECTION
When the Lay Solidarity Coalition for the Preservation of Life and Family was organized sometime in February as an offshoot of the CBCP Annual Assembly, the directive that we received from Bishop Jesse Mercado who is the president of the Episcopal Commission of the Laity (ECLA) and chairman of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Laiko) was that the Coalition (1) must be peopled by individuals and or organizations that share the values of the Catholic Church and, (2) that these organizations must try to maintain unity and harmony and should not fight with one another.
And this was what we pursued and we did try to bring everyone to the table. Thus some 42 charismatic communities and parish-based organizations came together and signified their desire to be part of the Coalition. In pursuit of the decision to actively participate in the election process, the convenors and through the guidance of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas, the White Vote Movement was created to serve as the political vehicle of the Coalition. But as the meetings progressed, it became clear that there were organizations and movements who have different sets of agenda and have stopped attending our meetings especially when it was made known that the inclusion of the six candidates who voted "NO" to RH Bill was non-negotiable.
Why then did we agree to initially endorse the six candidates? Because that was what the higher hierarchy wanted and the Laiko and the Coalition merely obeyed this direction from its pastoral authorities. In the first place, the six candidates clearly represent the ideals of the vision and mission of the Coalition with regards to the preservation and protection of LIFE. It was also a way of expressing the gratitude of the church for the firm resolve they displayed when the RH Bill was being deliberated in both house of Congress despite tremendous pressure from the government.
We would have actually wanted to keep only the six candidates but there was a clamor from the Coalition's partners from the provinces to fill up the 12 slots and the Lay Initiative for Elections (LIFE) which is operating under the ambit of the Archdiocese of Cebu came out with an endorsement ahead of the White Vote Movement. The LIFE adopted the six candidates (Ejercito, Honasan, Magsaysay, Pimentel, Trillanes and Villar) and added Nancy Binay, Migz Zubiri, Dick Gordon, JC delos Reyes, Christian Seneres and Marwil Llasos. Based on this continuing requests from its member-organizations from the different Dioceses, a decision was made to endorse additional candidates and the number also had to be decided upon. Some said seven which is a Biblical number, some said eight and some said nine which is the highest number insofar as the Scriptures is concerned. Again, the prospective candidates were invited for screening and interview and they passed the scrutiny of the panel and so it was decided to keep the bar at 10 candidates and the additional candidates were Binay, Gordon, Llasos and Zubiri.
The organizations in the different Dioceses are given the prerogative to fill up the remaining two slots with their own choice. The question is was the selection process flawed? I don't know. What I know is that in any political exercise there can never be a fool-proof way of choosing your candidates regardless of how well-meaning you can be. At the same time, since we are stepping into the political arena, it follows that we do not only assume but we know that politics mean numbers. We need to put in the people to where we want them to be to espouse and carry out our cause and in order to do these we need to consider factors other than conscience, competence and commitment – we also need to consider the winnability factor.
This is where lies the difference. There are some in the Church who believe that the government and the socio-politico sector will take notice of a Catholic Vote if the candidates and or party-list claiming to represent the Church will be able to get at least 3 million votes even if they lose. But if they lose what good would that bring. Do these people mean that they will be throwing 3 million votes just to make a statement? What kind of politics is that? If an individual and or movement would want to deliver a message you don’t need to participate in the electoral process to do the job as there are many other ways you can pursue to put your message across.
Conversely, there are other individuals and or movements who believe in themselves that the public is indebted to them and that the Filipino electorate must vote for them because they alone have a monopoly of sincerity, honesty, integrity and, holiness. These people believe that they are the only warriors who fought for life and the others including political leaders who voted “NO” to the RH Bill are mere impostors and pretenders and they expect the Filipino electorate to embrace their own cause.
What these people don’t know is that politics is more than just making noises. It is more than just rhetoric. It is more than just sloganeering. It is more than just appearing honest and sincere. It is more than just bashing one another. You don’t get into politics to lose. You join the political fray to win and to win requires numbers and to generate those numbers you have to have a message, an agenda and, most of all a base from which to raise those numbers. And because those numbers are also influenced by the political realities of our time you need to weave yourself through the political networks that are in place in every region, province, or districts. You need to have a media plan that is built on a formidable media network in every region, province, town or city to get your message across the different publics. You need to have the network and the manpower to stop what goes on during the three nights before the election of May 13, 2013 beginning on Friday night. Electoral victory especially in the Philippines is not just about ideology. It is about organization and because this is an Automated Election System in which the results are all dependent on what the PCOS machines will churn out, all these organizations under the White Vote Movement must make sure that its voters must be able to go to their respective polling precincts and cast their vote. It is too late in the day but the Philippines is the only country in the world that uses the AES without the parallel manual count which is what is done even in the more advanced countries. These are the realities we need to face instead of expending our energies fighting with one another. Disunity is the work of the devil and when discerning it is best to reflect which voice are we listening to.
The White Vote Movement deliberated and coming up with the additional candidates to be endorsed was not easy. Based on the parameters that were followed the initial endorsement was all about LIFE – the commitment displayed by the six candidates who voted to preserve LIFE by rejecting the RH Bill. The second endorsement was about FAMILY and the movement looked at the qualities of the candidates in terms of their family relationships and the four additional candidates passed not only the screening by the movement but also found ideal the qualities related to their having a sound and wholesome family. As expected, there will be those who will not agree with our choices and this is natural in situations like these and there’s nothing we can do about it. And we can only appeal to all to look into these choices and I’m sure you will be able to see some logic in why we chose them. Notwithstanding her critics, Nancy Binay boasts of a well-knit family who regularly attend Mass and the same can be said of Dick Gordon and Migz Zubiri. While Atty. Marwil Llasos has remained and is still single there can be no disputing his being close to the other members of his family. And we believe that the family situations to which these four candidates find themselves in are probably better than the family relationships that our critics have.
Electoral victory also rests on many factors beyond mere ideals and ideology. To a large degree, it will depend on the unity of all these ideals and unite we must because today we have an opportunity to show to the world that Catholics in the Philippines is still a powerful force for change. And unless such unity of purpose is forged, we can all kiss this election goodbye. For “while a divided vote changes nothing, a UNITED vote changes everything.”
And this was what we pursued and we did try to bring everyone to the table. Thus some 42 charismatic communities and parish-based organizations came together and signified their desire to be part of the Coalition. In pursuit of the decision to actively participate in the election process, the convenors and through the guidance of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas, the White Vote Movement was created to serve as the political vehicle of the Coalition. But as the meetings progressed, it became clear that there were organizations and movements who have different sets of agenda and have stopped attending our meetings especially when it was made known that the inclusion of the six candidates who voted "NO" to RH Bill was non-negotiable.
Why then did we agree to initially endorse the six candidates? Because that was what the higher hierarchy wanted and the Laiko and the Coalition merely obeyed this direction from its pastoral authorities. In the first place, the six candidates clearly represent the ideals of the vision and mission of the Coalition with regards to the preservation and protection of LIFE. It was also a way of expressing the gratitude of the church for the firm resolve they displayed when the RH Bill was being deliberated in both house of Congress despite tremendous pressure from the government.
We would have actually wanted to keep only the six candidates but there was a clamor from the Coalition's partners from the provinces to fill up the 12 slots and the Lay Initiative for Elections (LIFE) which is operating under the ambit of the Archdiocese of Cebu came out with an endorsement ahead of the White Vote Movement. The LIFE adopted the six candidates (Ejercito, Honasan, Magsaysay, Pimentel, Trillanes and Villar) and added Nancy Binay, Migz Zubiri, Dick Gordon, JC delos Reyes, Christian Seneres and Marwil Llasos. Based on this continuing requests from its member-organizations from the different Dioceses, a decision was made to endorse additional candidates and the number also had to be decided upon. Some said seven which is a Biblical number, some said eight and some said nine which is the highest number insofar as the Scriptures is concerned. Again, the prospective candidates were invited for screening and interview and they passed the scrutiny of the panel and so it was decided to keep the bar at 10 candidates and the additional candidates were Binay, Gordon, Llasos and Zubiri.
The organizations in the different Dioceses are given the prerogative to fill up the remaining two slots with their own choice. The question is was the selection process flawed? I don't know. What I know is that in any political exercise there can never be a fool-proof way of choosing your candidates regardless of how well-meaning you can be. At the same time, since we are stepping into the political arena, it follows that we do not only assume but we know that politics mean numbers. We need to put in the people to where we want them to be to espouse and carry out our cause and in order to do these we need to consider factors other than conscience, competence and commitment – we also need to consider the winnability factor.
This is where lies the difference. There are some in the Church who believe that the government and the socio-politico sector will take notice of a Catholic Vote if the candidates and or party-list claiming to represent the Church will be able to get at least 3 million votes even if they lose. But if they lose what good would that bring. Do these people mean that they will be throwing 3 million votes just to make a statement? What kind of politics is that? If an individual and or movement would want to deliver a message you don’t need to participate in the electoral process to do the job as there are many other ways you can pursue to put your message across.
Conversely, there are other individuals and or movements who believe in themselves that the public is indebted to them and that the Filipino electorate must vote for them because they alone have a monopoly of sincerity, honesty, integrity and, holiness. These people believe that they are the only warriors who fought for life and the others including political leaders who voted “NO” to the RH Bill are mere impostors and pretenders and they expect the Filipino electorate to embrace their own cause.
What these people don’t know is that politics is more than just making noises. It is more than just rhetoric. It is more than just sloganeering. It is more than just appearing honest and sincere. It is more than just bashing one another. You don’t get into politics to lose. You join the political fray to win and to win requires numbers and to generate those numbers you have to have a message, an agenda and, most of all a base from which to raise those numbers. And because those numbers are also influenced by the political realities of our time you need to weave yourself through the political networks that are in place in every region, province, or districts. You need to have a media plan that is built on a formidable media network in every region, province, town or city to get your message across the different publics. You need to have the network and the manpower to stop what goes on during the three nights before the election of May 13, 2013 beginning on Friday night. Electoral victory especially in the Philippines is not just about ideology. It is about organization and because this is an Automated Election System in which the results are all dependent on what the PCOS machines will churn out, all these organizations under the White Vote Movement must make sure that its voters must be able to go to their respective polling precincts and cast their vote. It is too late in the day but the Philippines is the only country in the world that uses the AES without the parallel manual count which is what is done even in the more advanced countries. These are the realities we need to face instead of expending our energies fighting with one another. Disunity is the work of the devil and when discerning it is best to reflect which voice are we listening to.
The White Vote Movement deliberated and coming up with the additional candidates to be endorsed was not easy. Based on the parameters that were followed the initial endorsement was all about LIFE – the commitment displayed by the six candidates who voted to preserve LIFE by rejecting the RH Bill. The second endorsement was about FAMILY and the movement looked at the qualities of the candidates in terms of their family relationships and the four additional candidates passed not only the screening by the movement but also found ideal the qualities related to their having a sound and wholesome family. As expected, there will be those who will not agree with our choices and this is natural in situations like these and there’s nothing we can do about it. And we can only appeal to all to look into these choices and I’m sure you will be able to see some logic in why we chose them. Notwithstanding her critics, Nancy Binay boasts of a well-knit family who regularly attend Mass and the same can be said of Dick Gordon and Migz Zubiri. While Atty. Marwil Llasos has remained and is still single there can be no disputing his being close to the other members of his family. And we believe that the family situations to which these four candidates find themselves in are probably better than the family relationships that our critics have.
Electoral victory also rests on many factors beyond mere ideals and ideology. To a large degree, it will depend on the unity of all these ideals and unite we must because today we have an opportunity to show to the world that Catholics in the Philippines is still a powerful force for change. And unless such unity of purpose is forged, we can all kiss this election goodbye. For “while a divided vote changes nothing, a UNITED vote changes everything.”
LAITY URGED TO PURSUE PRINCIPLED POLITICS
Pastoral Letter
To the People of God in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro
PRINCIPLED PARTISAN POLITICS: THREE WAYS
OF INVOLVEMENT
Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Elections are a time for choice and decision-making. Voters are expected to follow their conscience in choosing public officials that will serve the common good, and help in the development of their community. On election day itself, every voter becomes “partisan” – in the sense that he or she takes sides and chooses the candidates deemed most qualified for public office.
And yet, to be partisan in Philippine politics does not necessarily mean to side with one party only – even as political parties are beginning to articulate their principles and party platforms. Personalities, with their qualifications, are still crucial in determining principles and platforms. Thus, as we scrutinize the qualifications of various candidates, the Catholic bishops have encouraged Christian citizens to engage in “principled partisan politics.”
But how do we engage in principled partisan politics? Three modes come to mind. The first way, paradoxically, is to be non-partisan in favoring this or that candidate. On the other hand, it means to be partisan or to take sides for the democratic process itself to prevail. This is the role of watchdog citizens’ arms like the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL).
As in past elections, we encourage our parishioners, particularly the youth and religious lay organizations, to volunteer their services in these activities to ensure Clean, Honest, Accountable, Meaningful, and Peaceful (CHAMP) elections. Our archdiocesan social action team can help coordinate both PPCRV and NAMFREL activities at the local levels to ensure complementarity of roles. We also commend the initiative of the Xavier University High School alumni in organizing Crusaders for Honest, Orderly, and Peaceful Elections (HOPE) in the 62 polling precincts of Cagayan de Oro City.
During this period before election day, Voters’ Education will require much effort – not only in the proper utilization of the PCOS machines, but more so in choosing worthwhile candidates. It is in this context that voters can become Trans-partisan – i.e., in choosing the most qualified candidates across political parties. In their Pastoral Statement of Jan. 2013, the Catholic bishops “commend and support lay initiatives to form circles of discernment to choose worthy candidates . . . in order to bring values of God’s kingdom in the public discourse.”
As in previous elections, I have recommended that voters choose candidates with the five C’s – that they be men and women of Character, Conscience, Competence, Compassion, and Commitment. Other characteristics have been suggested: that candidates be maka-Diyos, maka-Tao, maka-Buhay, maka-Bayan, and maka-Kalikasan.
The Circles of Discernment for Elections (CIDE) seminar organized by the Dilaab Team in the Archdiocese of Cebu has further refined this selection process through its LASER test. Informal groups of voters are asked to evaluate candidates according to Lifestyle, Action/Accomplishments, Supporters, Election Conduct, and Reputation. I would highly encourage our Basic Ecclesial Communities as well as multi-sectoral and inter-faith groups to adopt this discernment process in order to arrive at a collective choice of worthwhile candidates.
Dilaab has also introduced a third mode of partisanship. This is called Pan-Partisanship (“i.e., reaching out to all political affiliations”). Prior to the formal campaign period, candidates from all political parties as well as those individuals still discerning whether to run for public office or not were invited to a “discernment integrity recollection”.
This focused on what Pope Benedict XVI calls “evangelical formation and pastoral accompaniment of a new generation of Catholics working in politics.” Prospective candidates were invited to pray over their own understanding and motivations for entering the sphere of public service. They were also asked to answer the LASER questions for themselves as candidates.
In addition to this inclusive invitation to all candidates to develop a form of spirituality in public office, I would include three issues of concern of pan- or supra-partisan significance (which all political parties should espouse). In the archdiocese, we have launched a campaign: “Our Votes are Not for Sale.” It is a direct call to all traditional politicians (trapos) against the practice of rampant vote-buying (which is considered a criminal offense.) More profoundly, vote-buying as well as vote-selling are offenses against the dignity of the voter himself who “exchanges” his reasoning and freedom for a fleeting sum of money.
A second issue of concern has been brought up by the CBCP Pastoral Statement: “the widening practice of political dynasties.” Along with other dioceses and organizations, we have launched in the archdiocese the Movement Against Dynasties (MAD). Recent studies by research centers have pointed out the correlation of political dynasties with corruption, poverty, and violence in various provinces throughout the country. The provision against political dynasties has already been inscribed in the Philippine Constitution of 1987.
The CBCP statement adds: “As monopolies in business, monopolies in politics limit the entry that can bring in new ideas and better services. Political dynasties breed corruption and ineptitude.” A related advocacy is the campaign against pork barrel allocations – which impels political dynasties to expand to control the largesse of public funds.
A third issue of concern, especially for us in Cagayan de Oro, is the care and conservation of the environment. Typhoon Sendong has taught us the bitter lessons from the wanton degradation of our watershed areas surrounding Cagayan de Oro River and other tributaries. The continued bleeding of Iponan River from hydraulic flush mining also has to be stopped. The rehabilitation and protection of our environment should be a pan-partisan concern of all candidates for public office.
This then is the challenge of Responsible Citizenship as we approach election day. While church leaders themselves have to remain non-partisan in electoral contests for the sake of transcendent Gospel values that they uphold, it is good to keep in mind the three calls of CBCP for all Christian citizens:
1) To form circles of discernment;
2) For the laity to exercise their right and duty to support candidates who are qualified and public service minded; and
3) To engage in principled partisan politics.
(16 April 2013)
To the People of God in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro
PRINCIPLED PARTISAN POLITICS: THREE WAYS
OF INVOLVEMENT
Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Elections are a time for choice and decision-making. Voters are expected to follow their conscience in choosing public officials that will serve the common good, and help in the development of their community. On election day itself, every voter becomes “partisan” – in the sense that he or she takes sides and chooses the candidates deemed most qualified for public office.
And yet, to be partisan in Philippine politics does not necessarily mean to side with one party only – even as political parties are beginning to articulate their principles and party platforms. Personalities, with their qualifications, are still crucial in determining principles and platforms. Thus, as we scrutinize the qualifications of various candidates, the Catholic bishops have encouraged Christian citizens to engage in “principled partisan politics.”
But how do we engage in principled partisan politics? Three modes come to mind. The first way, paradoxically, is to be non-partisan in favoring this or that candidate. On the other hand, it means to be partisan or to take sides for the democratic process itself to prevail. This is the role of watchdog citizens’ arms like the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL).
As in past elections, we encourage our parishioners, particularly the youth and religious lay organizations, to volunteer their services in these activities to ensure Clean, Honest, Accountable, Meaningful, and Peaceful (CHAMP) elections. Our archdiocesan social action team can help coordinate both PPCRV and NAMFREL activities at the local levels to ensure complementarity of roles. We also commend the initiative of the Xavier University High School alumni in organizing Crusaders for Honest, Orderly, and Peaceful Elections (HOPE) in the 62 polling precincts of Cagayan de Oro City.
During this period before election day, Voters’ Education will require much effort – not only in the proper utilization of the PCOS machines, but more so in choosing worthwhile candidates. It is in this context that voters can become Trans-partisan – i.e., in choosing the most qualified candidates across political parties. In their Pastoral Statement of Jan. 2013, the Catholic bishops “commend and support lay initiatives to form circles of discernment to choose worthy candidates . . . in order to bring values of God’s kingdom in the public discourse.”
As in previous elections, I have recommended that voters choose candidates with the five C’s – that they be men and women of Character, Conscience, Competence, Compassion, and Commitment. Other characteristics have been suggested: that candidates be maka-Diyos, maka-Tao, maka-Buhay, maka-Bayan, and maka-Kalikasan.
The Circles of Discernment for Elections (CIDE) seminar organized by the Dilaab Team in the Archdiocese of Cebu has further refined this selection process through its LASER test. Informal groups of voters are asked to evaluate candidates according to Lifestyle, Action/Accomplishments, Supporters, Election Conduct, and Reputation. I would highly encourage our Basic Ecclesial Communities as well as multi-sectoral and inter-faith groups to adopt this discernment process in order to arrive at a collective choice of worthwhile candidates.
Dilaab has also introduced a third mode of partisanship. This is called Pan-Partisanship (“i.e., reaching out to all political affiliations”). Prior to the formal campaign period, candidates from all political parties as well as those individuals still discerning whether to run for public office or not were invited to a “discernment integrity recollection”.
This focused on what Pope Benedict XVI calls “evangelical formation and pastoral accompaniment of a new generation of Catholics working in politics.” Prospective candidates were invited to pray over their own understanding and motivations for entering the sphere of public service. They were also asked to answer the LASER questions for themselves as candidates.
In addition to this inclusive invitation to all candidates to develop a form of spirituality in public office, I would include three issues of concern of pan- or supra-partisan significance (which all political parties should espouse). In the archdiocese, we have launched a campaign: “Our Votes are Not for Sale.” It is a direct call to all traditional politicians (trapos) against the practice of rampant vote-buying (which is considered a criminal offense.) More profoundly, vote-buying as well as vote-selling are offenses against the dignity of the voter himself who “exchanges” his reasoning and freedom for a fleeting sum of money.
A second issue of concern has been brought up by the CBCP Pastoral Statement: “the widening practice of political dynasties.” Along with other dioceses and organizations, we have launched in the archdiocese the Movement Against Dynasties (MAD). Recent studies by research centers have pointed out the correlation of political dynasties with corruption, poverty, and violence in various provinces throughout the country. The provision against political dynasties has already been inscribed in the Philippine Constitution of 1987.
The CBCP statement adds: “As monopolies in business, monopolies in politics limit the entry that can bring in new ideas and better services. Political dynasties breed corruption and ineptitude.” A related advocacy is the campaign against pork barrel allocations – which impels political dynasties to expand to control the largesse of public funds.
A third issue of concern, especially for us in Cagayan de Oro, is the care and conservation of the environment. Typhoon Sendong has taught us the bitter lessons from the wanton degradation of our watershed areas surrounding Cagayan de Oro River and other tributaries. The continued bleeding of Iponan River from hydraulic flush mining also has to be stopped. The rehabilitation and protection of our environment should be a pan-partisan concern of all candidates for public office.
This then is the challenge of Responsible Citizenship as we approach election day. While church leaders themselves have to remain non-partisan in electoral contests for the sake of transcendent Gospel values that they uphold, it is good to keep in mind the three calls of CBCP for all Christian citizens:
1) To form circles of discernment;
2) For the laity to exercise their right and duty to support candidates who are qualified and public service minded; and
3) To engage in principled partisan politics.
(16 April 2013)
POPE FRANCIS: A DYED IN THE WOOL
PRO-LIFE ADVOCATE
NOTE: Please take the time to read the below transcript. It’s an interview Chris Mathews did of Cardinal Bergoglio at the time of the conclave. It’s incredible. (it is a copy-and-paste of the transcript because the actual interview is no longer available online; you’ll see why when you read it.) It might be one of the best interviews ever heard a bishop of the Church given in our own age. Please feel free to pass this on.
CAMERA ON / BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER: Welcome Cardinal.
