Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011 Php 20.00

Willing Willie incident ‘brings shame to media’ – CBCP official

Parents of sick urged to join Health Care Commission’s advocacies

Pope calls for Church’s greater presence in cyberspace

The CrossA Supplement Publication of KC

Life and the Order of the Knights of Columbus

A3 The priest and the paschal triduum

Church, local officials ink covenant for ‘good

governance’

INTERIOR and Local Government Sec. Jesse Ro-bredo and three Catholic bishops led the signing of a covenant for good governance, April 7.

The signing of the covenant was the highlight of the launching of the partnership between churches and barangays held at the St. Peter’s Parish Church in Quezon City.

Dubbed as “Barangay at Simbahan: Mag-

CBCP Media Office launches Visita Iglesia Online

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Pope calls violence in Libya, Ivory Coast a defeat for humanity

By Pinky B. Barrientos, FSP

ACKNOWLEDGING the great potential of the new media in the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Benedict XVI has urged for a greater presence of the Church in cyberspace.

In his 2011 message for World Com-munications Day, the pope said the digital era offers an arena that every Christian should take advantage of to make the presence of Christ known in a truthful way.

“I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and re-sponsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible,” the pontiff said.

The pope noted that the internet has allowed “people to meet each other beyond the confines of space and of their own culture, creating in this way an entirely new world of potential friendships.”

The Vatican has, of late, strengthened its presence in the internet by making use of the social networks in its attempt to reach out to the younger generation who are internet savvy.

Aside from its presence on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, the Vatican also maintains Pope2you.net, a web portal launched in 2009 during the 43rd World Communications Day.

Visita Iglesia online

Mindful of the pope’s call to use the internet responsibly for evangelization,

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KRUS NG BUHAY. Members of Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) of St. John the Baptist Parish in Taytay, Rizal formed a human cross at the fourteenth station of their annual Lenten Station of the Cross, April 8. Penitents prayed for the protection of human life and preservation of moral values as they walked from one station to another. This is just one of the community mobilizations nationwide that registers opposition to the RH Bill; at press time a caravan is going through towns in the dioceses of San Carlos, Kabankalan and Bacolod.

JP II shrine to rise in former Bataan refugee campTHE Philippines will have its first shrine to Pope John Paul II at a former refugee camp in Bataan’s Morong town which the pontiff visited 30 years ago.

The shrine will be inaugurated at the former Philippine Refugee Processing Center (PRPC) now known as the Bataan Technol-ogy Park, Inc. (BTPI) on May 2, a day after the pope’s beatification in Rome.

The facility became the home of the “boat people” to some 400,000 Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees and thousands of Filipino and in-ternational staff and volunteer workers during its 14-years’ existence from 1980 to 1994.

At noon on Feb. 21, 1981, John Paul II held a mass at the refugee camp attended by thousands of Indo-Chinese refugees with dif-

AFFIRMING its advocacy to attend to the needs of the handicapped and the sick, the Episcopal Commission on Health Care (ECHC) has called on parents of children who are “in need” to partici-pate in the commission’s vari-ous advocacies, saying that it would benefit them and their children.

“It is a great opportunity to work in the commission for the benefit of the child who is

ferent beliefs and religions. As reports would have it,

almost all of the refugees did not even know who Pope John Paul II was.

“Some thought he was a King. And like a King, he was received by the Indo-Chinese refugees,” recalled retired Philippine Navy Commodore Amado Sanglay, BTPI executive director.

Sanglay said there were about 1 million former refugees who are now resettled in their final asylum countries—90 percent of them were resettled in the United States.

The remaining 10 percent, meanwhile, were resettled in Australia, Germany, Norway, Canada, France and a few to Switzerland.

John Paul II’s memorial shrine

blind and other children who are disabled. It’s important to have them in the commis-sion,” said former ECHC Executive Secretary Fr. Luke Moortgat, CICM.

ECHC has for long, assisted parishes and hospitals in do-ing their medical missions where they have given away medicines to the needy, al-though not in a large scale.

During their work with

AFTER 25 years in Rome, one of the country’s three living cardinals returned to the Philippines to be one of the voices in the church’s campaign against a birth control measure.

Retired Jose Cardinal Sanchez said he can’t just stay in Rome while his fellow Filipino bishops are fighting hard against the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill.

The bill, he said, which requires the government to make a comprehensive range of contraceptives more widely available to the public, is a “destruction of Christian family.”