BERGOGLIO: Thank you. Happy to speak with you.
REPORTER: Well, let me get into it directly. Last conclave, you were almost elected Pope. Can this happen again?
BERGOGLIO: What? That I will almost be the Pope, again?
REPORTER: No. Will you be the next Pope?
BERGOGLIO: Friend, I’m only jesting with you. I understand the question. I will not be the next Pope.
REPORTER: Why not?
BERGOGLIO: I chose not to. God has someone else in mind I’m certain.
REPORTER: But you would take the job if it were offered.
BERGOGLIO: I think not.
REPORTER: Why not.
BERGOGLIO: I believe I’m too embroiled in the secular fiasco. It is a spiritual job and I’m a soldier. Look at the nature of power. In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power. I’ve been a keen observer of the effect this has on the people, especially the poor. They are very good at creating poverty where there is no reason to explain it. My job is try to alleviate poverty and if that means to oppose ‘the cause’ then I will not be Pope.
REPORTER: But you are worried you would be a spend thrift pope?
BERGOGLIO: Friend. Where did you go to school?
REPORTER: La Salle College High School in Pennsylvania and….
BERGOGLIO: And after that?
REPORTER: College of the Holy Cross.
BERGOGLIO: They told me you were Catholic. Once elected the Pope is by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error. God would change any spend thrift politician into a responsible Pope. I’m just saying I’m not that man.
REPORTER: So what is your job?
BERGOGLIO: My job is to ask you, “why are men creating poverty?”
REPORTER: What do you mean?
BERGOGLIO: I mean that poverty is part of the natural condition and that is bad enough. But my task is to prevent the aggravation of this condition. The ideology that adds to the poverty must be denounced. I have and this is the reason I will not be Pope. I have a saying for myself, “No more poverty than God originally intended in the fall from Grace.”
REPORTER: Oh.
BERGOGLIO: It is a spiritual choice and I’m a political person. I’m sorry. I know you will make more money from this interview if I’m Pope. Or want to be Pope. But I’m sorry. I can’t help you. God has already chosen someone anyway. Right? You learned this in school?
REPORTER: Yes. Well… Where are you on the issues that matter most, issues about contraception, women priests?
BERGOGLIO: This might be a surprise to you, but I am Catholic. We are Catholic. It isn't an issue, and for you to pretend that it is being debated goes against God.
REPORTER: If you were Pope then you would not change anything.
BERGOGLIO: Certainly God would direct the new Pope to have more compassion for these newly created poor. And if there is any social justice in the Church, the new Pope would have a stern word for the creators of the new situation.
REPORTER: But you are staunchly orthodox on the issues of abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage.
BERGOGLIO: I am Catholic.
REPORTER: You were punished for opposed same-sex marriage in Argentina. You opposed free contraception and the government exiled you. What do you have to say about that?
BERGOGLIO: I am Catholic.
REPORTER: In the secular world, as you say, you follow the conservative line. You oppose, uh, same-sex marriages, very popular with young people. You are conservative on birth control. Won’t that be the doom of the Church, alienating young people who support reality based faith?
BERGOGLIO: Since God created the world, he also created reality. You seem to be arguing that a man can’t be Catholic in reality. Son, you are a Catholic?
REPORTER: Yes, of course. I meant no disrespect.
BERGOGLIO: You don’t have to worry about offending me.
REPORTER: Okay, good. Can a, uh, Pope even be elected if he is pro-choice or pro-love? I mean isn’t the election sort of fixed in favor of anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, the election is fixed by God.
REPORTER: Very witty.
BERGOGLIO: Well, you did ask.
REPORTER: It is being reported in America that you are against marriage equality. Is that why you feel that you can’t be Pope?
BERGOGLIO: God chooses the Pope and God also made men and women different.
REPORTER: But you are ...a conservative and oppose abortion!
BERGOGLIO: Friend, the expression on your face gives you away.
REPORTER: I’m sorry, I’m just trying to do my job.
BERGOGLIO: And what job is that?
REPORTER: I’ve been sent to interview eight men in line for the papacy.
BERGOGLIO: And I guarantee you that they all oppose abortion. So…
REPORTER: But…
BERGOGLIO: So, you feel like you need to alienate the eight from the flock?
REPORTER: That isn’t it. How can the church attract young people when it is opposed to abortion and contraception?
BERGOGLIO: Young people are just as attracted to the truth as they are convenience and expediency. So we will call it a draw.
REPORTER: Doesn't the church need to modernize?
BERGOGLIO: Finally, I’ve met someone who will advocate publicly painting over the Sistine Chapel with one of the contemporary street artists. Are you sure you support this and in public?
REPORTER: What?
BERGOGLIO: Forgive me, I was rude.
REPORTER: Won’t the new pope, don't these cardinals realize what they've gotta do if they want to attract young people to the church?
BERGOGLIO: I am a cardinal.
REPORTER: Won’t the new pope, don't you and the other cardinals realize what they must do if they want to attract young people to the church?
BERGOGLIO: I’ve explained the mysteries of the atom to rural young people and also I’ve explained the grace of God. And you know what? They can understand both perfectly well. Frankly, I have more trouble with adults understanding both.
REPORTER: But they have done focus groups; if you want to spread your message you can't have this position that's anti-gay marriage and anti-contraception.
BERGOGLIO: And you treat the church as a political institution.
REPORTER: So we were not gonna see any kind of change when it comes to things that matter like abortion or gay marriage?
BERGOGLIO: All eight of the men you will be talking to are Catholic.
REPORTER: Okay, I understand. Let’s talk about your controversial stand on poverty.
BERGOGLIO: You want it to be controversial?
REPORTER: But don’t you blame various governments around the world for poverty?
BERGOGLIO: Some. Yes.
REPORTER: But you refuse to blame corporations for their role.
BERGOGLIO: Okay, they also told me you have a degree in economics. No buyer, or seller either, enters into any exchange against his will. It is the nature of the economy. Man is frail, and he makes mistakes and sometimes is greedy and they enter into exchanges that don’t help them. Sometimes they become poor, but they made choices. There is nothing the Church can do except try to educate people to become good consumers. Chiefly, for me, it is an education solution on that side. And the Church has more schools around the globe than any other faith. I say teach the people to save their souls, and also teach them how not to become poor. And now not to allow the government to trick them into poverty.
REPORTER: And you blame government.
BERGOGLIO: No, I blame the self-serving politicians.
REPORTER: So your solution to poverty is to change the nature of politics?
BERGOGLIO: Please feel free to broadcast this; I don’t want to be pope. Friend, you are a socialist and your friends are socialists. And you are the reason for 70 years of misery in Russia, and Europe now is seizing in pain from your policies. You believe in the redistribution of wealth and it makes entire populations poor. You want to nationalize everything and bring every human endeavor under your control. You destroy a man’s incentive to take care of his very own family, a crime against nature and nature’s God. You want social control over populations and incrementally you are making everything against the law. Together this ideology creates more poverty today than all the corporations you vilify have in the history of man.
REPORTER: I’ve never heard such from a Cardinal. I’m not sure if you are here to help yourself or disqualify yourself.
BERGOGLIO: Please air this interview. People being dominated by socialists need to know we don’t all have to be poor. Some poverty is part of our being cast out of the Garden of Eden. But look at the empire of dependency created by Hugo Chavez. Promising them, tricking them into worship of government and his very own person. Giving them fish but not allowing them to fish. If a fisherman does develop a talent today in Latin America; he is castigated and his catch stolen by the socialists. He stops…
REPORTER: You would be the first pope from the Americas.
BERGOGLIO: He stops fishing. I will not be pope, but yes I am from Argentina.
REPORTER: And you didn't want to be pope?
BERGOGLIO: God didn’t want me to be pope.
REPORTER: Perhaps he changed his mind.
BERGOGLIO: Ludicrous.
REPORTER: Okay, I’m sorry. I feel like we are getting off on the wrong path. I’m sorry.
BERGOGLIO: Yes, let’s be productive.
REPORTER: You are a classic conservative Catholic theologian?
BERGOGLIO: Of course there's politics clearly in the Curia throughout the Vatican, but in terms of church teaching, it's not a political institution. It's religious.
REPORTER: I heard people, in fact, media people, "Is this cardinal, is he a liberal? Is he a conservative?"
BERGOGLIO: Tell them please, “He's a Catholic.” It's no more complicated than that. Catholicism is what it is. You don't have to believe it; you may not. You don't have to follow it; you may not go to Mass. But it's not up to you to modernize us.
REPORTER: You see no room for reform?
BERGOGLIO: It's not up to any religion, although some do this, 'cause they want the money. They want the membership. But the Catholic Church doesn't do it. It's not up to them to bend and shape and mold itself to accommodate the shrinking depravity of a worldwide culture. It's to provide the exact opposite. It's to provide a beacon out of depravity, socialism and sin, among other things.
REPORTER: If pope you would be bad news for the left.
BERGOGLIO: I won’t be pope. But I am opposed to abortion. I’m opposed to euthanasia. The pro-choice movement is a culture of death. I oppose the demonic same-sex marriage. I oppose gay adoption on the grounds that it is discriminatory to the child. I was exiled by the Cristina Kirchner government, but I hold no grudge. How is this bad news?
REPORTER: John Paul II rescued you?
BERGOGLIO: He made me the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Yes.
REPORTER: And so you feel like you owe the Right some sort of repayment?
BERGOGLIO: There are many values… and many types of people. Perhaps it is my interest in mathematics, but I’m the type of human who is interested most in the truth. God gave me a healthy love for the truth. Loyalty is only a virtue if in support of the truth or another important value.
REPORTER: Cristina Kirchner said you held a grudge.
BERGOGLIO: Funny I’ve never spoken her name. Not once. And it is a battle of ideas not a battle of two or more people. I’m only concerned with ideas.
REPORTER: She said you refused to speak up for civil rights violations.
BERGOGLIO: As a spiritual leader, I opposed cultural modernization, and so I became a political enemy. I understand politics as well as I do mathematics.
REPORTER: And the Jesuits, they were eager to cast you out, which they did.
BERGOGLIO: So you are implying that I’m a vengeful priest?
REPORTER: Do you feel that you need to erase the progress recently made in Latin America?
BERGOGLIO: I say “poverty”. You say “progress”.
REPORTER: Let’s talk about poverty.
BERGOGLIO: Sure, there is voluntary poverty that is virtuous. Many understood the nobility of making themselves independent of the fleeting things of earth. They are distractions from our pursuit of the truth. I have no problem with this. I only oppose involuntary poverty.
REPORTER: That is what I thought you would say.
BERGOGLIO: Why?
REPORTER: Because you are a capitalist right?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, I think capital is needed to build a factory, a parochial school, or a church or hospital, all. Do you oppose factories or churches or hospitals?
REPORTER: Of course not but don’t you think the capital is sucked out of people’s hands by greedy business types to pay for these factories?
BERGOGLIO: No, I think people agree, through their economic choices, that some of their money goes to build these. Capital building should be voluntary. Only when the politician confiscates their wealth, to build government factories, government schools, government hospitals; only then do the people not agree. Money given voluntarily is legitimate to build with. Money coerced from the people is not legitimate to build with, because it isn’t given voluntarily.
REPORTER: You are opposed to all government?
BERGOGLIO: No of course not. But it isn’t the seat of wisdom in any society I’ve seen in my life. The best government was created by the Americans, in which they admitted that people are “endowed by their Creator” and most of the administration of society was left to the relationship between God and man. However, slowly that has been eroded by the atheists on the left, who would replace man’s relationship with God with a new relationship with an opportunist like Hugo Chavez.
REPORTER: I just found it fascinating that you were willing to stand up to an entire government in Argentina. You where cast aside. Didn’t you care about your career?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, there are people who cave to worldly authority. Even priests.
REPORTER: But you didn’t?
BERGOGLIO: No, I changed nothing. How did I have the power to change anything in church teaching? My opinion? The democrats, seeking votes, only wanted me to change my opinion and legitimize their decadence. I did not, as evidenced by the fact that I was teaching high school math in small isolated town.
REPORTER: I’m sorry that happened to you.
BERGOGLIO: Why don’t you feel for others oppressed for their interest in freedom.
REPORTER: Freedom isn’t punished anywhere, is it?
BERGOGLIO: Certainly it is.
REPORTER: In Latin America?
BERGOGLIO: I’m afraid Latin America is lost. The people of the entire area are controlled by a bloc of militant “socialist” regimes in the region, most prominently Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. They have a gun pointed at their head. So their heart is now captured. Who will save them at this point?
REPORTER: So the game is over. Checkmate?
BERGOGLIO: Friend, I’ve been studying America this month, before the Pope chose to resign. You must not have fear at speaking the truth. It is for the salvation of souls and the recovery of Thomas Jefferson’s people. America must not fall to the new painted communism. Even the low information voters don’t want America to be sold into slavery. I pray they cast out the money changers in their government! What manner of government is there that condones sin? Abomination upon abomination--giving monies for the murder of children, giving monies for the murder of the elderly! You are an American. Your government, my child, has been infiltrated by men of sin.
REPORTER: These are pretty radical ideas.
BERGOGLIO: No. Perhaps reactionary. Radical means something different. But a very long time ago, Khrushchev warned that we cannot expect Americans to fly from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small injections of socialism until they suddenly awake to find out they have Communism. This is what is happening now in an ancient bastion of freedom. How can America save Latin America when they are slaves to the government themselves?
REPORTER: I’m having a hard time digesting most of this.
BERGOGLIO: The truth can be painful. You look angry; do you want to stop or ask a question? … But you have created a new type of state, the so-called ‘welfare state.’ This has happened in order to respond to the needs of the politically created poor. However, intervening directly is depriving the original society of its responsibility. Families escape responsibility in the welfare state. And churches even escape responsibility. People stop giving to charity and see every poor person as the government’s problem. I am a Catholic priest and there are no poor for me to take care of, they are made permanently poor and the property of the politicians.
REPORTER: I’m not sure this interview is going to work.
BERGOGLIO: You asked and now you will listen, my son. The social assistance state leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic thinking than by real concern for helping people. Needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them who act as neighbors and parish members to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. This is not to mention the welfare state’s excesses and abuses.
REPORTER: I think we are done.
BERGOGLIO: Wait. If I speak on the ordination of women, on celibacy, on divorce, will you air this interview and my message?
REPORTER: No, we are done.
BERGOGLIO: Partially what irritates me to the core is the media’s inability to look at anything without looking into the cause of the various problems. People are made poor so they will vote for the very candidates that made them poor.
REPORTER: Have a nice day and thanks for your time.
CAMERA OFF / END TRANSCRIPT
CAMERA ON / BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER: Welcome Cardinal.
BERGOGLIO: Thank you. Happy to speak with you.
REPORTER: Well, let me get into it directly. Last conclave, you were almost elected Pope. Can this happen again?
BERGOGLIO: What? That I will almost be the Pope, again?
REPORTER: No. Will you be the next Pope?
BERGOGLIO: Friend, I’m only jesting with you. I understand the question. I will not be the next Pope.
REPORTER: Why not?
BERGOGLIO: I chose not to. God has someone else in mind I’m certain.
REPORTER: But you would take the job if it were offered.
BERGOGLIO: I think not.
REPORTER: Why not.
BERGOGLIO: I believe I’m too embroiled in the secular fiasco. It is a spiritual job and I’m a soldier. Look at the nature of power. In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power. I’ve been a keen observer of the effect this has on the people, especially the poor. They are very good at creating poverty where there is no reason to explain it. My job is try to alleviate poverty and if that means to oppose ‘the cause’ then I will not be Pope.
REPORTER: But you are worried you would be a spend thrift pope?
BERGOGLIO: Friend. Where did you go to school?
REPORTER: La Salle College High School in Pennsylvania and….
BERGOGLIO: And after that?
REPORTER: College of the Holy Cross.
BERGOGLIO: They told me you were Catholic. Once elected the Pope is by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error. God would change any spend thrift politician into a responsible Pope. I’m just saying I’m not that man.
REPORTER: So what is your job?
BERGOGLIO: My job is to ask you, “why are men creating poverty?”
REPORTER: What do you mean?
BERGOGLIO: I mean that poverty is part of the natural condition and that is bad enough. But my task is to prevent the aggravation of this condition. The ideology that adds to the poverty must be denounced. I have and this is the reason I will not be Pope. I have a saying for myself, “No more poverty than God originally intended in the fall from Grace.”
REPORTER: Oh.
BERGOGLIO: It is a spiritual choice and I’m a political person. I’m sorry. I know you will make more money from this interview if I’m Pope. Or want to be Pope. But I’m sorry. I can’t help you. God has already chosen someone anyway. Right? You learned this in school?
REPORTER: Yes. Well… Where are you on the issues that matter most, issues about contraception, women priests?
BERGOGLIO: This might be a surprise to you, but I am Catholic. We are Catholic. It isn't an issue, and for you to pretend that it is being debated goes against God.
REPORTER: If you were Pope then you would not change anything.
BERGOGLIO: Certainly God would direct the new Pope to have more compassion for these newly created poor. And if there is any social justice in the Church, the new Pope would have a stern word for the creators of the new situation.
REPORTER: But you are staunchly orthodox on the issues of abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage.
BERGOGLIO: I am Catholic.
REPORTER: You were punished for opposed same-sex marriage in Argentina. You opposed free contraception and the government exiled you. What do you have to say about that?
BERGOGLIO: I am Catholic.
REPORTER: In the secular world, as you say, you follow the conservative line. You oppose, uh, same-sex marriages, very popular with young people. You are conservative on birth control. Won’t that be the doom of the Church, alienating young people who support reality based faith?
BERGOGLIO: Since God created the world, he also created reality. You seem to be arguing that a man can’t be Catholic in reality. Son, you are a Catholic?
REPORTER: Yes, of course. I meant no disrespect.
BERGOGLIO: You don’t have to worry about offending me.
REPORTER: Okay, good. Can a, uh, Pope even be elected if he is pro-choice or pro-love? I mean isn’t the election sort of fixed in favor of anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, the election is fixed by God.
REPORTER: Very witty.
BERGOGLIO: Well, you did ask.
REPORTER: It is being reported in America that you are against marriage equality. Is that why you feel that you can’t be Pope?
BERGOGLIO: God chooses the Pope and God also made men and women different.
REPORTER: But you are ...a conservative and oppose abortion!
BERGOGLIO: Friend, the expression on your face gives you away.
REPORTER: I’m sorry, I’m just trying to do my job.
BERGOGLIO: And what job is that?
REPORTER: I’ve been sent to interview eight men in line for the papacy.
BERGOGLIO: And I guarantee you that they all oppose abortion. So…
REPORTER: But…
BERGOGLIO: So, you feel like you need to alienate the eight from the flock?
REPORTER: That isn’t it. How can the church attract young people when it is opposed to abortion and contraception?
BERGOGLIO: Young people are just as attracted to the truth as they are convenience and expediency. So we will call it a draw.
REPORTER: Doesn't the church need to modernize?
BERGOGLIO: Finally, I’ve met someone who will advocate publicly painting over the Sistine Chapel with one of the contemporary street artists. Are you sure you support this and in public?
REPORTER: What?
BERGOGLIO: Forgive me, I was rude.
REPORTER: Won’t the new pope, don't these cardinals realize what they've gotta do if they want to attract young people to the church?
BERGOGLIO: I am a cardinal.
REPORTER: Won’t the new pope, don't you and the other cardinals realize what they must do if they want to attract young people to the church?
BERGOGLIO: I’ve explained the mysteries of the atom to rural young people and also I’ve explained the grace of God. And you know what? They can understand both perfectly well. Frankly, I have more trouble with adults understanding both.
REPORTER: But they have done focus groups; if you want to spread your message you can't have this position that's anti-gay marriage and anti-contraception.
BERGOGLIO: And you treat the church as a political institution.
REPORTER: So we were not gonna see any kind of change when it comes to things that matter like abortion or gay marriage?
BERGOGLIO: All eight of the men you will be talking to are Catholic.
REPORTER: Okay, I understand. Let’s talk about your controversial stand on poverty.
BERGOGLIO: You want it to be controversial?
REPORTER: But don’t you blame various governments around the world for poverty?
BERGOGLIO: Some. Yes.
REPORTER: But you refuse to blame corporations for their role.
BERGOGLIO: Okay, they also told me you have a degree in economics. No buyer, or seller either, enters into any exchange against his will. It is the nature of the economy. Man is frail, and he makes mistakes and sometimes is greedy and they enter into exchanges that don’t help them. Sometimes they become poor, but they made choices. There is nothing the Church can do except try to educate people to become good consumers. Chiefly, for me, it is an education solution on that side. And the Church has more schools around the globe than any other faith. I say teach the people to save their souls, and also teach them how not to become poor. And now not to allow the government to trick them into poverty.
REPORTER: And you blame government.
BERGOGLIO: No, I blame the self-serving politicians.
REPORTER: So your solution to poverty is to change the nature of politics?
BERGOGLIO: Please feel free to broadcast this; I don’t want to be pope. Friend, you are a socialist and your friends are socialists. And you are the reason for 70 years of misery in Russia, and Europe now is seizing in pain from your policies. You believe in the redistribution of wealth and it makes entire populations poor. You want to nationalize everything and bring every human endeavor under your control. You destroy a man’s incentive to take care of his very own family, a crime against nature and nature’s God. You want social control over populations and incrementally you are making everything against the law. Together this ideology creates more poverty today than all the corporations you vilify have in the history of man.
REPORTER: I’ve never heard such from a Cardinal. I’m not sure if you are here to help yourself or disqualify yourself.
BERGOGLIO: Please air this interview. People being dominated by socialists need to know we don’t all have to be poor. Some poverty is part of our being cast out of the Garden of Eden. But look at the empire of dependency created by Hugo Chavez. Promising them, tricking them into worship of government and his very own person. Giving them fish but not allowing them to fish. If a fisherman does develop a talent today in Latin America; he is castigated and his catch stolen by the socialists. He stops…
REPORTER: You would be the first pope from the Americas.
BERGOGLIO: He stops fishing. I will not be pope, but yes I am from Argentina.
REPORTER: And you didn't want to be pope?
BERGOGLIO: God didn’t want me to be pope.
REPORTER: Perhaps he changed his mind.
BERGOGLIO: Ludicrous.
REPORTER: Okay, I’m sorry. I feel like we are getting off on the wrong path. I’m sorry.
BERGOGLIO: Yes, let’s be productive.
REPORTER: You are a classic conservative Catholic theologian?
BERGOGLIO: Of course there's politics clearly in the Curia throughout the Vatican, but in terms of church teaching, it's not a political institution. It's religious.
REPORTER: I heard people, in fact, media people, "Is this cardinal, is he a liberal? Is he a conservative?"
BERGOGLIO: Tell them please, “He's a Catholic.” It's no more complicated than that. Catholicism is what it is. You don't have to believe it; you may not. You don't have to follow it; you may not go to Mass. But it's not up to you to modernize us.
REPORTER: You see no room for reform?
BERGOGLIO: It's not up to any religion, although some do this, 'cause they want the money. They want the membership. But the Catholic Church doesn't do it. It's not up to them to bend and shape and mold itself to accommodate the shrinking depravity of a worldwide culture. It's to provide the exact opposite. It's to provide a beacon out of depravity, socialism and sin, among other things.
REPORTER: If pope you would be bad news for the left.
BERGOGLIO: I won’t be pope. But I am opposed to abortion. I’m opposed to euthanasia. The pro-choice movement is a culture of death. I oppose the demonic same-sex marriage. I oppose gay adoption on the grounds that it is discriminatory to the child. I was exiled by the Cristina Kirchner government, but I hold no grudge. How is this bad news?
REPORTER: John Paul II rescued you?
BERGOGLIO: He made me the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Yes.
REPORTER: And so you feel like you owe the Right some sort of repayment?
BERGOGLIO: There are many values… and many types of people. Perhaps it is my interest in mathematics, but I’m the type of human who is interested most in the truth. God gave me a healthy love for the truth. Loyalty is only a virtue if in support of the truth or another important value.
REPORTER: Cristina Kirchner said you held a grudge.
BERGOGLIO: Funny I’ve never spoken her name. Not once. And it is a battle of ideas not a battle of two or more people. I’m only concerned with ideas.
REPORTER: She said you refused to speak up for civil rights violations.
BERGOGLIO: As a spiritual leader, I opposed cultural modernization, and so I became a political enemy. I understand politics as well as I do mathematics.
REPORTER: And the Jesuits, they were eager to cast you out, which they did.
BERGOGLIO: So you are implying that I’m a vengeful priest?
REPORTER: Do you feel that you need to erase the progress recently made in Latin America?
BERGOGLIO: I say “poverty”. You say “progress”.
REPORTER: Let’s talk about poverty.
BERGOGLIO: Sure, there is voluntary poverty that is virtuous. Many understood the nobility of making themselves independent of the fleeting things of earth. They are distractions from our pursuit of the truth. I have no problem with this. I only oppose involuntary poverty.
REPORTER: That is what I thought you would say.
BERGOGLIO: Why?
REPORTER: Because you are a capitalist right?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, I think capital is needed to build a factory, a parochial school, or a church or hospital, all. Do you oppose factories or churches or hospitals?
REPORTER: Of course not but don’t you think the capital is sucked out of people’s hands by greedy business types to pay for these factories?
BERGOGLIO: No, I think people agree, through their economic choices, that some of their money goes to build these. Capital building should be voluntary. Only when the politician confiscates their wealth, to build government factories, government schools, government hospitals; only then do the people not agree. Money given voluntarily is legitimate to build with. Money coerced from the people is not legitimate to build with, because it isn’t given voluntarily.
REPORTER: You are opposed to all government?
BERGOGLIO: No of course not. But it isn’t the seat of wisdom in any society I’ve seen in my life. The best government was created by the Americans, in which they admitted that people are “endowed by their Creator” and most of the administration of society was left to the relationship between God and man. However, slowly that has been eroded by the atheists on the left, who would replace man’s relationship with God with a new relationship with an opportunist like Hugo Chavez.
REPORTER: I just found it fascinating that you were willing to stand up to an entire government in Argentina. You where cast aside. Didn’t you care about your career?
BERGOGLIO: Yes, there are people who cave to worldly authority. Even priests.
REPORTER: But you didn’t?
BERGOGLIO: No, I changed nothing. How did I have the power to change anything in church teaching? My opinion? The democrats, seeking votes, only wanted me to change my opinion and legitimize their decadence. I did not, as evidenced by the fact that I was teaching high school math in small isolated town.
REPORTER: I’m sorry that happened to you.
BERGOGLIO: Why don’t you feel for others oppressed for their interest in freedom.
REPORTER: Freedom isn’t punished anywhere, is it?
BERGOGLIO: Certainly it is.
REPORTER: In Latin America?
BERGOGLIO: I’m afraid Latin America is lost. The people of the entire area are controlled by a bloc of militant “socialist” regimes in the region, most prominently Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. They have a gun pointed at their head. So their heart is now captured. Who will save them at this point?
REPORTER: So the game is over. Checkmate?
BERGOGLIO: Friend, I’ve been studying America this month, before the Pope chose to resign. You must not have fear at speaking the truth. It is for the salvation of souls and the recovery of Thomas Jefferson’s people. America must not fall to the new painted communism. Even the low information voters don’t want America to be sold into slavery. I pray they cast out the money changers in their government! What manner of government is there that condones sin? Abomination upon abomination--giving monies for the murder of children, giving monies for the murder of the elderly! You are an American. Your government, my child, has been infiltrated by men of sin.
REPORTER: These are pretty radical ideas.
BERGOGLIO: No. Perhaps reactionary. Radical means something different. But a very long time ago, Khrushchev warned that we cannot expect Americans to fly from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small injections of socialism until they suddenly awake to find out they have Communism. This is what is happening now in an ancient bastion of freedom. How can America save Latin America when they are slaves to the government themselves?
REPORTER: I’m having a hard time digesting most of this.
BERGOGLIO: The truth can be painful. You look angry; do you want to stop or ask a question? … But you have created a new type of state, the so-called ‘welfare state.’ This has happened in order to respond to the needs of the politically created poor. However, intervening directly is depriving the original society of its responsibility. Families escape responsibility in the welfare state. And churches even escape responsibility. People stop giving to charity and see every poor person as the government’s problem. I am a Catholic priest and there are no poor for me to take care of, they are made permanently poor and the property of the politicians.
REPORTER: I’m not sure this interview is going to work.
BERGOGLIO: You asked and now you will listen, my son. The social assistance state leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic thinking than by real concern for helping people. Needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them who act as neighbors and parish members to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. This is not to mention the welfare state’s excesses and abuses.
REPORTER: I think we are done.
BERGOGLIO: Wait. If I speak on the ordination of women, on celibacy, on divorce, will you air this interview and my message?
REPORTER: No, we are done.
BERGOGLIO: Partially what irritates me to the core is the media’s inability to look at anything without looking into the cause of the various problems. People are made poor so they will vote for the very candidates that made them poor.
REPORTER: Have a nice day and thanks for your time.
CAMERA OFF / END TRANSCRIPT
Big church groups unite, form
Solidarity for Life and Family;
White Vote Movement launched
Some of the biggest charismatic groups in the country and from among the parish-mandated organizations within the Catholic Church have joined forces to form what they call as the Lay Solidarity for the Preservation of Life and the Filipino Family (Solidarity for Life and Family) and have announced their plan to actively participate in the scheduled May 13, 2013 mid-term elections.
This was disclosed by Bro. Mike Velarde, founder and head servant leader of the El Shaddai Prayer Partners Foundation, Inc., who today also announced the formal launching of the WHITE VOTE MOVEMENT that will operate as the political support group of the Solidarity for Life and Family in line with its decision to endorse and support the candidacies of senatorial candidates who by their actions and conviction have fought for the preservation of life and the Filipino family.
Bro. Mike, who has been designated as the official spokesman of the movement, said that the Solidarity for Life and Family and the White Vote Movement are positioned to become a purveyor of truth in the face of the social ills that plague the country today and also because the church and the Filipino laity need to defend itself from the introduction of the so-called “death bills” that will make a mockery of the sacredness of life and destroy the sanctity of the Filipino family.
He said that the launching of the Solidarity for Life and Family and the White Vote Movement is a shining moment in the country’s secular and temporal history because this is the first time that church-based organizations have agreed to put their God-given gifts towards a discerned purpose and this is manifested by the outpouring of support the movement has received from other parish-mandated organizations, non-governmental organization and other people’s organizations throughout the country.
Bro. Mike said this is also one of several ways the Filipino laity can testify to the resurrection of Christ and that is by uniting our ideals with the ideals of the church to which we belong.
He stressed that in recent months, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines have met and have reached the conclusion that the corruption pervading in our government and society today precedes from the electoral process. This was seen by the church-based organizations as a call to action and this gave birth to the idea of creating an advocacy movement to protect and preserve the sacredness of life as a God-given gift and the sanctity of the family.
For her part, Atty. Aurora Santiago, president of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Laiko) which is the arm of the CBCP that coordinates the church-related activities of the different parish and lay organizations nationwide, said that the Solidarity movement was created when the different movements that have signified their desire to get actively involved in the electoral process approached Laiko for sanctions.
And this is what the Laiko did as it gave its blessings to the different organizations within the church to form a group of convenors that will form the core of what is now known as the Solidarity for Life and Family which means that “this is a purely a lay initiative that is separate from the church as an institution and the only underlying objective is to create a mechanism in which the Christian values are adequately protected and preserved.”
The Laiko, said Atty. Santiago, was brought into the picture because the CBCP per se is barred by Canon Law to get involved in partisan politics and it became the responsibility of the Laiko to give its sanction to the different movements that are promoting a Catholic vote to gather together in one umbrella but that the participation of the Laiko is to ensure that the movement will adhere to the basic tenets of the social teachings of the Church.
Bro. Mike also stressed that the birth of the Solidarity for Life and Family also came into view when Congress passed the controversial RH Bill that was signed into a law by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III and “today the church has to brace itself against what it calls threats to life and family with plans to introduce the legalization of abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and euthanasia.”
The Solidarity for Life and Family, said Bro. Mike, has two primary objectives – one is to support candidates who fought against the RH Bill and the other is to operate as an advocacy group that will stand against any attempt to destroy both the flow of life and the sanctity of marriage through abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and euthanasia.
The Solidarity for Life and Family, Bro. Mike stressed, will be governed by its vision to act as a catalyst that would contribute positively to the life of the Filipino nation by humbly proposing and effectively incorporating the social teachings of the Catholic Church into the moral, spiritual, social and political life of the nation.
In the pursuit of its mission, Bro. Mike said that in response to the challenges we are now experiencing in the spiritual, social and political life of the nation, the Solidarity for Life and Family will strive to encourage measures that promote flourishing of individuals and the communities in which they live, and will act to challenge injustice whether it arises from government actions, economic and business practices, in the education system, in religious institutions and, through the political exercise.
For Filipino families, the Solidarity for Life and Family will help evangelize Filipino families and build communities of faith by promoting personal and family prayer, pro-life values, Catholic social teachings, and stewardship.
The movement is also committed to actively participate in the life and mission of the Church in accord with our God-given gifts to promote subsidiarity, human development and true peace and it will work to alleviate poverty where it exists, housing for the poor, and advocacies for the protection of life from death bills, the preservation of the Filipino Family, adherence to Christian values based on our belief that we who comprise the Filipino nation have equal worth and dignity without regard to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or class.
Bro. Mike said the Solidarity for Life and Family shall also promote the protection of the environment and, good governance through an active participation in the democratic processes such as public forums, social media, communications and more importantly through the ballot.
The involvement of the Filipino laity in politics, according to Bro. Mike, is expressly stated in Paragraph 899 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which says: “The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: 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.”
The participation of the laity in political activities is also stated in Art. No. 8, No. 1 of the Plenary Council of the Philippines II that says: “The mission of the laity is the same as that of the entire church which is to renew the political order according to gospel principles and values.”
The PCP-II in fact also provided specific guidelines for the political involvement of the laity and these are that:
1. The basic standard is the pursuit of the common good.
2. It must be characterized by a defense and promotion of justice.
3. Inspired and guided by the spirit of service.
4. Imbued with a love or preference for the poor.
5. And to empower people as a process and as the goal of political activity.
And more recently, even the Synod of Bishops that was held last year at the Vatican saw the need for the laity to participate in politics and this was contained in Paragraph No. 10 of the Closing Message of the Synod of Bishops: “A field in which the light of the Gospel can and must shine in order to illuminate humanity's footsteps is politics. Politics requires a commitment of selfless and sincere care for the common good by fully respecting the dignity of the human person from conception to natural end, honoring the family founded by the marriage of a man and a woman and protecting academic freedom; by removing the causes of injustice, inequality, discrimination, violence, racism, hunger and war. Christians are asked to give a clear witness to the precept of charity in the exercise of politics.”
Thus Bro. Mike said that there shouldn’t be any doubt in the minds of every Filipino laity of the righteousness of their getting involved in political activities and this is particularly crucial because the participation of the laity in the coming elections on May 13, 2013 is what will lead the Filipino people in crossing the threshold of poverty and this can only be possible if the people will use their right of suffrage wisely and by way of an informed choice to elect capable and qualified leaders who will defend life and the Filipino family.
The Filipino nation, Bro. Mike pointed out, should look for leaders who will protect and preserve life and the Filipino family which is enshrined in the Constitution; who will execute its laws; who will dispense justice to every man; and most importantly to consecrate themselves to the service of the nation according to Gospel values.
This is also the reason why the Solidarity for Life and Family is now in the process of discernment and will announce its choice of eight (8) senatorial candidates that
it will support in the May 13, 2013 polls and this will be announced on April 13, 2013 during the overnight vigil of the El Shaddai Prayer Partners at the Amvel Complex in Paranaque City. A separate committee on education has also been going around the different Archdiocese and Dioceses throughout the country and has been conducting workshops to educate the laity on how to come up with an informed choice that will guide them in electing the right leaders.
The list of candidates the movement will support may be increased to 10 or even to the full complement of 12 candidates depending on the process of discernment that is now taking place, said Bro. Mike, who added that the White Vote Movement which has established its network nationwide will also actively campaign to support the candidates it has endorsed to ensure their electoral victory at the polls.
This was disclosed by Bro. Mike Velarde, founder and head servant leader of the El Shaddai Prayer Partners Foundation, Inc., who today also announced the formal launching of the WHITE VOTE MOVEMENT that will operate as the political support group of the Solidarity for Life and Family in line with its decision to endorse and support the candidacies of senatorial candidates who by their actions and conviction have fought for the preservation of life and the Filipino family.
Bro. Mike, who has been designated as the official spokesman of the movement, said that the Solidarity for Life and Family and the White Vote Movement are positioned to become a purveyor of truth in the face of the social ills that plague the country today and also because the church and the Filipino laity need to defend itself from the introduction of the so-called “death bills” that will make a mockery of the sacredness of life and destroy the sanctity of the Filipino family.
He said that the launching of the Solidarity for Life and Family and the White Vote Movement is a shining moment in the country’s secular and temporal history because this is the first time that church-based organizations have agreed to put their God-given gifts towards a discerned purpose and this is manifested by the outpouring of support the movement has received from other parish-mandated organizations, non-governmental organization and other people’s organizations throughout the country.
Bro. Mike said this is also one of several ways the Filipino laity can testify to the resurrection of Christ and that is by uniting our ideals with the ideals of the church to which we belong.
He stressed that in recent months, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines have met and have reached the conclusion that the corruption pervading in our government and society today precedes from the electoral process. This was seen by the church-based organizations as a call to action and this gave birth to the idea of creating an advocacy movement to protect and preserve the sacredness of life as a God-given gift and the sanctity of the family.
For her part, Atty. Aurora Santiago, president of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Laiko) which is the arm of the CBCP that coordinates the church-related activities of the different parish and lay organizations nationwide, said that the Solidarity movement was created when the different movements that have signified their desire to get actively involved in the electoral process approached Laiko for sanctions.
And this is what the Laiko did as it gave its blessings to the different organizations within the church to form a group of convenors that will form the core of what is now known as the Solidarity for Life and Family which means that “this is a purely a lay initiative that is separate from the church as an institution and the only underlying objective is to create a mechanism in which the Christian values are adequately protected and preserved.”
The Laiko, said Atty. Santiago, was brought into the picture because the CBCP per se is barred by Canon Law to get involved in partisan politics and it became the responsibility of the Laiko to give its sanction to the different movements that are promoting a Catholic vote to gather together in one umbrella but that the participation of the Laiko is to ensure that the movement will adhere to the basic tenets of the social teachings of the Church.
Bro. Mike also stressed that the birth of the Solidarity for Life and Family also came into view when Congress passed the controversial RH Bill that was signed into a law by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III and “today the church has to brace itself against what it calls threats to life and family with plans to introduce the legalization of abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and euthanasia.”
The Solidarity for Life and Family, said Bro. Mike, has two primary objectives – one is to support candidates who fought against the RH Bill and the other is to operate as an advocacy group that will stand against any attempt to destroy both the flow of life and the sanctity of marriage through abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and euthanasia.
The Solidarity for Life and Family, Bro. Mike stressed, will be governed by its vision to act as a catalyst that would contribute positively to the life of the Filipino nation by humbly proposing and effectively incorporating the social teachings of the Catholic Church into the moral, spiritual, social and political life of the nation.
In the pursuit of its mission, Bro. Mike said that in response to the challenges we are now experiencing in the spiritual, social and political life of the nation, the Solidarity for Life and Family will strive to encourage measures that promote flourishing of individuals and the communities in which they live, and will act to challenge injustice whether it arises from government actions, economic and business practices, in the education system, in religious institutions and, through the political exercise.
For Filipino families, the Solidarity for Life and Family will help evangelize Filipino families and build communities of faith by promoting personal and family prayer, pro-life values, Catholic social teachings, and stewardship.
The movement is also committed to actively participate in the life and mission of the Church in accord with our God-given gifts to promote subsidiarity, human development and true peace and it will work to alleviate poverty where it exists, housing for the poor, and advocacies for the protection of life from death bills, the preservation of the Filipino Family, adherence to Christian values based on our belief that we who comprise the Filipino nation have equal worth and dignity without regard to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or class.
Bro. Mike said the Solidarity for Life and Family shall also promote the protection of the environment and, good governance through an active participation in the democratic processes such as public forums, social media, communications and more importantly through the ballot.
The involvement of the Filipino laity in politics, according to Bro. Mike, is expressly stated in Paragraph 899 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which says: “The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: 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.”
The participation of the laity in political activities is also stated in Art. No. 8, No. 1 of the Plenary Council of the Philippines II that says: “The mission of the laity is the same as that of the entire church which is to renew the political order according to gospel principles and values.”
The PCP-II in fact also provided specific guidelines for the political involvement of the laity and these are that:
1. The basic standard is the pursuit of the common good.
2. It must be characterized by a defense and promotion of justice.
3. Inspired and guided by the spirit of service.
4. Imbued with a love or preference for the poor.
5. And to empower people as a process and as the goal of political activity.
And more recently, even the Synod of Bishops that was held last year at the Vatican saw the need for the laity to participate in politics and this was contained in Paragraph No. 10 of the Closing Message of the Synod of Bishops: “A field in which the light of the Gospel can and must shine in order to illuminate humanity's footsteps is politics. Politics requires a commitment of selfless and sincere care for the common good by fully respecting the dignity of the human person from conception to natural end, honoring the family founded by the marriage of a man and a woman and protecting academic freedom; by removing the causes of injustice, inequality, discrimination, violence, racism, hunger and war. Christians are asked to give a clear witness to the precept of charity in the exercise of politics.”
Thus Bro. Mike said that there shouldn’t be any doubt in the minds of every Filipino laity of the righteousness of their getting involved in political activities and this is particularly crucial because the participation of the laity in the coming elections on May 13, 2013 is what will lead the Filipino people in crossing the threshold of poverty and this can only be possible if the people will use their right of suffrage wisely and by way of an informed choice to elect capable and qualified leaders who will defend life and the Filipino family.
The Filipino nation, Bro. Mike pointed out, should look for leaders who will protect and preserve life and the Filipino family which is enshrined in the Constitution; who will execute its laws; who will dispense justice to every man; and most importantly to consecrate themselves to the service of the nation according to Gospel values.
This is also the reason why the Solidarity for Life and Family is now in the process of discernment and will announce its choice of eight (8) senatorial candidates that
it will support in the May 13, 2013 polls and this will be announced on April 13, 2013 during the overnight vigil of the El Shaddai Prayer Partners at the Amvel Complex in Paranaque City. A separate committee on education has also been going around the different Archdiocese and Dioceses throughout the country and has been conducting workshops to educate the laity on how to come up with an informed choice that will guide them in electing the right leaders.
The list of candidates the movement will support may be increased to 10 or even to the full complement of 12 candidates depending on the process of discernment that is now taking place, said Bro. Mike, who added that the White Vote Movement which has established its network nationwide will also actively campaign to support the candidates it has endorsed to ensure their electoral victory at the polls.
JESUS IS CHRIST IS COUNTING ON YOU!
IF YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN, THEN WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN THE LAY SOLIDARITY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LIFE AND THE FILIPINO FAMILY or for short the SOLIDARITY FOR LIFE AND FAMILY. THIS IS A MOVEMENT THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF WHICH IS TO DEFEND THE SACREDNESS OF LIFE AND THE SANCTITY OF THE FAMILY.
Please click on this link to gain more insights on what the Solidarity for Life and Family is all about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lrY3URXN0&feature=youtu.be
Please click on this link to gain more insights on what the Solidarity for Life and Family is all about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lrY3URXN0&feature=youtu.be
IT'S TIME
(This is an excerpt from an article written by the late Sonny delos Reyes, former president of the Council of the Laity of the Philippines and founding Elder of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community and the Serviam Charismatic Community.)
The reality is that there is a surprisingly large number of Catholics — both clergy, religious and laity –who exclaim: “IT’S TIME.” It’s time that the spiritual, moral and social interests of the faith (and to be sure, of other faiths) be made a legitimate and operative issue in the selection of candidates and in the conduct of governance. It’s time that Catholics stand up for the principles they preach and labor to live out, in the face of blatant secularism and commercialism — principles upholding not merely the doctrines of Catholicism, but the common tenets of Christianity.
It’s time we try to galvanize (at least Catholics and other persuasions as well), into acting politically in one mind and heart and one spirit, to proclaim the gospel of Christ and move for a social order compatible with the social teachings of the Church. It’s time we put political pressure on or government respect our non-negotiable pro-life principles instead of selling them down the river, to gain from geo-political and international trade advantages which benefit only the rich. It’s time we put our efforts and resources into integrating faith and life in the ONLY country where fidelity to the Magisterium is still a unifying element among the active Catholic lay leadership.