“I left Rome to come here in the Philip-pines precisely [because] of these prob-lems the country is facing especially on

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From Rome, 91-year old Cardinal returns to PHL to fight RH bill

Jose Cardinal Sanchez (center) reads the Eucharistic prayer at Mass during the church-organized rally against anti-RH bill held at Luneta, March 25.

Illustration by Bladimer Usi

THE controversy involving “Willing Willie” host Wil-lie Revillame never cease to disappoint.

The latest to join the growing protest is an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in a state-ment issued April 8.

The CBCP’s Na-tional Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace is dismayed on the in-cident involving a 6-year-old boy’s “ma-cho-dancing” routine on Revillame’s show

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A2 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP MonitorWorld News

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VATICAN City, April 8, 2011—The new flow of North African immigrants into Italy is putting the Vatican’s teaching on immi-gration to the test.

More than 22,000 “boat peo-ple,” many fleeing political un-rest in Tunisia and Libya, have arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa this year. The fighting in Libya has spurred more people to flee in recent days. Not all survive the trip: About 150 people drowned April 6 when a migrant boat capsized in rough seas.

Church leaders have under-lined the broad right to emigrate, the specific rights of refugees and the responsibility of wealthier na-tions to welcome those in need. But their moral advocacy has provoked criticism and even de-rision among some Italians, who have suggested that the Vatican and other religious institutions be the first to open their doors to the wave of immigrants.

Because it lies only 90 miles off the North African coast, Lampe-dusa has long been the gateway to Europe for North Africans. Residents have complained that the island’s infrastructure is over-

whelmed, and in response Italian leaders have begun relocating the new arrivals to other Italian regions ―whose residents don’t seem to want them, either.

The government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pro-posed financial aid to Tunisia in a bid to halt the immigration and repatriate the Tunisians who have recently arrived in Italy. The issue, meanwhile, has become a political football among Italians.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops’ conference, has called on Europe to recognize that Italy cannot handle the migration flow by it-self, and that Lampedusa is part of the European Union’s south-ern coast. European bishops meeting April 3 agreed, saying that the crisis “requires the soli-darity of all European countries and their institutions.”

But Cardinal Bagnasco also reminded Italians that the current immigration emergency stems in part from long-standing global inequities, and that Europe can-not keep out the world’s poor simply by patrolling its borders.

“It’s an illusion to think that one can live in peace, keeping

at a distance young populations that are burdened by deprivation and that are legitimately trying to satisfy their hunger,” he said. Per-suading these people to remain in their homeland will require implementation of “policies of true cooperation,” he said.

In Lampedusa, meanwhile, Italian members of the char-ismatic renewal held a prayer vigil April 4 to demonstrate what they called “the face of Christian humanism that does not discrimi-nate in welcoming people.”

“The closing of borders, of hearts and of minds to an exodus like the one we are experiencing provokes humanitarian catastro-phes,” said Salvatore Martinez, president of Italy’s Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement.

The church has suffered a signifi-cant political backlash in the current climate, however. Several groups and newspapers have proposed that the Vatican open up convents, seminaries and its own unrented apartments to immigrants, noting that the church receives tax breaks on some of the properties.

In fact, Caritas Italy has al-ready arranged to lodge some 2,500 in church institutions

Immigration crisis in Italy puts church teaching to the test

PARIS, France, March 30, 2011—Bishop Em-manuel Delmas of Angers, France confirmed the healing of a man at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.

“This healing can be considered as a personal gift of God for this man, as a fact of grace, as a sign of Christ the Savior,” the bishop said March 27.

Serge Francois, 56, had lost almost all mo-bility in his left leg after complications from two operations left him with a herniated disc. He made a pilgrimage to the shrine on April 13, 2002 to pray for healing.

Bishop Delmas noted that the healing took place after Francois “had finished praying at the grotto and went to the miraculous spring to drink the water and wash his face. A unique gesture of the Virgin Mary can be seen in the healing of this man,” he said.

The Spanish daily La Razon said that after Francois’ recovery, he returned to Lourdes in 2003 and reported his case to the medical commission, which began its investigation.

The Lourdes Medical Commission later verified that “the rapid functional healing, unrelated to any form of treatment” was “still present, eight years later.”

Francois made a 975-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain in thanksgiv-ing for his recovery.

Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes explained that doctors are “hesitant today to use the term ‘inexplicable,’ unless they qualify it with ‘scientifically’.”

“They prefer to limit themselves to one fact: the healing is inexplicable today. They consider this qualification to be essential so they are not discredited later by colleagues who reject the inexplicable,” he said in a statement published on the Shrine of Lourdes’ website.