The Catholic vote is an expressed standard of political belief and advocacy: when a citizen votes or stands for a principle or tenet (or supports a candidate who personifies such stand), upbuilding a clearly Catholic position, as defined by either the Magisterium or the Catholic Bishop’s Conference. The voter or advocate defends or pursues this position politically removed from interests or group he or she belongs to — be it family, neighborhood, business, patronage groups, sector, member of a political dynasty or party, a loyal follower of a popular personality, or a beneficiary of money. Thus he/she takes a position largely because of his or her Catholic principles.
The emergence of this Catholic vote seems inexorable, if any fidelity at all is to be given to the acts or decrees of the Second Plenary Council;
“…politics has been an obstacle to integral development…”(1991 PCPII, #348)
“…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.” (1991, PCPII, #348)
“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.” (1991, PCPII, #350)
If we are to envision the Church of the Future, perhaps we must see the need to raise a new brand of disciples – those whose missions will be, beyond teaching the gospel for others to hear and know, to infuse the word of God into our public policies, and to enshrine the gospel in our national lifestyle.
Perhaps, a new breed of martyrs, radical witnesses to the Lord, should be raised up to challenge the prevailing doctrines of this secular humanism in our nation which as Ralph Martin expresses in “A Crisis of Truth”, undermines the authentic word of God – not so much by rabid denial, but by the more devious and harmful tactics of fraudulence and nominalism.
It is imperative for our Philippine Church to have an enlightened, vocal, and uncompromising leadership. And the core element of this is the very quality which enabled the first Christians to survive and even proliferate, in spite of widespread rejection and open persecution: a unity of heart and mind.
“The community of believers were of one heart and mind.” Acts 4:32
In faith, God’s people in this nation shall, in due time, be of one will in electing true disciples of Christ into the political offices of the nation. If the Holy Spirit is to empower the faithful in our vision of the Church of the Poor and of the Future , we cannot help but confront political issues, structures and systems which clash with the vision of the Church. Crime, corruption, consumerism, patronage politics, are but a few of the issues in which the Catholic faithful must confront in the political sphere. And to tread into this arena of contemporary life with no system, no force, is to ignore the very counsel of the Lord Jesus Christ: “I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Be clever as serpents and gentle as doves.”
The TIME HAS COME.
The reality is that there is a surprisingly large number of Catholics — both clergy, religious and laity –who exclaim: “IT’S TIME.” It’s time that the spiritual, moral and social interests of the faith (and to be sure, of other faiths) be made a legitimate and operative issue in the selection of candidates and in the conduct of governance. It’s time that Catholics stand up for the principles they preach and labor to live out, in the face of blatant secularism and commercialism — principles upholding not merely the doctrines of Catholicism, but the common tenets of Christianity.
It’s time we try to galvanize (at least Catholics and other persuasions as well), into acting politically in one mind and heart and one spirit, to proclaim the gospel of Christ and move for a social order compatible with the social teachings of the Church. It’s time we put political pressure on or government respect our non-negotiable pro-life principles instead of selling them down the river, to gain from geo-political and international trade advantages which benefit only the rich. It’s time we put our efforts and resources into integrating faith and life in the ONLY country where fidelity to the Magisterium is still a unifying element among the active Catholic lay leadership.
The Catholic vote is an expressed standard of political belief and advocacy: when a citizen votes or stands for a principle or tenet (or supports a candidate who personifies such stand), upbuilding a clearly Catholic position, as defined by either the Magisterium or the Catholic Bishop’s Conference. The voter or advocate defends or pursues this position politically removed from interests or group he or she belongs to — be it family, neighborhood, business, patronage groups, sector, member of a political dynasty or party, a loyal follower of a popular personality, or a beneficiary of money. Thus he/she takes a position largely because of his or her Catholic principles.
The emergence of this Catholic vote seems inexorable, if any fidelity at all is to be given to the acts or decrees of the Second Plenary Council;
“…politics has been an obstacle to integral development…”(1991 PCPII, #348)
“…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.” (1991, PCPII, #348)
“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.” (1991, PCPII, #350)
If we are to envision the Church of the Future, perhaps we must see the need to raise a new brand of disciples – those whose missions will be, beyond teaching the gospel for others to hear and know, to infuse the word of God into our public policies, and to enshrine the gospel in our national lifestyle.
Perhaps, a new breed of martyrs, radical witnesses to the Lord, should be raised up to challenge the prevailing doctrines of this secular humanism in our nation which as Ralph Martin expresses in “A Crisis of Truth”, undermines the authentic word of God – not so much by rabid denial, but by the more devious and harmful tactics of fraudulence and nominalism.
It is imperative for our Philippine Church to have an enlightened, vocal, and uncompromising leadership. And the core element of this is the very quality which enabled the first Christians to survive and even proliferate, in spite of widespread rejection and open persecution: a unity of heart and mind.
“The community of believers were of one heart and mind.” Acts 4:32
In faith, God’s people in this nation shall, in due time, be of one will in electing true disciples of Christ into the political offices of the nation. If the Holy Spirit is to empower the faithful in our vision of the Church of the Poor and of the Future , we cannot help but confront political issues, structures and systems which clash with the vision of the Church. Crime, corruption, consumerism, patronage politics, are but a few of the issues in which the Catholic faithful must confront in the political sphere. And to tread into this arena of contemporary life with no system, no force, is to ignore the very counsel of the Lord Jesus Christ: “I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Be clever as serpents and gentle as doves.”
The TIME HAS COME.
PHILIPPINES - QUO VADIS?
DEC. 17, 2012 WILL BE REMEMBERED WHEN CONGRESS BECAME A FINANCIAL MARKET
The Philippines which for more than a century stood as the only Christian Catholic country in Asia can no longer take pride as such. This distinction of being one was flushed down the drain by a President whose mother was thrust into power by a Catholic Church-inspired people power revolution and by a motley mix of legislators in both the House of Representatives and the Senate who put their reputation and their faith on the line.
December 17, 2012 will be remembered as a day when the world stood witness to what could be the start of the declining influence of the Catholic Church over its subjects because it was on this day when 133 members of the House of Representatives put their stamp of approval on the contentious Reproductive Health Bill.
The vigorous opposition mounted by the prelates and pro-life organizations against the RH Bill was understandable because the Church hierarchy view it as just the initial move by some “unseen hands” to totally dismantle whatever remains of the influence of the Catholic Church in the country.
The RH Bill was actually not new since a similar bill was filed some 13 years ago but then President Joseph Estrada in 1999 and his successor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010) ignored the bill that seeks to appropriate funds for the distribution of contraceptives, institution of reproductive health services in government hospitals and sex education in schools.
It helped that the RH Bill was not only certified as urgent but the personal involvement by the incumbent President himself who led the campaign to round up members of the House of Representatives to support the Bill was the clincher that ensured its passage.
WORLD POLITIQUE
What was kept out of the view of the Filipino public was the fact that the RH Bill was a take off from an initiative of those who filed House Bill 8110 in August, 1999 during the 11th Congress and was titled as the “Integrated Population and Development Act of 1999.”
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman whom we now know as the main proponent of the RH Bill also sponsored HB 8110 together with his daughter Rep. Cielo Krisel Lagman-Luistro and were joined by Representatives Luwalhati Antonino, Carlos Cojuangco, Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, Nereus Acosta, and Edith Yotono-Villanueva.
The 11th Congress then was led by Speaker Manny Villar and nothing came out of HB 8110. When the 12th Congress was convened, then Rep. Bellaflor Angara of Aurora filed a similar bill known as HB 4110 and would be referred to as the first time it will be known as the RH Bill.
Again, the proposed RH Bill never went beyond the committee meetings and it was refiled until the 15th Congress with a new leadership in the person of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte gave due course to the bill. And the die was cast as the Catholic Church started to mobilize its different lay organizations to oppose the RH Bill but its efforts was stifled when one of the supposed Catholic university – Ateneo de Manila University – vacillated on its position towards the bill.
BELMONTE’S ROLE WAS CRUCIAL
The truth of the matter was the passage of the RH Bill was merely a matter of time and this scenario was concretized when Rep. Feliciano Belmonte was voted Speaker of the 15th Congress in 2010 as he has always been known as a staunch supporter of population control even during the time when he was Mayor of Quezon City.
But the RH Bill proved to be so divisive that the House of Representatives became a verbal battleground between those pushing for the bill and those who believe that poverty has nothing to do with it as what the RH Bill authors have proclaimed.
The first time that President Bengino Simeon Aquino III showed his hand was in August, 2012 when he made an appeal to the members of Congress to terminate the debates and allow amendments to be filed. But when the RH Bill seem to be moving at a snail’s pace, the President stepped in and certified the RH Bill as urgent and this dramatically altered the equation.
It no longer matters whether Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas brought with them the promised “pork” to those who will vote in favor of the RH Bill, but what really mattered was when President Aquino threw his weight on the measure.
Even if the margin was only nine votes during the second reading on Dec. 12, 2012 (113 in favor and 104 against) the Church knew that that the RH Bill will be passed during the third and final reading scheduled on Dec. 17, 2012 as the President’s men began to put more pressure on the House members.
Everyone in the House knows that you cannot go against the one who holds the purse as PDAF releases for the congressional Districts require prior approval of the Office of the President. In effect, the passage of the RH Bill and its enactment into a law now known as RA 10354 or the RP and RH Act of 2012 was not whether the proponents of the measure proved they were right that it would minimize poverty in the Philippines by controlling its population, but its passage was more the result of the methodical use of largesse at a time when an election is forthcoming.
Some 20 house members who were absent during the second reading on Dec. 12, 2012 attended the session on Dec. 17, 2012 and voted “yes” during the third and final reading and this upped the vote of those in favor of the bill from 113 to 133. And out of the 104 who voted “no” during the second reading, 25 of them would not answer the roll call including the celebrated Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao and this reduced the final tally of those opposed to 79.
Surprisingly, even Buhay Party List Rep. Mariano Michael Velarde who voted “no” during the second reading was a “no show” when the bill was called for the third and final reading.
So the question that need to be asked now is where do we go from here. Immediately after the passage of the RH Bill in both houses of congress, its proponents have started to make noise that their next move would be to file an amendment to the RH Bill to now include legalized abortion and same-sex marriage.
The following shows the final tally of those who voted “yes” and those who voted “no” and those who voted “no” on Dec. 12, 2012 but who were “surprisingly” absent on the third and final reading on Dec. 17, 2012.
YES TO RH BILL
1. Abad, Henedina R.
2. Aggabao, Giorgidi B.
3. Aglipay, Emmeline Y.
4. Agyao, Manuel S.
5. Albano, Rodolfo B.
6. Alvarez, Mercedes K.
7. Amante-Matba, Angelica M.
8. Amatong, Rommel C.
9. Angara, Juan Edgardo M.
10. Antonio, Patricio T.
11. Apostol, Sergio F.
12. Arquiza, Godofredo V.
13. Bag-ao, Kaka J.
14. Brawner Baguilat, Teddy Jr.
15. Balindong, Pangalian M.
16. Banal, Jorge 'Bolet'
17. Barzaga, Elpidio Jr. F.
18. Batocabe, Rodel M.
19. Bautista, Franklin P.
20. Bello, Walden F.
21. Belmonte, Feliciano Jr. R.
22. Belmonte, Vicente Jr. F.
23. Benitez, Alfredo 'Albee' B.
24. Biazon, Rodolfo G.
25. Binay, Mar-Len Abigail S.
26. Biron, Ferjenel G.
27. Bulut-Begtang, Eleanor C.
28. Cagas, Marc Douglas IV C.
29. Cajayon, Mary Mitzi L.
30. Calixto-Rubiano, Emi G.
31. Canonigo, Ranulfo P.
32. Casiño, Teddy A.
33. Castelo, Winston 'Winnie'
34. Catamco, Nancy A.
35. Celeste, Jesus 'Boying' F.
36. Cerafica, Arnel M.
37. Chipeco, Justin Marc SB.
38. Cojuangco, Enrique M.
39. Cojuangco, Kimi S.
40. Colmenares, Neri J
41. Cortuna, Julieta R.
42. Cosalan, Ronald M.
43. Cruz-Gonzales, Cinchona
44. Datumanong ,Simeon A.
45. Defensor, Arthur Jr. R.
46. Del Rosario, Anthony G.
47. Del Rosario, Antonio A.
48. Dimaporo, Imelda Quibranza
49. Duavit, Joel Roy
50. Dy, Napoleon S.
51. Ebdane, Jun Omar C.
52. Enverga, Wilfrido Mark M.
53. Eriguel, Eufranio 'Franny' C., M.D.
54. Espina, Rogelio J.,M.D.
55. Estrella, Robert Raymund M.
56. Evardone, Ben P.
57. Fernandez, Danilo Ramon S.
58. Ferriol, Abigail Faye C.
59. Flores, Florencio Jr. T.
60. Avance-Fuentes, Daisy
61. Garcia-Albano, Mylene J
62. Garin, Janette L.
63. Garin, Sharon S.
64. Gatchalian, Rex
65. Gatchalian, Weslie T.
66. Go, Arnulfo F.
67. Gonzales, Neptali II M.
68. Guanlao, Agapito H.
69. Haresco, Teodorico T.
70. Hataman-Salliman, Jim S.
71. Herrera-Dy, Bernadette R.
72. Ilagan,Luzviminda C.
73. Jalosjos, Cesar G.
74. Jalosjos, Romeo Jr. M.
75. Jalosjos, Seth F. P.
76. Joson, Josefina M.
77. Kho, David L.
78. Lacson-Noel, Josephine Veronique
79. Lagdameo, Antonio Jr. F.
80. Lagman, Edcel C.
81. Lapus, Jeci A.
82. Leonen-Pizarro, Catalina G.
83. Limkaichong, Jocelyn S.
84. Loong, Tupay T.
85. Lopez, Carlo V.
86. Lopez, Carol Jayne B.
87. Loyola, Roy M.
88. Magsaysay, Eulogio 'Amang' R.
89. Maliksi, Erineo S.
90. Maranan, Zeny
91. Marcoleta, Rodante D.
92. Mariano, Rafael V.
93. Miraflores, Florencio T.
94. Mirasol, Alejandro Y.
95. Nava, Joaquin Carlos Rahman A.
96. Ocampo, Rosenda Ann
97. Ortega, Francisco Emmanuel III R.
98. Ortega, Victor Francisco C.
99. Padilla, Carlos M.
100.Paez, Cresente C.
101.Palatino, Raymond V.
102.Palmones, Angelo B.
103.Pangandaman, Mohammed Hussein P.
104.Pichay, Philip A.
105.Ponce Enrile, Juan Jr. C.
106.Primicias-Agabas, Marlyn L.
107.Quimbo, Romero Federico 'Miro'
108.Sacdalan, Jesus N.
109.Sahidulla, Nur-ana I.
110.Sakaluran, Raden C.
111.Salvacion, Andres Jr. D.
112.Sambar, Mark Aeron H.
113.Sarmiento, Mel Senen S.
114.Sema, Bai Sandra A.
115.Singson, Eric Jr. G.
116.Sy-Alvarado, Ma. Victoria R.
117.Tañada, Lorenzo III R.
118.Teodoro, Marcelino R
119.Tinga, Sigfrido R.
120.Tinio, Antonio L.
121.Tomawis, Acmad M.
122.Treñas, Jerry P.
123.Tugna, Sherwin N.
124.Tupas, Niel Jr. C.
125.Umali, Reynaldo V.
126.Ungab, Isidro T.
127.Vargas-Alfonso, Baby Aline
128.Villar, Mark A.
129.Villarica, Linabelle Ruth R.
130.Yap, Susan
131.Yu, Victor J.
132.Zamora, Ma. Carmen S.
133.Zubiri, Jose III F.
NO TO RH BILL
1. Abayon, Daryl Grace J.
2. Alcover, Pastor Jr. M.
3. Almario, Thelma Z.
4. Almonte, Jorge T.
5. Alvarez, Antonio C.
6. Angping, Ma. Zenaida B.
7. Antonino, Rodolfo W.
8. Apacible, Tomas V.
9. Aquino, Jose II S.
10. Arenas, Ma. Rachel J.
11. Arnaiz, George P.
12. Arroyo, Diosdado Macapagal
13. Asilo, Benjamin DR.
14. Bagasina, Catalina C.
15. Bagatsing, Amado S.
16. Bataoil, Leopoldo N.
17. Bichara, Al Francis DC.
18. Bonoan-David, Ma. Theresa
19. Cabaluna, Salvador III P.
20. Cabilao Yambao, Jonathan
21. Calimbas-Villarosa, Ma. Amelita
22. Castro, Jane T.
23. Crisologo, Vincent 'Bingbong' P.
24. Cua, Dakila Carlo E.
25. De Venecia, Ma. Georgina P.
26. Del Mar, Rachel Marguerite B.
27. Dimaporo, Fatima Aliah Q.
28. Durano, Ramon VI H.
29. Ejercito, Joseph Victor G.
30. Ferrer, Antonio A.
31. Fortuno, Salvio B.
32. Fua, Orlando B.
33. Garbin, Alfredo Jr. A.
34. Garcia, Albert Raymond S.
35. Garcia, Pablo P.
36. Golez, Anthony Rolando Jr. T.
37. Gomez, Lucy T.
38. Gullas, Eduardo R.
39. Javier, Paolo S.
40. Labadlabad, Rosendo S.
41. Lico, Isidro Q.
42. Macapagal Arroyo, Juan Miguel
43. Magsaysay, Ma. Milagros H.
44. Malapitan, Oscar G.
45. Mandanas, Hermilando I.
46. Marañon, Alfredo III D.
47. Mendoza, Mark Llandro L.
48. Mercado-Revilla, Lani
49. Noel, Florencio G.
50. Nograles, Karlo Alexei B.
51. Obillo, Reena Concepcion G.
52. Pangandaman, Nasser C.
53. Panotes, Elmer E.
54. Paras, Jesus Emmanuel M.
55. Payuyo, Ponciano D.
56. Piamonte, Mariano Jr. U.
57. Puno, Roberto V.
58. Rivera, Michael Angelo C.
59. Rodriguez, Isidro Jr. S.
60. Rodriguez, Maximo Jr. B.
61. Rodriguez, Rufus B.
62. Romualdez, Ferdinand Martin G.
63. Romualdo, Pedro P.
64. Romulo, Roman T.
65. Salimbangon, Benhur L.
66. Singson, Ryan Luis V.
67. Socrates, Victorino Dennis M.
68. Suarez, Danilo E.
69. Syjuco, Augusto Boboy, Ph.D.
70. Teves, Pryde Henry A.
71. Tiangco, Tobias 'Toby' M.
72. Ting, Randolph S.
73. Ty, Arnel U.
74. Unabia, Peter 'Sr. Pedro' M.
75. Unico, Renato Jr. J.
76. Valencia, Rodolfo G.
77. Vergara, Bernardo M.
78. Violago, Joseph Gilbert F.
79. Yap, Arthur C.
ABSTENTIONS:
1. Briones, Nicanor M
2. Ferrer, Jeffrey P.
3. Golez, Roilo S
4. Gunigundo, Magtanggol T
5. Osmeña, Tomas R
6. Relampagos, Rene L.
7. Remulla, Jesus Crispin C.
THOSE WHO VOTED “NO” ON DEC. 12, 2012 BUT WERE MYSTERIOUSLY ABSENT
ON THE CRUCIAL DEC. 17, 2012 VOTE WERE:
1. Acharon, Pedro Jr.
2. Acop, Romeo
3. Arago, Maria Evita
4. Cari, Jose Carlos
5. Co, Christopher
6. Collantes, Nelson
7. Fabian, Enrico Basilio
8. Garay, Florencio
9. Garcia, Pablo John
10. Gonzales, Aurelio
11. Lanete, Scott Davies
12. Madrona, Eleandro Jesus
13. Marcos, Imelda
14. Mellana, Evelyn
15. Mercado, Roger
16. Montejo, Neil Benedict
17. Ong, Emil
18. Pacquiao, Emmanuel
19. Plaza, Maria Valentina
20. Ramos, Deogracias Jr.
21. Romarate, Guillermo Jr.
22. Sarmiento, Cesar
23. Umali, Czarina
24. Velarde, Mariano Michael
25. Velasco, Lord Allan IV
December 17, 2012 will be remembered as a day when the world stood witness to what could be the start of the declining influence of the Catholic Church over its subjects because it was on this day when 133 members of the House of Representatives put their stamp of approval on the contentious Reproductive Health Bill.
The vigorous opposition mounted by the prelates and pro-life organizations against the RH Bill was understandable because the Church hierarchy view it as just the initial move by some “unseen hands” to totally dismantle whatever remains of the influence of the Catholic Church in the country.
The RH Bill was actually not new since a similar bill was filed some 13 years ago but then President Joseph Estrada in 1999 and his successor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010) ignored the bill that seeks to appropriate funds for the distribution of contraceptives, institution of reproductive health services in government hospitals and sex education in schools.
It helped that the RH Bill was not only certified as urgent but the personal involvement by the incumbent President himself who led the campaign to round up members of the House of Representatives to support the Bill was the clincher that ensured its passage.
WORLD POLITIQUE
What was kept out of the view of the Filipino public was the fact that the RH Bill was a take off from an initiative of those who filed House Bill 8110 in August, 1999 during the 11th Congress and was titled as the “Integrated Population and Development Act of 1999.”
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman whom we now know as the main proponent of the RH Bill also sponsored HB 8110 together with his daughter Rep. Cielo Krisel Lagman-Luistro and were joined by Representatives Luwalhati Antonino, Carlos Cojuangco, Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, Nereus Acosta, and Edith Yotono-Villanueva.
The 11th Congress then was led by Speaker Manny Villar and nothing came out of HB 8110. When the 12th Congress was convened, then Rep. Bellaflor Angara of Aurora filed a similar bill known as HB 4110 and would be referred to as the first time it will be known as the RH Bill.
Again, the proposed RH Bill never went beyond the committee meetings and it was refiled until the 15th Congress with a new leadership in the person of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte gave due course to the bill. And the die was cast as the Catholic Church started to mobilize its different lay organizations to oppose the RH Bill but its efforts was stifled when one of the supposed Catholic university – Ateneo de Manila University – vacillated on its position towards the bill.
BELMONTE’S ROLE WAS CRUCIAL
The truth of the matter was the passage of the RH Bill was merely a matter of time and this scenario was concretized when Rep. Feliciano Belmonte was voted Speaker of the 15th Congress in 2010 as he has always been known as a staunch supporter of population control even during the time when he was Mayor of Quezon City.
But the RH Bill proved to be so divisive that the House of Representatives became a verbal battleground between those pushing for the bill and those who believe that poverty has nothing to do with it as what the RH Bill authors have proclaimed.
The first time that President Bengino Simeon Aquino III showed his hand was in August, 2012 when he made an appeal to the members of Congress to terminate the debates and allow amendments to be filed. But when the RH Bill seem to be moving at a snail’s pace, the President stepped in and certified the RH Bill as urgent and this dramatically altered the equation.
It no longer matters whether Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas brought with them the promised “pork” to those who will vote in favor of the RH Bill, but what really mattered was when President Aquino threw his weight on the measure.
Even if the margin was only nine votes during the second reading on Dec. 12, 2012 (113 in favor and 104 against) the Church knew that that the RH Bill will be passed during the third and final reading scheduled on Dec. 17, 2012 as the President’s men began to put more pressure on the House members.
Everyone in the House knows that you cannot go against the one who holds the purse as PDAF releases for the congressional Districts require prior approval of the Office of the President. In effect, the passage of the RH Bill and its enactment into a law now known as RA 10354 or the RP and RH Act of 2012 was not whether the proponents of the measure proved they were right that it would minimize poverty in the Philippines by controlling its population, but its passage was more the result of the methodical use of largesse at a time when an election is forthcoming.
Some 20 house members who were absent during the second reading on Dec. 12, 2012 attended the session on Dec. 17, 2012 and voted “yes” during the third and final reading and this upped the vote of those in favor of the bill from 113 to 133. And out of the 104 who voted “no” during the second reading, 25 of them would not answer the roll call including the celebrated Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao and this reduced the final tally of those opposed to 79.
Surprisingly, even Buhay Party List Rep. Mariano Michael Velarde who voted “no” during the second reading was a “no show” when the bill was called for the third and final reading.
So the question that need to be asked now is where do we go from here. Immediately after the passage of the RH Bill in both houses of congress, its proponents have started to make noise that their next move would be to file an amendment to the RH Bill to now include legalized abortion and same-sex marriage.
The following shows the final tally of those who voted “yes” and those who voted “no” and those who voted “no” on Dec. 12, 2012 but who were “surprisingly” absent on the third and final reading on Dec. 17, 2012.
YES TO RH BILL
1. Abad, Henedina R.
2. Aggabao, Giorgidi B.
3. Aglipay, Emmeline Y.
4. Agyao, Manuel S.
5. Albano, Rodolfo B.
6. Alvarez, Mercedes K.
7. Amante-Matba, Angelica M.
8. Amatong, Rommel C.
9. Angara, Juan Edgardo M.
10. Antonio, Patricio T.
11. Apostol, Sergio F.
12. Arquiza, Godofredo V.
13. Bag-ao, Kaka J.
14. Brawner Baguilat, Teddy Jr.
15. Balindong, Pangalian M.
16. Banal, Jorge 'Bolet'
17. Barzaga, Elpidio Jr. F.
18. Batocabe, Rodel M.
19. Bautista, Franklin P.
20. Bello, Walden F.
21. Belmonte, Feliciano Jr. R.
22. Belmonte, Vicente Jr. F.
23. Benitez, Alfredo 'Albee' B.
24. Biazon, Rodolfo G.
25. Binay, Mar-Len Abigail S.
26. Biron, Ferjenel G.
27. Bulut-Begtang, Eleanor C.
28. Cagas, Marc Douglas IV C.
29. Cajayon, Mary Mitzi L.
30. Calixto-Rubiano, Emi G.
31. Canonigo, Ranulfo P.
32. Casiño, Teddy A.
33. Castelo, Winston 'Winnie'
34. Catamco, Nancy A.
35. Celeste, Jesus 'Boying' F.
36. Cerafica, Arnel M.
37. Chipeco, Justin Marc SB.
38. Cojuangco, Enrique M.
39. Cojuangco, Kimi S.
40. Colmenares, Neri J
41. Cortuna, Julieta R.
42. Cosalan, Ronald M.
43. Cruz-Gonzales, Cinchona
44. Datumanong ,Simeon A.
45. Defensor, Arthur Jr. R.
46. Del Rosario, Anthony G.
47. Del Rosario, Antonio A.
48. Dimaporo, Imelda Quibranza
49. Duavit, Joel Roy
50. Dy, Napoleon S.
51. Ebdane, Jun Omar C.
52. Enverga, Wilfrido Mark M.
53. Eriguel, Eufranio 'Franny' C., M.D.
54. Espina, Rogelio J.,M.D.
55. Estrella, Robert Raymund M.
56. Evardone, Ben P.
57. Fernandez, Danilo Ramon S.
58. Ferriol, Abigail Faye C.
59. Flores, Florencio Jr. T.
60. Avance-Fuentes, Daisy
61. Garcia-Albano, Mylene J
62. Garin, Janette L.
63. Garin, Sharon S.
64. Gatchalian, Rex
65. Gatchalian, Weslie T.
66. Go, Arnulfo F.
67. Gonzales, Neptali II M.
68. Guanlao, Agapito H.
69. Haresco, Teodorico T.
70. Hataman-Salliman, Jim S.
71. Herrera-Dy, Bernadette R.
72. Ilagan,Luzviminda C.
73. Jalosjos, Cesar G.
74. Jalosjos, Romeo Jr. M.
75. Jalosjos, Seth F. P.
76. Joson, Josefina M.
77. Kho, David L.
78. Lacson-Noel, Josephine Veronique
79. Lagdameo, Antonio Jr. F.
80. Lagman, Edcel C.
81. Lapus, Jeci A.
82. Leonen-Pizarro, Catalina G.
83. Limkaichong, Jocelyn S.
84. Loong, Tupay T.
85. Lopez, Carlo V.
86. Lopez, Carol Jayne B.
87. Loyola, Roy M.
88. Magsaysay, Eulogio 'Amang' R.
89. Maliksi, Erineo S.
90. Maranan, Zeny
91. Marcoleta, Rodante D.
92. Mariano, Rafael V.
93. Miraflores, Florencio T.
94. Mirasol, Alejandro Y.
95. Nava, Joaquin Carlos Rahman A.
96. Ocampo, Rosenda Ann
97. Ortega, Francisco Emmanuel III R.
98. Ortega, Victor Francisco C.
99. Padilla, Carlos M.
100.Paez, Cresente C.
101.Palatino, Raymond V.
102.Palmones, Angelo B.
103.Pangandaman, Mohammed Hussein P.
104.Pichay, Philip A.
105.Ponce Enrile, Juan Jr. C.
106.Primicias-Agabas, Marlyn L.
107.Quimbo, Romero Federico 'Miro'
108.Sacdalan, Jesus N.
109.Sahidulla, Nur-ana I.
110.Sakaluran, Raden C.
111.Salvacion, Andres Jr. D.
112.Sambar, Mark Aeron H.
113.Sarmiento, Mel Senen S.
114.Sema, Bai Sandra A.
115.Singson, Eric Jr. G.
116.Sy-Alvarado, Ma. Victoria R.
117.Tañada, Lorenzo III R.
118.Teodoro, Marcelino R
119.Tinga, Sigfrido R.
120.Tinio, Antonio L.
121.Tomawis, Acmad M.
122.Treñas, Jerry P.
123.Tugna, Sherwin N.
124.Tupas, Niel Jr. C.
125.Umali, Reynaldo V.
126.Ungab, Isidro T.
127.Vargas-Alfonso, Baby Aline
128.Villar, Mark A.
129.Villarica, Linabelle Ruth R.
130.Yap, Susan
131.Yu, Victor J.
132.Zamora, Ma. Carmen S.
133.Zubiri, Jose III F.
NO TO RH BILL
1. Abayon, Daryl Grace J.
2. Alcover, Pastor Jr. M.
3. Almario, Thelma Z.
4. Almonte, Jorge T.
5. Alvarez, Antonio C.
6. Angping, Ma. Zenaida B.
7. Antonino, Rodolfo W.
8. Apacible, Tomas V.
9. Aquino, Jose II S.
10. Arenas, Ma. Rachel J.
11. Arnaiz, George P.
12. Arroyo, Diosdado Macapagal
13. Asilo, Benjamin DR.
14. Bagasina, Catalina C.
15. Bagatsing, Amado S.
16. Bataoil, Leopoldo N.
17. Bichara, Al Francis DC.
18. Bonoan-David, Ma. Theresa
19. Cabaluna, Salvador III P.
20. Cabilao Yambao, Jonathan
21. Calimbas-Villarosa, Ma. Amelita
22. Castro, Jane T.
23. Crisologo, Vincent 'Bingbong' P.
24. Cua, Dakila Carlo E.
25. De Venecia, Ma. Georgina P.
26. Del Mar, Rachel Marguerite B.
27. Dimaporo, Fatima Aliah Q.
28. Durano, Ramon VI H.
29. Ejercito, Joseph Victor G.
30. Ferrer, Antonio A.
31. Fortuno, Salvio B.
32. Fua, Orlando B.
33. Garbin, Alfredo Jr. A.
34. Garcia, Albert Raymond S.
35. Garcia, Pablo P.
36. Golez, Anthony Rolando Jr. T.
37. Gomez, Lucy T.
38. Gullas, Eduardo R.
39. Javier, Paolo S.
40. Labadlabad, Rosendo S.
41. Lico, Isidro Q.
42. Macapagal Arroyo, Juan Miguel
43. Magsaysay, Ma. Milagros H.
44. Malapitan, Oscar G.
45. Mandanas, Hermilando I.
46. Marañon, Alfredo III D.
47. Mendoza, Mark Llandro L.
48. Mercado-Revilla, Lani
49. Noel, Florencio G.
50. Nograles, Karlo Alexei B.
51. Obillo, Reena Concepcion G.
52. Pangandaman, Nasser C.
53. Panotes, Elmer E.
54. Paras, Jesus Emmanuel M.
55. Payuyo, Ponciano D.
56. Piamonte, Mariano Jr. U.
57. Puno, Roberto V.
58. Rivera, Michael Angelo C.
59. Rodriguez, Isidro Jr. S.
60. Rodriguez, Maximo Jr. B.
61. Rodriguez, Rufus B.
62. Romualdez, Ferdinand Martin G.
63. Romualdo, Pedro P.
64. Romulo, Roman T.
65. Salimbangon, Benhur L.
66. Singson, Ryan Luis V.
67. Socrates, Victorino Dennis M.
68. Suarez, Danilo E.
69. Syjuco, Augusto Boboy, Ph.D.
70. Teves, Pryde Henry A.
71. Tiangco, Tobias 'Toby' M.
72. Ting, Randolph S.
73. Ty, Arnel U.
74. Unabia, Peter 'Sr. Pedro' M.
75. Unico, Renato Jr. J.
76. Valencia, Rodolfo G.
77. Vergara, Bernardo M.
78. Violago, Joseph Gilbert F.
79. Yap, Arthur C.
ABSTENTIONS:
1. Briones, Nicanor M
2. Ferrer, Jeffrey P.
3. Golez, Roilo S
4. Gunigundo, Magtanggol T
5. Osmeña, Tomas R
6. Relampagos, Rene L.
7. Remulla, Jesus Crispin C.
THOSE WHO VOTED “NO” ON DEC. 12, 2012 BUT WERE MYSTERIOUSLY ABSENT
ON THE CRUCIAL DEC. 17, 2012 VOTE WERE:
1. Acharon, Pedro Jr.
2. Acop, Romeo
3. Arago, Maria Evita
4. Cari, Jose Carlos
5. Co, Christopher
6. Collantes, Nelson
7. Fabian, Enrico Basilio
8. Garay, Florencio
9. Garcia, Pablo John
10. Gonzales, Aurelio
11. Lanete, Scott Davies
12. Madrona, Eleandro Jesus
13. Marcos, Imelda
14. Mellana, Evelyn
15. Mercado, Roger
16. Montejo, Neil Benedict
17. Ong, Emil
18. Pacquiao, Emmanuel
19. Plaza, Maria Valentina
20. Ramos, Deogracias Jr.
21. Romarate, Guillermo Jr.
22. Sarmiento, Cesar
23. Umali, Czarina
24. Velarde, Mariano Michael
25. Velasco, Lord Allan IV
LIFE CANNOT BE LEGISLATED. IT WOULD BE MURDER TO DO SO.
This baby never had a chance to defend itself. This is what the RH Bill will do.
Today (Dec. 17, 2012) both the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice advocates in the Philippine House of Representatives will await will bated breath how the 64 Congressmen who were absent during the votation last Dec. 12, 2012 will vote if ever they will attend today's session.
Similarly, the Senate has also scheduled plenary debates on its own version of the Reproductive Health Bill and possibly voting will follow. There is, however, that the Philippine legislators need to know - that life has never been our choice. That choice has always been with God from the beginning of time. Our only choice is to make something of that life when it is given to us - to nurture it, care for it and make sure that the sanctity of life is preserved. Our life is not our own. It belongs to God who ransomed us and purchased us at a great price.
In his Pastoral Letter in behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Archbishop Soc Villegas said:
“Contraception corrupts the soul. The RH Bill is being gift wrapped to look like a gift for maternal health care. It is not so. It will lead to greater crimes against women. The poor are being promised a better life through the RH Bill. It will not be so. The poor can rise from their misery through more accessible education, better hospitals and lesser government corruption. Money for contraceptives can be better used for education and authentic health care.
The youth are being made to believe that sex before marriage is acceptable provided you know how to avoid pregnancy. Is this moral? Those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves.
The Reproductive Health Bill, if passed into law in its present form, will put the moral fiber of our nation at risk. As we your bishops have said in the past, a contraceptive mentality is the mother of an abortion mentality. The wide and free accessibility of contraceptives, even to the youth, will result in the destruction of family life and in greater violence against women.
We plead with the sixty four (64) congressmen who have not voted, to be enlightened and stand up for the Truth. As St. John the Baptist directed the people to justice, we call on you also to seek justice for the Filipino people. The Church teaches us to follow our conscience, the inner sanctuary where we are alone with God (Gaudium et Spes #16), but such conscience must be formed and informed according to the universal values that are common to all human persons. The truth is that to be pro-child, pro-mother and pro-poor, we must resist all threats against them. This is justice. Stand up for it; defend it; do not be swayed by worldly pressures, and be the champion of the people who voted for you. God knows and sees what you are doing.
What then should we do? We admonish the Filipino Catholic faithful to share with those who have less this Christmas, but also share in praying that our congressmen and women will be faithful to their call to serve the true interests of the Filipino people. This means upholding life, saying no to contraception which is corruption, and being faithful to the Christ Child who was pro-woman, pro-child and pro-poor.”
Following are some quotes from the Sacred Scriptures and we invite our legislators in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to reflect on these passages and may the Word of God grant them wisdom in the way they will vote. GOD BLESS EVERYONE!
Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Deuteronomy 30:19 “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life...”
Job 10:8-12 “Your hands shaped me and made me... Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.”
Job 31:15 “Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?”
Psalm 51:5 “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
Psalm 95:6 “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”
Psalm 100:3 “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”
Psalm 119:73 “Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.”
Psalm 138:8 “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever — do not abandon the works of your hands.”
Psalm 139:13-16 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”
Isaiah 44:2 “This is what the Lord says — he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you...”
Isaiah 44:24 “This is what the Lord says — your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: "I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself...”
Isaiah 46:3-4 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
Isaiah 49:5 “And now the Lord says — he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength — [49:6] He says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Luke 1:39-44 “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
Similarly, the Senate has also scheduled plenary debates on its own version of the Reproductive Health Bill and possibly voting will follow. There is, however, that the Philippine legislators need to know - that life has never been our choice. That choice has always been with God from the beginning of time. Our only choice is to make something of that life when it is given to us - to nurture it, care for it and make sure that the sanctity of life is preserved. Our life is not our own. It belongs to God who ransomed us and purchased us at a great price.
In his Pastoral Letter in behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Archbishop Soc Villegas said:
“Contraception corrupts the soul. The RH Bill is being gift wrapped to look like a gift for maternal health care. It is not so. It will lead to greater crimes against women. The poor are being promised a better life through the RH Bill. It will not be so. The poor can rise from their misery through more accessible education, better hospitals and lesser government corruption. Money for contraceptives can be better used for education and authentic health care.
The youth are being made to believe that sex before marriage is acceptable provided you know how to avoid pregnancy. Is this moral? Those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves.
The Reproductive Health Bill, if passed into law in its present form, will put the moral fiber of our nation at risk. As we your bishops have said in the past, a contraceptive mentality is the mother of an abortion mentality. The wide and free accessibility of contraceptives, even to the youth, will result in the destruction of family life and in greater violence against women.
We plead with the sixty four (64) congressmen who have not voted, to be enlightened and stand up for the Truth. As St. John the Baptist directed the people to justice, we call on you also to seek justice for the Filipino people. The Church teaches us to follow our conscience, the inner sanctuary where we are alone with God (Gaudium et Spes #16), but such conscience must be formed and informed according to the universal values that are common to all human persons. The truth is that to be pro-child, pro-mother and pro-poor, we must resist all threats against them. This is justice. Stand up for it; defend it; do not be swayed by worldly pressures, and be the champion of the people who voted for you. God knows and sees what you are doing.
What then should we do? We admonish the Filipino Catholic faithful to share with those who have less this Christmas, but also share in praying that our congressmen and women will be faithful to their call to serve the true interests of the Filipino people. This means upholding life, saying no to contraception which is corruption, and being faithful to the Christ Child who was pro-woman, pro-child and pro-poor.”
Following are some quotes from the Sacred Scriptures and we invite our legislators in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to reflect on these passages and may the Word of God grant them wisdom in the way they will vote. GOD BLESS EVERYONE!
Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Deuteronomy 30:19 “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life...”
Job 10:8-12 “Your hands shaped me and made me... Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.”
Job 31:15 “Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?”
Psalm 51:5 “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
Psalm 95:6 “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”
Psalm 100:3 “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”
Psalm 119:73 “Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.”
Psalm 138:8 “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever — do not abandon the works of your hands.”
Psalm 139:13-16 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”
Isaiah 44:2 “This is what the Lord says — he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you...”
Isaiah 44:24 “This is what the Lord says — your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: "I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself...”
Isaiah 46:3-4 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
Isaiah 49:5 “And now the Lord says — he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength — [49:6] He says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Luke 1:39-44 “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
HOLY FATHER CALLS FOR REVIVAL OF FAITH
Pope Calls On Bishops
To Revive Christian Faith
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday called on bishops from around the world to revive the Christian faith among those who have forgotten or abandoned it.
The Church needs a new “missionary dynamic” of lay people and must pay “particular attention (to) baptized people who do not live according to the requirements of the baptism,” he said as 262 bishops wound up a three-week huddle that broached all major issues and crises shaking the 2,000-year-old institution.
Clerics must also apply “new methods, a new language that suits different cultures” in their bid for a “new evangelism,” he said during a closing mass at Saint Peter’s.
“The real protagonists of the new evangelism are the saints,” said the head of the Roman Catholic Church. “The example of their lives and their charitable work is a language that is understood by all.”
It was urgent to make Christ known again “where the fire of God” has become mere “embers that need to be rekindled so it can again be a lively flame that gives light and warmth to the entire house,” he added.
During the synod’s frank debates, missionary issues took centre stage rather than structural Church reforms.
“There aren’t many institutions in the world that dare question” what they are doing, said Olivier Schmitthaeusler of Phnom Penh, the youngest bishop attending the synod, in a veiled reference to months of crisis over Benedict’s butler who has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking papal documents.
Pierre-Marie Carre, Archbishop of the southern French city of Montpellier, who was the synod’s special secretary, insisted that “structural changes were not needed.”
“Believers can bring about change through their faith, a well-structured faith,” he said.
To Revive Christian Faith
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday called on bishops from around the world to revive the Christian faith among those who have forgotten or abandoned it.
The Church needs a new “missionary dynamic” of lay people and must pay “particular attention (to) baptized people who do not live according to the requirements of the baptism,” he said as 262 bishops wound up a three-week huddle that broached all major issues and crises shaking the 2,000-year-old institution.
Clerics must also apply “new methods, a new language that suits different cultures” in their bid for a “new evangelism,” he said during a closing mass at Saint Peter’s.
“The real protagonists of the new evangelism are the saints,” said the head of the Roman Catholic Church. “The example of their lives and their charitable work is a language that is understood by all.”
It was urgent to make Christ known again “where the fire of God” has become mere “embers that need to be rekindled so it can again be a lively flame that gives light and warmth to the entire house,” he added.
During the synod’s frank debates, missionary issues took centre stage rather than structural Church reforms.
“There aren’t many institutions in the world that dare question” what they are doing, said Olivier Schmitthaeusler of Phnom Penh, the youngest bishop attending the synod, in a veiled reference to months of crisis over Benedict’s butler who has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking papal documents.
Pierre-Marie Carre, Archbishop of the southern French city of Montpellier, who was the synod’s special secretary, insisted that “structural changes were not needed.”
“Believers can bring about change through their faith, a well-structured faith,” he said.
SYNOD OF BISHOPS CLOSING MESSAGE:
THE CHURCH IS CALLED TO SOMETHING NEW
Much as the gathering formally closes with Mass on Sunday morning in St Peter's, shortly after Roman Noon today, the closing message of the Synod of Bishops for the New Evangelization was released to the entire church.
Prepared by a 10-member group of the gathering's Fathers – chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence, aided by a top-shelf committee including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and the "Thrilla from Manila," now Cardinal-designate Chito Tagle – the statement (directed, as always, to "The People of God") stands separate from the Apostolic Exhortation which will serve as the Pope's final word on the three-week event.
Likely to be released in a year to 18 months' time – the venue for its signing yet unknown – Pope Benedict XVI's concluding text is set to become the charter document of his pontificate's key priority for the Western church. In the meanwhile, here in full, the Synod's last word.
Brothers and sisters,
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7). Before returning to our particular Churches, we, Bishops of the whole world gathered by the invitation of the Bishop of Rome Pope Benedict XVI to reflect on “the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith”, wish to address all of you spread throughout the world in order to sustain and direct the preaching and teaching of the Gospel in the diverse contexts in which the Church finds herself today to give witness.
1. Like the Samaritan woman at the well
Let us draw light from a Gospel passage: Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman (cf. John 4:5-42). There is no man or woman who, in one's life, would not find oneself like the woman of Samaria beside a well with an empty bucket, with the hope of finding the fulfillment of the heart's most profound desire, that which alone could give full meaning to existence. Today, many wells offer themselves to quench humanity's thirst, but we must discern in order to avoid polluted waters. We must orient the search well, so as not to fall prey to disappointment, which can be disastrous.
Like Jesus at the well of Sychar, the Church also feels obliged to sit beside today's men and women. She wants to render the Lord present in their lives so that they could encounter him because he alone is the water that gives true and eternal life. Only Jesus can read the depths of our heart and reveal the truth about ourselves: “He told me everything I have done”, the woman confesses to her fellow citizens. This word of proclamation is united to the question that opens up to faith: “Could he possibly be the Messiah?” It shows that whoever receives new life from encountering Jesus cannot but proclaim truth and hope to others. The sinner who was converted becomes a messenger of salvation and leads the whole city to Jesus. The people pass from welcoming her testimony to personally experiencing the encounter: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world”.
2. A new evangelization
Leading the men and women of our time to Jesus, to the encounter with him is a necessity that touches all the regions of the world, those of the old and those of the recent evangelization. Everywhere indeed we feel the need to revive a faith that risks eclipse in cultural contexts that hinders its taking root in persons and its presence in society, the clarity of its content and its coherent fruits.
It is not about starting again, but entering into the long path of proclaiming the Gospel with the apostolic courage of Paul who would go so far as to say “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Throughout history, from the first centuries of the Christian era to the present, the Gospel has edified communities of believers in all parts of the world. Whether small or great, these are the fruit of the dedication of generations of witnesses to Jesus – missionaries and martyrs – whom we remember with gratitude.
Changing societies and cultures call us to something new: to live our communitarian experience of faith in a renewed way and to proclaim it through an evangelization that is “new in its ardor, in its methods, in its expressions” (John Paul II, Discourse to the XIX Assembly of CELAM, Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983, n. 3) as John Paul II said. Benedict XVI recalled that it is an evangelization that is directed “principally at those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian life... to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone fills our existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favor the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life”(Benedict XVI, Homily for the Eucharistic celebration for the solemn inauguration of the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 7 October 2012).
3. The personal encounter with Jesus Christ in the Church
Before saying anything about the forms that this new evangelization must assume, we feel the need to tell you with profound conviction that the faith determines everything in the relationship that we build with the person of Jesus who takes the initiative to encounter us. The work of the new evangelization consists in presenting once more the beauty and perennial newness of the encounter with Christ to the often distracted and confused heart and mind of the men and women of our time, above all to ourselves. We invite you all to contemplate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter the mystery of his existence given for us on the cross, reconfirmed in his resurrection from the dead as the Father's gift and imparted to us through the Spirit. In the person of Jesus, the mystery of God the Father's love for the entire human family is revealed. He did not want us to remain in a false autonomy. Rather he reconciled us to himself in a renewed pact of love.
The Church is the space offered by Christ in history where we can encounter him, because he entrusted to her his Word, the Baptism that makes us God's children, his Body and his Blood, the grace of forgiveness of sins above all in the sacrament of Reconciliation, the experience of communion that reflects the very mystery of the Holy Trinity, the strength of the Spirit that generates charity towards all.
We must form welcoming communities in which all outcasts find a home, concrete experiences of communion which attract the disenchanted glance of contemporary humanity with the ardent force of love – “See how they love one another!” (Tertullian, Apology, 39, 7). The beauty of faith must particularly shine in the actions of the sacred Liturgy, above all in the Sunday Eucharist. It is precisely in liturgical celebrations that the Church reveals herself as God's work and renders the meaning of the Gospel visible in word and gesture.
It is up to us today to render experiences of the Church concretely accessible, to multiply the wells where thirsting men and women are invited to encounter Jesus, to offer oases in the deserts of life. Christian communities and, in them, every disciple of the Lord are responsible for this: an irreplaceable testimony has been entrusted to each one, so that the Gospel can enter the lives of all. This requires of us holiness of life.
4. The occasions of encountering Jesus and listening to the Scriptures
Someone will ask how to do all this. We need not invent new strategies as if the Gospel were a product to be placed in the market of religions. We need to rediscover the ways in which Jesus approached persons and called them, in order to put them into practice in today's circumstances.
We recall, for example, how Jesus engaged Peter, Andrew, James and John in the context of their work, how Zaccheus was able to pass from simple curiosity to the warmth of sharing a meal with the Master, how the Roman centurion asked him to heal a person dear to him, how the man born blind invoked him as liberator from his own marginalization, how Martha and Mary saw the hospitality of their house and of their heart rewarded by his presence. By going through the pages of the Gospels as well as the apostles' missionary experiences in the early Church, we can discover the various ways and circumstances in which persons' lives were opened to Christ's presence.
The frequent reading of the Sacred Scriptures – illuminated by the Tradition of the Church who hands them over to us and is their authentic interpreter – is not only necessary for knowing the very content of the Gospel, which is the person of Jesus in the context of salvation history. Reading the Scriptures also helps us to discover opportunities to encounter Jesus, truly evangelical approaches rooted in the fundamental dimensions of human life: the family, work, friendship, various forms of poverty and the trials of life, etc.
5. Evangelizing ourselves and opening ourselves to conversion
We, however, should never think that the new evangelization does not concern us personally. In these days voices among the Bishops were raised to recall that the Church must first of all heed the Word before she could evangelize the world. The invitation to evangelize becomes a call to conversion.
We firmly believe that we must convert ourselves above all to the power of Christ who alone can make all things new, above all our poor existence. With humility we must recognize that the poverty and weaknesses of Jesus' disciples, especially of his ministers, weigh on the credibility of the mission. We are certainly aware – we Bishops first of all – that we could never really be equal to the Lord's calling and mandate to proclaim his Gospel to the nations. We know that we must humbly recognize our vulnerability to the wounds of history and we do not hesitate to recognize our personal sins. We are, however, also convinced that the Lord's Spirit is capable of renewing his Church and rendering her garment resplendent if we let him mold us. This is demonstrated by the lives of the Saints, the remembrance and narration of which is a privileged means of the new evangelization.
If this renewal were up to us, there would be serious reasons to doubt. But conversion in the Church, just like evangelization, does not come about primarily through us poor mortals, but rather through the Spirit of the Lord. Here we find our strength and our certainty that evil will never have the last word whether in the Church or in history: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27), Jesus said to his disciples.
The work of the new evangelization rests on this serene certainty. We are confident in the inspiration and strength of the Spirit, who will teach us what we are to say and what we are to do even in the most difficult moments. It is our duty, therefore, to conquer fear through faith, humiliation through hope, indifference through love.
6. Seizing new opportunities for evangelization in the world today
This serene courage also affects the way we look at the world today. We are not intimidated by the circumstances of the times in which we live. Our world is full of contradictions and challenges, but it remains God's creation. The world is wounded by evil, but God loves it still. It is his field in which the sowing of the Word can be renewed so that it would bear fruit once more.
There is no room for pessimism in the minds and hearts of those who know that their Lord has conquered death and that his Spirit works with might in history. We approach this world with humility, but also with determination. This comes from the certainty that the truth triumphs in the end. We choose to see in the world God's invitation to witness to his Name. Our Church is alive and faces the challenges that history brings with the courage of faith and the testimony of her many daughters and sons.
We know that we must face in this world a difficult struggle against the “principalities” and “powers”, “the evil spirits” (Ephesians 6:12). We do not ignore the problems that such challenges bring, but they do not frighten us. This is true above all for the phenomena of globalization which must be opportunities for us to expand the presence of the Gospel. Despite the intense sufferings for which we welcome migrants as brethren, migrations have been and continue to be occasions to spread the faith and build communion in its various forms. Secularization – as well as the crisis brought about the ascendancy of politics and of the State – requires the Church to rethink its presence in society without however renouncing it. The many and ever new forms of poverty open new opportunities for charitable service: the proclamation of the Gospel binds the Church to be with the poor and to take on their sufferings like Jesus. Even in the most bitter forms of atheism and agnosticism, we can recognize – although in contradictory forms – not a void but a longing, an expectation that awaits an adequate response.
In the face of the questions that dominant cultures pose to faith and to the Church, we renew our trust in the Lord, certain that even in these contexts the Gospel is the bearer of light and capable of healing every human weakness. It is not we who are to conduct the work of evangelization, but God, as the Pope reminded us: “The first word, the true initiative, the true activity comes from God and only by inserting ourselves in to the divine initiative, only by begging this divine initiative, will we too be able to become – with him and in him – evangelizers”(Benedict XVI, Meditation during the first general Congregation of the XIII General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 8 October 2012).
7. Evangelization, the family and consecrated life
Ever since the first evangelization, the transmission of the faith from one generation to the next found a natural home in the family where women play a very special role without diminishing the figure and responsibility of the father. In the context of the care that every family provides for the growth of its little ones, infants and children are introduced to the signs of faith, the communication of first truths, education in prayer, and the witness of the fruits of love. Despite the diversity of their geographical, cultural and social situations, all the Bishops of the Synod reconfirmed this essential role of the family in the transmission of the faith. A new evangelization is unthinkable without acknowledging a specific responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to families and to sustain them in their task of education.
We do not ignore the fact that today the family, established in the marriage of a man and of a woman which makes them “one flesh” (Matthew 19:6) open to life, is assaulted by crises everywhere. It is surrounded by models of life that penalize it and neglected by the politics of society of which it is also the fundamental cell. It is not always respected in its rhythms and sustained in its tasks by ecclesial communities. It is precisely this, however, that impels us to say that we must particularly take care of the family and its mission in society and in the Church, developing specific paths of accompaniment before and after matrimony. We also want to express our gratitude to the many Christian couples and families who, through their witness, show the world an experience of communion and of service which is the seed of a more loving and peaceful society.
Our thoughts also went to the many families and couples living together which do not reflect that image of unity and of lifelong love that the Lord entrusted to us. There are couples who live together without the sacramental bond of matrimony. More and more families in irregular situations are established after the failure of previous marriages. These are painful situations that negatively affect the education of sons and daughters in the faith. To all of them we want to say that God's love does not abandon anyone, that the Church loves them, too, that the Church is a house that welcomes all, that they remain members of the Church even if they cannot receive sacramental absolution and the Eucharist. May our Catholic communities welcome all who live in such situations and support those who are in the path of conversion and reconciliation.
Family life is the first place in which the Gospel encounters the ordinary life and demonstrates its capacity to transform the fundamental conditions of existence in the horizon of love. But not less important for the witness of the Church is to show how this temporal existence has a fulfillment that goes beyond human history and attains to eternal communion with God. Jesus does not introduce himself to the Samaritan woman simply as the one who gives life, but as the one who gives “eternal life” (John 4:14). God's gift, which faith renders present, is not simply the promise of better conditions in this world. It is the proclamation that our life's ultimate meaning is beyond this world, in that full communion with God that we await at the end of time.
Of this supernatural horizon of the meaning of human existence, there are particular witnesses in the Church and in the world whom the Lord has called to consecrated life. Precisely because it is totally consecrated to him in the exercise of poverty, chastity and obedience, consecrated life is the sign of a future world that relativizes everything that is good in this world. May the gratitude of the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops reach these our brothers and sisters for their fidelity to the Lord's calling and for the contribution that they have given and give to the Church's mission. We exhort them to hope in situations that are difficult even for them in these times of change. We invite them to establish themselves as witnesses and promoters of new evangelization in the various fields to which the charism of each of their institutes assigns them.
8. The ecclesial community and the many agents of evangelization
No one person or group in the Church has exclusive right to the work of evangelization. It is the work of ecclesial communities as such, where one has access to all the means for encountering Jesus: the Word, the sacraments, fraternal communion, charitable service, mission.
In this perspective, the role of the parish emerges above all as the presence of the Church where men and women live, “the village fountain”, as John XXIII loved to call it, from which all can drink, finding in it the freshness of the Gospel. It cannot be abandoned, even though changes can require of it to be made up of small Christian communities or to either the articulation into small communities or forge bonds of collaboration within larger pastoral contexts. We exhort our parishes to join the new forms of mission required by the new evangelization to the traditional pastoral care of God's people. These must also permeate the various important expressions of popular piety.
In the parish, the ministry of the priest – father and pastor of his people – remains crucial. To all priests, the Bishops of this Synodal Assembly express thanks and fraternal closeness for their difficult task. We invite them to strengthen the bonds of the diocesan presbyterium, to deepen their spiritual life, to an ongoing formation that enables them to face the changes.
Alongside the priests, the presence of deacons is to be sustained, as well as the pastoral action of catechists and of many other ministers and animators in the fields of proclamation, catechesis, liturgical life, charitable service. The various forms of participation and co-responsibility of the faithful must also be promoted. We cannot thank enough our lay men and women for their dedication in our communities' manifold services. We ask all of them, too, to place their presence and their service in the Church in the perspective of the new evangelization, taking care of their own human and Christian formation, their understanding of the faith and their sensitivity to contemporary cultural phenomena.
With regard to the laity, a special word goes to the various forms of old and new associations, together with the ecclesial movements and the new communities: All are an expression of the richness of the gifts that the Spirit bestows on the Church. We also thank these forms of life and of commitment in the Church, exhorting them to be faithful to their proper charism and to earnest ecclesial communion especially in the concrete context of the particular Churches.
Witnessing to the Gospel is not the privilege of one or of a few. We recognize with joy the presence of many men and women who with their lives become a sign of the Gospel in the midst of the world. We recognize them even in many of our Christian brothers and sisters with whom unity unfortunately is not yet full, but are nevertheless marked by the Lord's Baptism and proclaim it. In these days it was a moving experience for us to listen to the voices of many authorities of Churches and ecclesial communities who gave witness to their thirst for Christ and their dedication to the proclamation of the Gospel. They, too, are convinced that the world needs a new evangelization. We are grateful to the Lord for this unity in the necessity of the mission.
9. That the youth may encounter Christ
The youth are particularly dear to us, because they, who are a significant part of humanity's and the Church's present, are also their future. With regard to them, the Bishops are far from being pessimistic. Concerned, yes; but not pessimistic. We are concerned because the most aggressive attacks of our times happen to converge precisely on them. We are not, however, pessimistic, above all because what moves in the depths of history is Christ's love, but also because we sense in our youth deep aspirations for authenticity, truth, freedom, generosity, to which we are convinced that the adequate response is Christ.
We want to support them in their search and we encourage our communities to listen to, dialogue with and respond boldly and without reservation to the difficult condition of the youth. We want our communities to harness, and not to suppress, the power of their enthusiasm; to struggle for them against the fallacies and selfish ventures of worldly powers which, to their own advantage, dissipate the energies and waste the passion of the young, taking from them every grateful memory of the past and every earnest vision of the future.
The world of the young is a demanding but also particularly promising field of the New Evangelization. This is demonstrated by many experiences, from those that draw many of them like the World Youth Days, to the most hidden – but nonetheless powerful – like the different experiences of spirituality, service and mission. The youth's active role in evangelizing first and foremost their world is to be recognized.
10. The Gospel in dialogue with human culture and experience and with religions
The New Evangelization is centered on Christ and on care for the human person in order to give life to a real encounter with him. However, its horizons are as wide as the world and beyond any human experience. This means that it carefully cultivates the dialogue with cultures, confident that it can find in each of them the “seeds of the Word” about which the ancient Fathers spoke. In particular, the new evangelization needs a renewed alliance between faith and reason. We are convinced that faith has the capacity to welcome every product of a sound mind open to transcendence and the strength to heal the limits and contradictions into which reason could fall. Faith does not close its eyes, not even before the excruciating questions arising from evil's presence in life and in history, in order to draw the light of hope from Christ's Paschal Mystery.
The encounter between faith and reason nourishes also the Christian community's commitment in the field of education and culture. The institutions of formation and of research – schools and universities – occupy a special place in this. Wherever human intelligence is developed and educated, the Church is pleased to bring her experience and contribution to the integral formation of the person. In this context particular care is to be reserved for catholic schools and for catholic universities, in which the openness to transcendence that belongs to every authentic cultural and educational course, must be fulfilled in paths of encounter with the event of Jesus Christ and of his Church. May the gratitude of the Bishops reach all who, in sometimes difficult conditions, are involved in this.
Evangelization requires that we pay much attention to the world of social communication, especially the new media, in which many lives, questions and expectations converge. It is the place where consciences are often formed, where people spend their time and live their lives. It is a new opportunity for touching the human heart.
A particular field of the encounter between faith and reason today is the dialogue with scientific knowledge. This is not at all far from faith, since it manifests the spiritual principle that God placed in his creatures. It allows us to see the rational structures on which creation is founded. When science and technology do not presume to imprison humanity and the world in a barren materialism, they become an invaluable ally in making life more humane. Our thanks also go to those who are involved in this sensitive field of knowledge.
We also want to thank men and women involved in another expression of the human genius, art in its various forms, from the most ancient to the most recent. We recognize in works of art a particularly meaningful way of expressing spirituality inasmuch as they strive to embody humanity's attraction to beauty. We are grateful when artists through their beautiful creations bring out the beauty of God's face and that of his creatures. The way of beauty is a particularly effective path of the new evangelization.
In addition to works of art, all of human activity draws our attention as an opportunity in which we cooperate in divine creation through work. We want to remind the world of economy and of labor of some reminders arising from the Gospel: to redeem work from the conditions that often make it an unbearable burden and an uncertain future threatened by youth unemployment, to place the human person at the center of economic development, to think of this development as an occasion for humanity to grow in justice and unity. Humanity transforms the world through work. Nevertheless he is called to safeguard the integrity of creation out of a sense of responsibility towards future generations.
The Gospel also illuminates the suffering brought about by disease. Christians must help the sick feel that the Church is near to persons with illness or with disabilities. Christians are to thank all who take care of them professionally and humanely.
A field in which the light of the Gospel can and must shine in order to illuminate humanity's footsteps is politics. Politics requires a commitment of selfless and sincere care for the common good by fully respecting the dignity of the human person from conception to natural end, honoring the family founded by the marriage of a man and a woman and protecting academic freedom; by removing the causes of injustice, inequality, discrimination, violence, racism, hunger and war. Christians are asked to give a clear witness to the precept of charity in the exercise of politics.
Finally, the Church considers the other religions are her natural partners in dialogue. One is evangelized because one is convinced of the truth of Christ, not because one is against another. The Gospel of Jesus is peace and joy, and his disciples are happy to recognize whatever is true and good that humanity's religious spirit has been able to glimpse in the world created by God and that it has expressed in the various religions.
The dialogue among religions intends to be a contribution to peace. It rejects every fundamentalism and denounces every violence that is brought upon believers as serious violations of human rights. The Churches of the whole world are united in prayer and in fraternity to the suffering brethren and ask those who are responsible for the destinies of peoples to safeguard everyone's right to freely choose, profess and witness to one's faith.
11. Remembering the Second Vatican Council and referring to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the Year of Faith
In the path opened by the New Evangelization, we might also feel as if we were in a desert, in the midst of dangers and lacking points of reference. The Holy Father Benedict XVI, in his homily for the Mass opening the Year of Faith, spoke of a “spiritual 'desertification'” that has advanced in the last decades. But he also encouraged us by affirming that “it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living” (Homily for the Eucharistic celebration for the opening of the Year of Faith, Rome, 11 October 2012). In the desert, like the Samaritan woman, we seek water and a well from which to drink: blessed is the one who encounters Christ there!
We thank the Holy Father for the gift of the Year of Faith, an exquisite portal into the path of the new evangelization. We thank him also for having linked this Year to the grateful remembrance of the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago. Its fundamental magisterium for our time shines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is proposed once more as a sure reference of faith twenty years after its publication. These are important anniversaries, which allow us to reaffirm our close adherence to the Council's teaching and our firm commitment to carry on its implementation.
12. Contemplating the mystery and being at the side of the poor
In this perspective we wish to indicate to all the faithful two expressions of the life of faith which seem particularly important to us for witnessing to it in the New Evangelization.
The first is constituted by the gift and experience of contemplation. A testimony that the world would consider credible can arise only from an adoring gaze at the mystery of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, only from the deep silence that receives the unique saving Word like a womb. Only this prayerful silence can prevent the word of salvation from being lost in the many noises that overrun the world.
We now address a word of gratitude to all men and women who dedicate their lives in monasteries and hermitages to prayer and contemplation. Moments of contemplation must interweave with people's ordinary lives: spaces in the soul, but also physical ones, that remind us of God; interior sanctuaries and temples of stone that, like crossroads, keep us from losing ourselves in a flood of experiences; opportunities in which all could feel accepted, even those who barely know what and whom to seek.
The other symbol of authenticity of the new evangelization has the face of the poor. Placing ourselves side by side with those who are wounded by life is not only a social exercise, but above all a spiritual act because it is Christ's face that shines in the face of the poor: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew25:40).
We must recognize the privileged place of the poor in our communities, a place that does not exclude anyone, but wants to reflect how Jesus bound himself to them. The presence of the poor in our communities is mysteriously powerful: it changes persons more than a discourse does, it teaches fidelity, it makes us understand the fragility of life, it asks for prayer: in short, it brings us to Christ.
The gesture of charity, on the other hand, must also be accompanied by commitment to justice, with an appeal that concerns all, poor and rich. Hence, the social doctrine of the Church is integral to the pathways of the new evangelization, as well as the formation of Christians to dedicate themselves to serve the human community in social and political life.
13. To the Churches in the various regions of the world
The vision of the Bishops gathered in the synodal assembly embraces all the ecclesial communities spread throughout the world. Their vision seeks to be comprehensive, because the call to encounter Christ is one, while keeping diversity in mind.
The Bishops gathered in the Synod gave special consideration, full of fraternal affection and gratitude, to you Christians of the Catholic Oriental Churches, those who are heirs of the first wave of evangelization – an experience preserved with love and faithfulness – and those present in Eastern Europe. Today the Gospel comes to you again in a new evangelization through liturgical life, catechesis, daily family prayer, fasting, solidarity among families, the participation of the laity in the life of communities and in dialogue with society. In many places your Churches are amidst trials and tribulation through which they witness to their participation in the sufferings of Christ. Some of the faithful are forced to emigrate. Keeping alive their oneness with their community of origin, they can contribute to the pastoral care and to the work of evangelization in the countries that have welcomed them. May the Lord continue to bless your faithfulness. May your future be marked by the serene confession and practice of your faith in peace and religious liberty.
We look to you Christians, men and women, who live in the countries of Africa and we express our gratitude for your witness to the Gospel often in difficult circumstances. We exhort you to revive the evangelization that you received in recent times, to build the Church as the family of God, to strengthen the identity of the family, to sustain the commitment of priests and catechists especially in the small Christian communities. We affirm the need to develop the encounter between the Gospel and old and new cultures. Great expectation and a strong appeal is addressed to the world of politics and to the governments of the various countries of Africa, so that, in collaboration with all people of good will, basic human rights may be promoted and the continent freed from violence and conflicts which still afflict it.
The Bishops of the synodal Assembly invite you, Christians of North America, to respond with joy to the call to a new evangelization, while they look with gratitude at how your young Christian communities have borne generous fruits of faith, charity and mission. You need to recognize the many expressions of the present culture in the countries of your world which are today far from the Gospel. Conversion is necessary, from which is born a commitment that does not bring you out of your cultures, but in their midst to offer to all the light of faith and the power of life. As you welcome in your generous lands new populations of immigrants and refugees, may you be willing to open the doors of your homes to the faith. Faithful to the commitments taken at the synodal Assembly for America, be united with Latin America in the ongoing evangelization of the continent you share.
The synodal assembly addressed the same sentiment of gratitude to the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean. Particularly striking throughout the ages is the development in your countries of forms of popular piety still fixed in the hearts of many people, of charitable service and of dialogue with cultures. Now, in the face of many present challenges, first of all poverty and violence, the Church in Latin America and in the Caribbean is encouraged to live in an ongoing state of mission, announcing the Gospel with hope and joy, forming communities of true missionary disciples of Jesus Christ, showing in the commitment of its sons and daughters how the Gospel could be the source of a new, just and fraternal society. Religious pluralism also tests your Churches and requires a renewed proclamation of the Gospel.
To you, Christians of Asia, we also offer a word of encouragement and of exhortation. As a small minority in the continent which houses almost two thirds of the world's population, your presence is a fruitful seed entrusted to the power of the Spirit, which grows in dialogue with the diverse cultures, with the ancient religions and with the countless poor. Although often outcast by society and in many places also persecuted, the Church of Asia, with its firm faith, is a valuable presence of the Christ's Gospel which proclaims justice, life and harmony. Christians of Asia, feel the fraternal closeness of Christians of other countries of the world which cannot forget that in your continent – in the Holy Land – Jesus was born, lived, died and rose from the dead.
The Bishops address a word of gratitude and hope to the Churches of the European continent, in part marked today by a strong – sometimes even aggressive – secularization, and in part still wounded by many decades of regimes with ideologies hostile to God and to man. We look with gratitude towards the past, but also to the present, in which the Gospel has created in Europe singular theologies and experiences of faith – often overflowing with holiness – that have been decisive for the evangelization of the whole world: richness of theological thought, variety of charismatic expressions, varied forms of charitable service towards the poor, profound contemplative experiences, the creation of a humanistic culture which has contributed to defining the dignity of the person and shaping the common good. May the present difficulties not pull you down, dear Christians of Europe: may you consider them instead as a challenge to be overcome and an occasion for a more joyful and vivid proclamation of Christ and of his Gospel of life.
Finally, the bishops of the synodal assembly greet the people of Oceania who live under the protection of the southern Cross, they thank them for their witness to the Gospel of Jesus. Our prayer for you is that you might feel a profound thirst for new life, like the Samaritan Woman at the well, and that you might be able to hear the word of Jesus which says: “If you knew the gift of God” (John 4:10). May you more strongly feel the commitment to preach the Gospel and to make Jesus known in the world of today. We exhort you to encounter him in your daily life, to listen to him and to discover, through prayer and meditation, the grace to be able to say: “We know that this is truly the Savior of the World” (John 4:42).
14. The star of Mary illumines the desert
Arriving at the end of this experience of communion among Bishops of the entire world and of collaboration with the ministry of the Successor of Peter, we hear echoing in us the actual command of Jesus to his disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations [...] and behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19,20). This time, the mission is not addressed to one geographic area only, but goes to the very hidden depths of the hearts of our contemporaries to draw them back to an encounter with Jesus, the Living One who makes himself present in our communities.
This presence fills our hearts with joy. Grateful for the gifts received from him in these days, we raise to him the hymn of praise: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord [...] The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:46,49). We make Mary’s words our own: the Lord has indeed done great things for his Church throughout the ages in various parts of the world and we magnify him, certain that he will not fail to look on our poverty in order to show the strength of his arm in our days and to sustain us in the path of the new evangelization.
The figure of Mary guides us on our way. Our work, as Pope Benedict XVI told us, can seem like a path across the desert; we know that we must journey, taking with us what is essential: the company of Jesus, the truth of his word, the eucharistic bread which nourishes us, the fellowship of ecclesial communion, the impetus of charity. It is the water of the well that makes the desert bloom. As stars shine more brightly at night in the desert, so the light of Mary, Star of the new evangelization, brightly shines in heaven on our way. To her we confidently entrust ourselves.
Prepared by a 10-member group of the gathering's Fathers – chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence, aided by a top-shelf committee including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and the "Thrilla from Manila," now Cardinal-designate Chito Tagle – the statement (directed, as always, to "The People of God") stands separate from the Apostolic Exhortation which will serve as the Pope's final word on the three-week event.
Likely to be released in a year to 18 months' time – the venue for its signing yet unknown – Pope Benedict XVI's concluding text is set to become the charter document of his pontificate's key priority for the Western church. In the meanwhile, here in full, the Synod's last word.
Brothers and sisters,
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7). Before returning to our particular Churches, we, Bishops of the whole world gathered by the invitation of the Bishop of Rome Pope Benedict XVI to reflect on “the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith”, wish to address all of you spread throughout the world in order to sustain and direct the preaching and teaching of the Gospel in the diverse contexts in which the Church finds herself today to give witness.
1. Like the Samaritan woman at the well
Let us draw light from a Gospel passage: Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman (cf. John 4:5-42). There is no man or woman who, in one's life, would not find oneself like the woman of Samaria beside a well with an empty bucket, with the hope of finding the fulfillment of the heart's most profound desire, that which alone could give full meaning to existence. Today, many wells offer themselves to quench humanity's thirst, but we must discern in order to avoid polluted waters. We must orient the search well, so as not to fall prey to disappointment, which can be disastrous.
Like Jesus at the well of Sychar, the Church also feels obliged to sit beside today's men and women. She wants to render the Lord present in their lives so that they could encounter him because he alone is the water that gives true and eternal life. Only Jesus can read the depths of our heart and reveal the truth about ourselves: “He told me everything I have done”, the woman confesses to her fellow citizens. This word of proclamation is united to the question that opens up to faith: “Could he possibly be the Messiah?” It shows that whoever receives new life from encountering Jesus cannot but proclaim truth and hope to others. The sinner who was converted becomes a messenger of salvation and leads the whole city to Jesus. The people pass from welcoming her testimony to personally experiencing the encounter: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world”.
2. A new evangelization
Leading the men and women of our time to Jesus, to the encounter with him is a necessity that touches all the regions of the world, those of the old and those of the recent evangelization. Everywhere indeed we feel the need to revive a faith that risks eclipse in cultural contexts that hinders its taking root in persons and its presence in society, the clarity of its content and its coherent fruits.
It is not about starting again, but entering into the long path of proclaiming the Gospel with the apostolic courage of Paul who would go so far as to say “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Throughout history, from the first centuries of the Christian era to the present, the Gospel has edified communities of believers in all parts of the world. Whether small or great, these are the fruit of the dedication of generations of witnesses to Jesus – missionaries and martyrs – whom we remember with gratitude.
Changing societies and cultures call us to something new: to live our communitarian experience of faith in a renewed way and to proclaim it through an evangelization that is “new in its ardor, in its methods, in its expressions” (John Paul II, Discourse to the XIX Assembly of CELAM, Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983, n. 3) as John Paul II said. Benedict XVI recalled that it is an evangelization that is directed “principally at those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian life... to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone fills our existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favor the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life”(Benedict XVI, Homily for the Eucharistic celebration for the solemn inauguration of the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 7 October 2012).
3. The personal encounter with Jesus Christ in the Church
Before saying anything about the forms that this new evangelization must assume, we feel the need to tell you with profound conviction that the faith determines everything in the relationship that we build with the person of Jesus who takes the initiative to encounter us. The work of the new evangelization consists in presenting once more the beauty and perennial newness of the encounter with Christ to the often distracted and confused heart and mind of the men and women of our time, above all to ourselves. We invite you all to contemplate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter the mystery of his existence given for us on the cross, reconfirmed in his resurrection from the dead as the Father's gift and imparted to us through the Spirit. In the person of Jesus, the mystery of God the Father's love for the entire human family is revealed. He did not want us to remain in a false autonomy. Rather he reconciled us to himself in a renewed pact of love.
The Church is the space offered by Christ in history where we can encounter him, because he entrusted to her his Word, the Baptism that makes us God's children, his Body and his Blood, the grace of forgiveness of sins above all in the sacrament of Reconciliation, the experience of communion that reflects the very mystery of the Holy Trinity, the strength of the Spirit that generates charity towards all.
We must form welcoming communities in which all outcasts find a home, concrete experiences of communion which attract the disenchanted glance of contemporary humanity with the ardent force of love – “See how they love one another!” (Tertullian, Apology, 39, 7). The beauty of faith must particularly shine in the actions of the sacred Liturgy, above all in the Sunday Eucharist. It is precisely in liturgical celebrations that the Church reveals herself as God's work and renders the meaning of the Gospel visible in word and gesture.
It is up to us today to render experiences of the Church concretely accessible, to multiply the wells where thirsting men and women are invited to encounter Jesus, to offer oases in the deserts of life. Christian communities and, in them, every disciple of the Lord are responsible for this: an irreplaceable testimony has been entrusted to each one, so that the Gospel can enter the lives of all. This requires of us holiness of life.
4. The occasions of encountering Jesus and listening to the Scriptures
Someone will ask how to do all this. We need not invent new strategies as if the Gospel were a product to be placed in the market of religions. We need to rediscover the ways in which Jesus approached persons and called them, in order to put them into practice in today's circumstances.
We recall, for example, how Jesus engaged Peter, Andrew, James and John in the context of their work, how Zaccheus was able to pass from simple curiosity to the warmth of sharing a meal with the Master, how the Roman centurion asked him to heal a person dear to him, how the man born blind invoked him as liberator from his own marginalization, how Martha and Mary saw the hospitality of their house and of their heart rewarded by his presence. By going through the pages of the Gospels as well as the apostles' missionary experiences in the early Church, we can discover the various ways and circumstances in which persons' lives were opened to Christ's presence.
The frequent reading of the Sacred Scriptures – illuminated by the Tradition of the Church who hands them over to us and is their authentic interpreter – is not only necessary for knowing the very content of the Gospel, which is the person of Jesus in the context of salvation history. Reading the Scriptures also helps us to discover opportunities to encounter Jesus, truly evangelical approaches rooted in the fundamental dimensions of human life: the family, work, friendship, various forms of poverty and the trials of life, etc.
5. Evangelizing ourselves and opening ourselves to conversion
We, however, should never think that the new evangelization does not concern us personally. In these days voices among the Bishops were raised to recall that the Church must first of all heed the Word before she could evangelize the world. The invitation to evangelize becomes a call to conversion.
We firmly believe that we must convert ourselves above all to the power of Christ who alone can make all things new, above all our poor existence. With humility we must recognize that the poverty and weaknesses of Jesus' disciples, especially of his ministers, weigh on the credibility of the mission. We are certainly aware – we Bishops first of all – that we could never really be equal to the Lord's calling and mandate to proclaim his Gospel to the nations. We know that we must humbly recognize our vulnerability to the wounds of history and we do not hesitate to recognize our personal sins. We are, however, also convinced that the Lord's Spirit is capable of renewing his Church and rendering her garment resplendent if we let him mold us. This is demonstrated by the lives of the Saints, the remembrance and narration of which is a privileged means of the new evangelization.
If this renewal were up to us, there would be serious reasons to doubt. But conversion in the Church, just like evangelization, does not come about primarily through us poor mortals, but rather through the Spirit of the Lord. Here we find our strength and our certainty that evil will never have the last word whether in the Church or in history: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27), Jesus said to his disciples.
The work of the new evangelization rests on this serene certainty. We are confident in the inspiration and strength of the Spirit, who will teach us what we are to say and what we are to do even in the most difficult moments. It is our duty, therefore, to conquer fear through faith, humiliation through hope, indifference through love.
6. Seizing new opportunities for evangelization in the world today
This serene courage also affects the way we look at the world today. We are not intimidated by the circumstances of the times in which we live. Our world is full of contradictions and challenges, but it remains God's creation. The world is wounded by evil, but God loves it still. It is his field in which the sowing of the Word can be renewed so that it would bear fruit once more.
There is no room for pessimism in the minds and hearts of those who know that their Lord has conquered death and that his Spirit works with might in history. We approach this world with humility, but also with determination. This comes from the certainty that the truth triumphs in the end. We choose to see in the world God's invitation to witness to his Name. Our Church is alive and faces the challenges that history brings with the courage of faith and the testimony of her many daughters and sons.
We know that we must face in this world a difficult struggle against the “principalities” and “powers”, “the evil spirits” (Ephesians 6:12). We do not ignore the problems that such challenges bring, but they do not frighten us. This is true above all for the phenomena of globalization which must be opportunities for us to expand the presence of the Gospel. Despite the intense sufferings for which we welcome migrants as brethren, migrations have been and continue to be occasions to spread the faith and build communion in its various forms. Secularization – as well as the crisis brought about the ascendancy of politics and of the State – requires the Church to rethink its presence in society without however renouncing it. The many and ever new forms of poverty open new opportunities for charitable service: the proclamation of the Gospel binds the Church to be with the poor and to take on their sufferings like Jesus. Even in the most bitter forms of atheism and agnosticism, we can recognize – although in contradictory forms – not a void but a longing, an expectation that awaits an adequate response.
In the face of the questions that dominant cultures pose to faith and to the Church, we renew our trust in the Lord, certain that even in these contexts the Gospel is the bearer of light and capable of healing every human weakness. It is not we who are to conduct the work of evangelization, but God, as the Pope reminded us: “The first word, the true initiative, the true activity comes from God and only by inserting ourselves in to the divine initiative, only by begging this divine initiative, will we too be able to become – with him and in him – evangelizers”(Benedict XVI, Meditation during the first general Congregation of the XIII General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 8 October 2012).
7. Evangelization, the family and consecrated life
Ever since the first evangelization, the transmission of the faith from one generation to the next found a natural home in the family where women play a very special role without diminishing the figure and responsibility of the father. In the context of the care that every family provides for the growth of its little ones, infants and children are introduced to the signs of faith, the communication of first truths, education in prayer, and the witness of the fruits of love. Despite the diversity of their geographical, cultural and social situations, all the Bishops of the Synod reconfirmed this essential role of the family in the transmission of the faith. A new evangelization is unthinkable without acknowledging a specific responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to families and to sustain them in their task of education.
We do not ignore the fact that today the family, established in the marriage of a man and of a woman which makes them “one flesh” (Matthew 19:6) open to life, is assaulted by crises everywhere. It is surrounded by models of life that penalize it and neglected by the politics of society of which it is also the fundamental cell. It is not always respected in its rhythms and sustained in its tasks by ecclesial communities. It is precisely this, however, that impels us to say that we must particularly take care of the family and its mission in society and in the Church, developing specific paths of accompaniment before and after matrimony. We also want to express our gratitude to the many Christian couples and families who, through their witness, show the world an experience of communion and of service which is the seed of a more loving and peaceful society.
Our thoughts also went to the many families and couples living together which do not reflect that image of unity and of lifelong love that the Lord entrusted to us. There are couples who live together without the sacramental bond of matrimony. More and more families in irregular situations are established after the failure of previous marriages. These are painful situations that negatively affect the education of sons and daughters in the faith. To all of them we want to say that God's love does not abandon anyone, that the Church loves them, too, that the Church is a house that welcomes all, that they remain members of the Church even if they cannot receive sacramental absolution and the Eucharist. May our Catholic communities welcome all who live in such situations and support those who are in the path of conversion and reconciliation.
Family life is the first place in which the Gospel encounters the ordinary life and demonstrates its capacity to transform the fundamental conditions of existence in the horizon of love. But not less important for the witness of the Church is to show how this temporal existence has a fulfillment that goes beyond human history and attains to eternal communion with God. Jesus does not introduce himself to the Samaritan woman simply as the one who gives life, but as the one who gives “eternal life” (John 4:14). God's gift, which faith renders present, is not simply the promise of better conditions in this world. It is the proclamation that our life's ultimate meaning is beyond this world, in that full communion with God that we await at the end of time.
Of this supernatural horizon of the meaning of human existence, there are particular witnesses in the Church and in the world whom the Lord has called to consecrated life. Precisely because it is totally consecrated to him in the exercise of poverty, chastity and obedience, consecrated life is the sign of a future world that relativizes everything that is good in this world. May the gratitude of the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops reach these our brothers and sisters for their fidelity to the Lord's calling and for the contribution that they have given and give to the Church's mission. We exhort them to hope in situations that are difficult even for them in these times of change. We invite them to establish themselves as witnesses and promoters of new evangelization in the various fields to which the charism of each of their institutes assigns them.
8. The ecclesial community and the many agents of evangelization
No one person or group in the Church has exclusive right to the work of evangelization. It is the work of ecclesial communities as such, where one has access to all the means for encountering Jesus: the Word, the sacraments, fraternal communion, charitable service, mission.
In this perspective, the role of the parish emerges above all as the presence of the Church where men and women live, “the village fountain”, as John XXIII loved to call it, from which all can drink, finding in it the freshness of the Gospel. It cannot be abandoned, even though changes can require of it to be made up of small Christian communities or to either the articulation into small communities or forge bonds of collaboration within larger pastoral contexts. We exhort our parishes to join the new forms of mission required by the new evangelization to the traditional pastoral care of God's people. These must also permeate the various important expressions of popular piety.
In the parish, the ministry of the priest – father and pastor of his people – remains crucial. To all priests, the Bishops of this Synodal Assembly express thanks and fraternal closeness for their difficult task. We invite them to strengthen the bonds of the diocesan presbyterium, to deepen their spiritual life, to an ongoing formation that enables them to face the changes.
Alongside the priests, the presence of deacons is to be sustained, as well as the pastoral action of catechists and of many other ministers and animators in the fields of proclamation, catechesis, liturgical life, charitable service. The various forms of participation and co-responsibility of the faithful must also be promoted. We cannot thank enough our lay men and women for their dedication in our communities' manifold services. We ask all of them, too, to place their presence and their service in the Church in the perspective of the new evangelization, taking care of their own human and Christian formation, their understanding of the faith and their sensitivity to contemporary cultural phenomena.
With regard to the laity, a special word goes to the various forms of old and new associations, together with the ecclesial movements and the new communities: All are an expression of the richness of the gifts that the Spirit bestows on the Church. We also thank these forms of life and of commitment in the Church, exhorting them to be faithful to their proper charism and to earnest ecclesial communion especially in the concrete context of the particular Churches.
Witnessing to the Gospel is not the privilege of one or of a few. We recognize with joy the presence of many men and women who with their lives become a sign of the Gospel in the midst of the world. We recognize them even in many of our Christian brothers and sisters with whom unity unfortunately is not yet full, but are nevertheless marked by the Lord's Baptism and proclaim it. In these days it was a moving experience for us to listen to the voices of many authorities of Churches and ecclesial communities who gave witness to their thirst for Christ and their dedication to the proclamation of the Gospel. They, too, are convinced that the world needs a new evangelization. We are grateful to the Lord for this unity in the necessity of the mission.
9. That the youth may encounter Christ
The youth are particularly dear to us, because they, who are a significant part of humanity's and the Church's present, are also their future. With regard to them, the Bishops are far from being pessimistic. Concerned, yes; but not pessimistic. We are concerned because the most aggressive attacks of our times happen to converge precisely on them. We are not, however, pessimistic, above all because what moves in the depths of history is Christ's love, but also because we sense in our youth deep aspirations for authenticity, truth, freedom, generosity, to which we are convinced that the adequate response is Christ.
We want to support them in their search and we encourage our communities to listen to, dialogue with and respond boldly and without reservation to the difficult condition of the youth. We want our communities to harness, and not to suppress, the power of their enthusiasm; to struggle for them against the fallacies and selfish ventures of worldly powers which, to their own advantage, dissipate the energies and waste the passion of the young, taking from them every grateful memory of the past and every earnest vision of the future.
The world of the young is a demanding but also particularly promising field of the New Evangelization. This is demonstrated by many experiences, from those that draw many of them like the World Youth Days, to the most hidden – but nonetheless powerful – like the different experiences of spirituality, service and mission. The youth's active role in evangelizing first and foremost their world is to be recognized.
10. The Gospel in dialogue with human culture and experience and with religions
The New Evangelization is centered on Christ and on care for the human person in order to give life to a real encounter with him. However, its horizons are as wide as the world and beyond any human experience. This means that it carefully cultivates the dialogue with cultures, confident that it can find in each of them the “seeds of the Word” about which the ancient Fathers spoke. In particular, the new evangelization needs a renewed alliance between faith and reason. We are convinced that faith has the capacity to welcome every product of a sound mind open to transcendence and the strength to heal the limits and contradictions into which reason could fall. Faith does not close its eyes, not even before the excruciating questions arising from evil's presence in life and in history, in order to draw the light of hope from Christ's Paschal Mystery.
The encounter between faith and reason nourishes also the Christian community's commitment in the field of education and culture. The institutions of formation and of research – schools and universities – occupy a special place in this. Wherever human intelligence is developed and educated, the Church is pleased to bring her experience and contribution to the integral formation of the person. In this context particular care is to be reserved for catholic schools and for catholic universities, in which the openness to transcendence that belongs to every authentic cultural and educational course, must be fulfilled in paths of encounter with the event of Jesus Christ and of his Church. May the gratitude of the Bishops reach all who, in sometimes difficult conditions, are involved in this.
Evangelization requires that we pay much attention to the world of social communication, especially the new media, in which many lives, questions and expectations converge. It is the place where consciences are often formed, where people spend their time and live their lives. It is a new opportunity for touching the human heart.
A particular field of the encounter between faith and reason today is the dialogue with scientific knowledge. This is not at all far from faith, since it manifests the spiritual principle that God placed in his creatures. It allows us to see the rational structures on which creation is founded. When science and technology do not presume to imprison humanity and the world in a barren materialism, they become an invaluable ally in making life more humane. Our thanks also go to those who are involved in this sensitive field of knowledge.
We also want to thank men and women involved in another expression of the human genius, art in its various forms, from the most ancient to the most recent. We recognize in works of art a particularly meaningful way of expressing spirituality inasmuch as they strive to embody humanity's attraction to beauty. We are grateful when artists through their beautiful creations bring out the beauty of God's face and that of his creatures. The way of beauty is a particularly effective path of the new evangelization.
In addition to works of art, all of human activity draws our attention as an opportunity in which we cooperate in divine creation through work. We want to remind the world of economy and of labor of some reminders arising from the Gospel: to redeem work from the conditions that often make it an unbearable burden and an uncertain future threatened by youth unemployment, to place the human person at the center of economic development, to think of this development as an occasion for humanity to grow in justice and unity. Humanity transforms the world through work. Nevertheless he is called to safeguard the integrity of creation out of a sense of responsibility towards future generations.
The Gospel also illuminates the suffering brought about by disease. Christians must help the sick feel that the Church is near to persons with illness or with disabilities. Christians are to thank all who take care of them professionally and humanely.
A field in which the light of the Gospel can and must shine in order to illuminate humanity's footsteps is politics. Politics requires a commitment of selfless and sincere care for the common good by fully respecting the dignity of the human person from conception to natural end, honoring the family founded by the marriage of a man and a woman and protecting academic freedom; by removing the causes of injustice, inequality, discrimination, violence, racism, hunger and war. Christians are asked to give a clear witness to the precept of charity in the exercise of politics.
Finally, the Church considers the other religions are her natural partners in dialogue. One is evangelized because one is convinced of the truth of Christ, not because one is against another. The Gospel of Jesus is peace and joy, and his disciples are happy to recognize whatever is true and good that humanity's religious spirit has been able to glimpse in the world created by God and that it has expressed in the various religions.
The dialogue among religions intends to be a contribution to peace. It rejects every fundamentalism and denounces every violence that is brought upon believers as serious violations of human rights. The Churches of the whole world are united in prayer and in fraternity to the suffering brethren and ask those who are responsible for the destinies of peoples to safeguard everyone's right to freely choose, profess and witness to one's faith.
11. Remembering the Second Vatican Council and referring to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the Year of Faith
In the path opened by the New Evangelization, we might also feel as if we were in a desert, in the midst of dangers and lacking points of reference. The Holy Father Benedict XVI, in his homily for the Mass opening the Year of Faith, spoke of a “spiritual 'desertification'” that has advanced in the last decades. But he also encouraged us by affirming that “it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living” (Homily for the Eucharistic celebration for the opening of the Year of Faith, Rome, 11 October 2012). In the desert, like the Samaritan woman, we seek water and a well from which to drink: blessed is the one who encounters Christ there!
We thank the Holy Father for the gift of the Year of Faith, an exquisite portal into the path of the new evangelization. We thank him also for having linked this Year to the grateful remembrance of the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago. Its fundamental magisterium for our time shines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is proposed once more as a sure reference of faith twenty years after its publication. These are important anniversaries, which allow us to reaffirm our close adherence to the Council's teaching and our firm commitment to carry on its implementation.
12. Contemplating the mystery and being at the side of the poor
In this perspective we wish to indicate to all the faithful two expressions of the life of faith which seem particularly important to us for witnessing to it in the New Evangelization.
The first is constituted by the gift and experience of contemplation. A testimony that the world would consider credible can arise only from an adoring gaze at the mystery of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, only from the deep silence that receives the unique saving Word like a womb. Only this prayerful silence can prevent the word of salvation from being lost in the many noises that overrun the world.
We now address a word of gratitude to all men and women who dedicate their lives in monasteries and hermitages to prayer and contemplation. Moments of contemplation must interweave with people's ordinary lives: spaces in the soul, but also physical ones, that remind us of God; interior sanctuaries and temples of stone that, like crossroads, keep us from losing ourselves in a flood of experiences; opportunities in which all could feel accepted, even those who barely know what and whom to seek.
The other symbol of authenticity of the new evangelization has the face of the poor. Placing ourselves side by side with those who are wounded by life is not only a social exercise, but above all a spiritual act because it is Christ's face that shines in the face of the poor: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew25:40).
We must recognize the privileged place of the poor in our communities, a place that does not exclude anyone, but wants to reflect how Jesus bound himself to them. The presence of the poor in our communities is mysteriously powerful: it changes persons more than a discourse does, it teaches fidelity, it makes us understand the fragility of life, it asks for prayer: in short, it brings us to Christ.
The gesture of charity, on the other hand, must also be accompanied by commitment to justice, with an appeal that concerns all, poor and rich. Hence, the social doctrine of the Church is integral to the pathways of the new evangelization, as well as the formation of Christians to dedicate themselves to serve the human community in social and political life.
13. To the Churches in the various regions of the world
The vision of the Bishops gathered in the synodal assembly embraces all the ecclesial communities spread throughout the world. Their vision seeks to be comprehensive, because the call to encounter Christ is one, while keeping diversity in mind.
The Bishops gathered in the Synod gave special consideration, full of fraternal affection and gratitude, to you Christians of the Catholic Oriental Churches, those who are heirs of the first wave of evangelization – an experience preserved with love and faithfulness – and those present in Eastern Europe. Today the Gospel comes to you again in a new evangelization through liturgical life, catechesis, daily family prayer, fasting, solidarity among families, the participation of the laity in the life of communities and in dialogue with society. In many places your Churches are amidst trials and tribulation through which they witness to their participation in the sufferings of Christ. Some of the faithful are forced to emigrate. Keeping alive their oneness with their community of origin, they can contribute to the pastoral care and to the work of evangelization in the countries that have welcomed them. May the Lord continue to bless your faithfulness. May your future be marked by the serene confession and practice of your faith in peace and religious liberty.
We look to you Christians, men and women, who live in the countries of Africa and we express our gratitude for your witness to the Gospel often in difficult circumstances. We exhort you to revive the evangelization that you received in recent times, to build the Church as the family of God, to strengthen the identity of the family, to sustain the commitment of priests and catechists especially in the small Christian communities. We affirm the need to develop the encounter between the Gospel and old and new cultures. Great expectation and a strong appeal is addressed to the world of politics and to the governments of the various countries of Africa, so that, in collaboration with all people of good will, basic human rights may be promoted and the continent freed from violence and conflicts which still afflict it.
The Bishops of the synodal Assembly invite you, Christians of North America, to respond with joy to the call to a new evangelization, while they look with gratitude at how your young Christian communities have borne generous fruits of faith, charity and mission. You need to recognize the many expressions of the present culture in the countries of your world which are today far from the Gospel. Conversion is necessary, from which is born a commitment that does not bring you out of your cultures, but in their midst to offer to all the light of faith and the power of life. As you welcome in your generous lands new populations of immigrants and refugees, may you be willing to open the doors of your homes to the faith. Faithful to the commitments taken at the synodal Assembly for America, be united with Latin America in the ongoing evangelization of the continent you share.
The synodal assembly addressed the same sentiment of gratitude to the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean. Particularly striking throughout the ages is the development in your countries of forms of popular piety still fixed in the hearts of many people, of charitable service and of dialogue with cultures. Now, in the face of many present challenges, first of all poverty and violence, the Church in Latin America and in the Caribbean is encouraged to live in an ongoing state of mission, announcing the Gospel with hope and joy, forming communities of true missionary disciples of Jesus Christ, showing in the commitment of its sons and daughters how the Gospel could be the source of a new, just and fraternal society. Religious pluralism also tests your Churches and requires a renewed proclamation of the Gospel.
To you, Christians of Asia, we also offer a word of encouragement and of exhortation. As a small minority in the continent which houses almost two thirds of the world's population, your presence is a fruitful seed entrusted to the power of the Spirit, which grows in dialogue with the diverse cultures, with the ancient religions and with the countless poor. Although often outcast by society and in many places also persecuted, the Church of Asia, with its firm faith, is a valuable presence of the Christ's Gospel which proclaims justice, life and harmony. Christians of Asia, feel the fraternal closeness of Christians of other countries of the world which cannot forget that in your continent – in the Holy Land – Jesus was born, lived, died and rose from the dead.
The Bishops address a word of gratitude and hope to the Churches of the European continent, in part marked today by a strong – sometimes even aggressive – secularization, and in part still wounded by many decades of regimes with ideologies hostile to God and to man. We look with gratitude towards the past, but also to the present, in which the Gospel has created in Europe singular theologies and experiences of faith – often overflowing with holiness – that have been decisive for the evangelization of the whole world: richness of theological thought, variety of charismatic expressions, varied forms of charitable service towards the poor, profound contemplative experiences, the creation of a humanistic culture which has contributed to defining the dignity of the person and shaping the common good. May the present difficulties not pull you down, dear Christians of Europe: may you consider them instead as a challenge to be overcome and an occasion for a more joyful and vivid proclamation of Christ and of his Gospel of life.
Finally, the bishops of the synodal assembly greet the people of Oceania who live under the protection of the southern Cross, they thank them for their witness to the Gospel of Jesus. Our prayer for you is that you might feel a profound thirst for new life, like the Samaritan Woman at the well, and that you might be able to hear the word of Jesus which says: “If you knew the gift of God” (John 4:10). May you more strongly feel the commitment to preach the Gospel and to make Jesus known in the world of today. We exhort you to encounter him in your daily life, to listen to him and to discover, through prayer and meditation, the grace to be able to say: “We know that this is truly the Savior of the World” (John 4:42).
14. The star of Mary illumines the desert
Arriving at the end of this experience of communion among Bishops of the entire world and of collaboration with the ministry of the Successor of Peter, we hear echoing in us the actual command of Jesus to his disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations [...] and behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19,20). This time, the mission is not addressed to one geographic area only, but goes to the very hidden depths of the hearts of our contemporaries to draw them back to an encounter with Jesus, the Living One who makes himself present in our communities.
This presence fills our hearts with joy. Grateful for the gifts received from him in these days, we raise to him the hymn of praise: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord [...] The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:46,49). We make Mary’s words our own: the Lord has indeed done great things for his Church throughout the ages in various parts of the world and we magnify him, certain that he will not fail to look on our poverty in order to show the strength of his arm in our days and to sustain us in the path of the new evangelization.
The figure of Mary guides us on our way. Our work, as Pope Benedict XVI told us, can seem like a path across the desert; we know that we must journey, taking with us what is essential: the company of Jesus, the truth of his word, the eucharistic bread which nourishes us, the fellowship of ecclesial communion, the impetus of charity. It is the water of the well that makes the desert bloom. As stars shine more brightly at night in the desert, so the light of Mary, Star of the new evangelization, brightly shines in heaven on our way. To her we confidently entrust ourselves.
LAY LEADER SLAMS UNITED NATIONS
FOR PLAN TO LEGALIZE PROSTITUTION
BERT SUANSING (Left) and ALDO BARRIOS (Center) and ED MALAY (Right) at the MEDIA FORUM.
“It is a prescription for a moral disaster of gargantuan proportions.” This was how a Christian lay leader described the proposal coming from the Global Commission on HIV and the Law aimed at legalizing prostitution worldwide as a means of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Ed M. Malay, a Trustee of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Laiko) and Servant Leader for Formation of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community, said that this proposal “is a big joke” and that outside of Germany, Netherlands and Canada, no other foreign governments would even allow their legislatures to discuss this proposal. The Laiko is the lay action arm of the CBCP while the BLD is a global charismatic organization with chapters in HK, USA and Canada.
Speaking at the Balitaan sa Tinapayan, a media forum held every Sunday at the Tinapayan sa Dapitan in Manila, Malay said that the proposal of the UN-backed Global Commission seems to be tied in to the controversial RH Bill which remains pending at the Philippine House of Representatives.
The Global Commission on HIV and the Law is a panel of experts that was organized and funded by the United Nations to conduct a comprehensive study on how to reduce and neutralize the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Following the completion of its study, the panel recommended among other things that governments need to “work with the guardians of customary and religious law to promote traditions and religious practice that promote rights and acceptance of diversity and that protect privacy,” and, “Decriminalize private and consensual adult sexual behaviors, including same-sex sexual acts and voluntary sex work.”
Malay said the fact that the UN-backed Global Commission has proposed to UN-member nations to “decriminalize same-sex sexual acts” has belied its true intention as it is feared that passing the RH Bill into law will open it to further amendments that will allow divorce, abortion and same-sex marriages.
Prostitution has been legally recognized as a profession for years in Germany—where laws exist that deny unemployment benefits to women under age 55 who refuse to take jobs in the sex industry—and also in the Netherlands. Canada has ruled that anti-prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
Citing statistics, Malay said there is an estimated 40 million prostitutes worldwide such that the International Labor Organization even recommended that sex work be recognized as an occupation so that it can be regulated in ways that protect workers and customers.
But legalizing prostitution, he said, will not curb the spread of HIV/AIDS as legalizing it and recognizing it as an occupation or profession will most probably increase the number of prostitutes and the danger of the diseases spreading will always be there. Worst is this will create an impact on the moral foundation of any nation that will adopt this proposal.
Malay said foreign governments should simply refer this proposal to their archives as he praised the Philippine government headed by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III which ignored and did not offer any comment nor reaction to the said proposal.
FOR AUTHENTICATION, PLS CALL:
ED MALAY @ 09209602293 or eMail at: [email protected]
(Others in the picture are Bert Suansing, former Director of the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and now Chairman of the Philippine Global Road Safety Network and, Aldo Barrios, Head of Operations of Cavite Expressway. Both talked about road safety and the necessity of education to minimize and reduce the high incidence of road accidents.)
Ed M. Malay, a Trustee of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Laiko) and Servant Leader for Formation of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community, said that this proposal “is a big joke” and that outside of Germany, Netherlands and Canada, no other foreign governments would even allow their legislatures to discuss this proposal. The Laiko is the lay action arm of the CBCP while the BLD is a global charismatic organization with chapters in HK, USA and Canada.
Speaking at the Balitaan sa Tinapayan, a media forum held every Sunday at the Tinapayan sa Dapitan in Manila, Malay said that the proposal of the UN-backed Global Commission seems to be tied in to the controversial RH Bill which remains pending at the Philippine House of Representatives.
The Global Commission on HIV and the Law is a panel of experts that was organized and funded by the United Nations to conduct a comprehensive study on how to reduce and neutralize the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Following the completion of its study, the panel recommended among other things that governments need to “work with the guardians of customary and religious law to promote traditions and religious practice that promote rights and acceptance of diversity and that protect privacy,” and, “Decriminalize private and consensual adult sexual behaviors, including same-sex sexual acts and voluntary sex work.”
Malay said the fact that the UN-backed Global Commission has proposed to UN-member nations to “decriminalize same-sex sexual acts” has belied its true intention as it is feared that passing the RH Bill into law will open it to further amendments that will allow divorce, abortion and same-sex marriages.
Prostitution has been legally recognized as a profession for years in Germany—where laws exist that deny unemployment benefits to women under age 55 who refuse to take jobs in the sex industry—and also in the Netherlands. Canada has ruled that anti-prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
Citing statistics, Malay said there is an estimated 40 million prostitutes worldwide such that the International Labor Organization even recommended that sex work be recognized as an occupation so that it can be regulated in ways that protect workers and customers.
But legalizing prostitution, he said, will not curb the spread of HIV/AIDS as legalizing it and recognizing it as an occupation or profession will most probably increase the number of prostitutes and the danger of the diseases spreading will always be there. Worst is this will create an impact on the moral foundation of any nation that will adopt this proposal.
Malay said foreign governments should simply refer this proposal to their archives as he praised the Philippine government headed by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III which ignored and did not offer any comment nor reaction to the said proposal.
FOR AUTHENTICATION, PLS CALL:
ED MALAY @ 09209602293 or eMail at: [email protected]
(Others in the picture are Bert Suansing, former Director of the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and now Chairman of the Philippine Global Road Safety Network and, Aldo Barrios, Head of Operations of Cavite Expressway. Both talked about road safety and the necessity of education to minimize and reduce the high incidence of road accidents.)
COUNCIL OF SERVANT LEADERS PLAN
FOR CHURCH OF TOMORROW
The Community Council of Servant Leaders met over the weekend at the BLD Covenant House in Cavite to map out plans for the BLD Community in the next three years. Principally, the challenge for the BLD as a community of faith is how to remain as a Christian in the Church of tomorrow. BLD Global Spiritual Director Angel Lagdameo gave an inspiring reflection on how the Community can respond to the challenges faced by Catholic Christians who are to keep their faith in the face of the traditional society that we used to live in, the modern society which has compromised our morals and, the post-modern society when faith is no longer practiced.
With the FIRE Revival Conferences about to come to a close, the Community's servant leaders together with Archbishop Lagdameo decided on launching a follow up program to the FIRE Revival Conference which will heretofore be known as "Keeping Our Hearts ON FIRE" with Lk 24:32 as the guiding Word. Photo shows from (left to right) Teddy and Marivic Lacson (Bacolod), Efren and Vangie Fernandez (AFP-PNP), Rey and Lelen Monserrat (San Pablo), Ed and Malou Malay (Formation), Ben and Ely Marquez (Pastoral), Archbisop Lagdameo, Raul and Mari Garcia (Management), Jing and Shony Abella (Davao), Sonny and Nonie Academia (Cebu), Nato and Tess Roque (Evangelization), Ray and Susan Frangante (Manila), Jojo and Koi Jalandoni (Mission).
With the FIRE Revival Conferences about to come to a close, the Community's servant leaders together with Archbishop Lagdameo decided on launching a follow up program to the FIRE Revival Conference which will heretofore be known as "Keeping Our Hearts ON FIRE" with Lk 24:32 as the guiding Word. Photo shows from (left to right) Teddy and Marivic Lacson (Bacolod), Efren and Vangie Fernandez (AFP-PNP), Rey and Lelen Monserrat (San Pablo), Ed and Malou Malay (Formation), Ben and Ely Marquez (Pastoral), Archbisop Lagdameo, Raul and Mari Garcia (Management), Jing and Shony Abella (Davao), Sonny and Nonie Academia (Cebu), Nato and Tess Roque (Evangelization), Ray and Susan Frangante (Manila), Jojo and Koi Jalandoni (Mission).
BLD ECSL PLOTS NEW
EVANGELIZATION PLANS
The Executive Council of Servant Leaders of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community met over the weekend to align its plans with the New Evangelization campaign of the Catholic Church that is outlined in the Lineamenta or the guidelines issued by Pope Benedict XVI for the Synod of Bishops which specifies the parameters the Church has to use in pursuit of the New Evangelization program of the Church for this decade.
The BLD global community has 51 Districts spread out in the Philippines, HK, USA and Canada and the community's servant leaders gathered together last weekend at the Covenant House to lay down its priorities for the next three years from 2012-2015. Former Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Jaro Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo is the BLD's global spiritual director. In photo (from left to right are: Jojo/ Koi Jalandoni (SL for Mission and presiding servant leaders to January, 2013; Ely/ Ben Marquez for Pastoral; Mari and Raul Garcia for Management; Tess/ Nato Roque for Evangelization, and: Malou/ Ed Malay, Servant Leader for Formation. The ECSL in a resolution that will be presented this coming weekend to the District Servant Leaders call for the creation and establishment of 20 new Districts-in-Process (DIPs) over the three -year period from 2012 to 2015.
There will also be an spiritual reawakening and deepening program that will be launched to encourage all members of the BLD worldwide to faithfully observe the 5-Point Pledge for Committed Disciples and the 8-Point Pledge for Covenanted Disciples. In this regard, all formation programs and spiritual activities will be geared to help members forge a deeper relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ and with one another.
EVANGELIZATION PLANS
The Executive Council of Servant Leaders of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community met over the weekend to align its plans with the New Evangelization campaign of the Catholic Church that is outlined in the Lineamenta or the guidelines issued by Pope Benedict XVI for the Synod of Bishops which specifies the parameters the Church has to use in pursuit of the New Evangelization program of the Church for this decade.
The BLD global community has 51 Districts spread out in the Philippines, HK, USA and Canada and the community's servant leaders gathered together last weekend at the Covenant House to lay down its priorities for the next three years from 2012-2015. Former Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Jaro Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo is the BLD's global spiritual director. In photo (from left to right are: Jojo/ Koi Jalandoni (SL for Mission and presiding servant leaders to January, 2013; Ely/ Ben Marquez for Pastoral; Mari and Raul Garcia for Management; Tess/ Nato Roque for Evangelization, and: Malou/ Ed Malay, Servant Leader for Formation. The ECSL in a resolution that will be presented this coming weekend to the District Servant Leaders call for the creation and establishment of 20 new Districts-in-Process (DIPs) over the three -year period from 2012 to 2015.
There will also be an spiritual reawakening and deepening program that will be launched to encourage all members of the BLD worldwide to faithfully observe the 5-Point Pledge for Committed Disciples and the 8-Point Pledge for Covenanted Disciples. In this regard, all formation programs and spiritual activities will be geared to help members forge a deeper relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ and with one another.
BLD LAOAG SET ON FIRE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT
LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte (Aug. 25, 2012) - The Executive Council of Servant Leaders of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community took the FIRE Revival Conference to BLD Laoag District last weekend and from the initial reaction of the members, it can safely be said that the District is on fire.
The BLD Laoag District Stewards were in full force as well as the entire membership of the District. What was amazing was that members who have become inactive were back and stayed to listen to the talks during the weekend.
The District Council of Stewards of BLD Laoag are: Emil and Tess Domingo (Evangelization); Michael and Mercuria Madamba (Formation); Pons and Aidz Antonio (Management); Delfin and Alice Samson (Mission); and Romeo and Cindy Narvaez (Pastoral). Bill and Chol Farinas are the Shepherd Couple of BLD Laoag who have devoted much of their time in pastoring and nurturing the BLD community in this city.
The BLD Laoag District Stewards were in full force as well as the entire membership of the District. What was amazing was that members who have become inactive were back and stayed to listen to the talks during the weekend.
The District Council of Stewards of BLD Laoag are: Emil and Tess Domingo (Evangelization); Michael and Mercuria Madamba (Formation); Pons and Aidz Antonio (Management); Delfin and Alice Samson (Mission); and Romeo and Cindy Narvaez (Pastoral). Bill and Chol Farinas are the Shepherd Couple of BLD Laoag who have devoted much of their time in pastoring and nurturing the BLD community in this city.