Bishop approves Our Lady of Lourdes healing

Cardinal urges end to ‘priestly ministry’ crisis

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, April 9, 2011—The Malaysian government has authorized the importation of the Bible in all languages into the country and for it to be printed locally. The authorities have assured Christians that they will not demand any stamp or serial number on imported Bibles. These decisions are part of a 10 point solution to the dispute over the Malay language Bibles.

The government announced that there will be no further conditions placed on the importation or local printing of Bibles for Sabah and

Sarawak, in recognition of the large Christian communities in these states. But instead there will be a condition for Bibles imported or printed lo-cally on the peninsula of Malaysia. These Bibles will have a cross on the cover and the words “Christian Publication.” This decision takes into account the interests of the majority Muslim community in the Malaysian peninsula.

The government has a lso an-nounced that there should be no prohibitions or restrictions on people who travel between Sabah and Sara-

Kuala Lumpur authorizes importation and printing of the Bible in any language

“Moreover,” he added, “the doctors at Lourdes always strive to be medically irreproachable. The Church herself encourages them in this.”

To commemorate the latest healing, Bish-op Delmas has invited Catholics to a special Mass in Lourdes during a pilgrimage to the shrine May 3-8. (CNA)

wak and the Malaysian peninsula with their Bibles. The Interior Min-istry issued a directive on the Bible and officers who fail to apply it will be subject to disciplinary action. The government has also allowed importers to take delivery of the 35,100 Bibles locked in Kuching and Port Klang, at no cost.

Datuk Seri Idris Jala, a spokes-man for the government said that “in spite of our shortcomings in the management of this Bible issue, we hope that Christians will forgive us,” and added that there is a need

for care, forgiveness and reconcili-ation among Malaysians, “despite all the wounds created by our dif-ferences.”

The Bible Society of Malaysia has accepted the solution proposed by the government. Its president, Lee Min Choon, in a statement said they were “deeply touched by the gov-ernment’s humility in admitting its shortcomings in its management of the problem and in asking for forgive-ness.” “The Bible Society of Malaysia forgives, without hesitation,” he said. (AsiaNews / Agencies)

Vatican BriefingVatican law against money laundering takes effectA new law aimed at preventing money laundering of funds from criminal activities and the financing of terrorism took effect on April 1 in the Vatican. The implementation of this law was an-nounced in a Vatican communiqué, which noted that the regulation was already publicized last Dec. 30 in a statement from the Vatican Secretariat of State. On that same day was published an apostolic letter on this issue signed by Benedict XVI. This letter established the Financial Information Authority as an autonomous and inde-pendent body with the task of preventing and countering money laundering or the financing of terrorism. (Zenit)

New member named to Bishop’s Congregation Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Santos Abril y Castelló, 75, vice chamberlain of the Apostolic Chamber, as a member of the Congre-gation for Bishops. The Vatican announced Saturday the appoint-ment of the prelate, who was named vice chamberlain on Jan. 22. Since 2003, Archbishop Abril y Castelló has been the apostolic nuncio in Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was born in Alfambra, Spain, and did his ecclesiastical studies at the Conciliar Seminary of Teruel. He was ordained a priest in 1960. (Zenit)

Moral relativism paves way for Satanism, says expert A society dominated by moral relativism “fosters the spread of Satanism,” an expert recently explained. Carlo Climati told CNA on April 5 that Satanism “destroys those universal values that are written in the hearts of each human being.” It creates “a society that is turned on its head, in which good becomes evil and evil becomes good.” Climati is the press director of the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. (CNA)

Vatican orders disgraced Belgian bishop to leave country, seek therapyThe Vatican ordered a Belgian bishop who admitted to sexually abusing his nephew to leave his country and undergo “spiritual and psychological treatment,” Vatican Radio reported. Citing a statement from the Vatican nuncio in Belgium, the radio report April 10 said that former Brugge Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 74, had already left the country, although his whereabouts were not divulged. (CNS)

Benedict XVI says youth console himBenedict XVI today told young people that they always bring him consolation and hope, since they are in the springtime of life. The Pope shared this confidence with youth at the end of today’s general audience. He concluded his weekly address with his tra-ditional greeting to youth, the sick and newlyweds. “Dear young people, to meet you is always for me a motive of consolation and hope, because your age is the springtime of life,” he said. “Be able to respond to the love that God has for you.” (Zenit)

Pope Innocent XI’s remains make way for John Paul IIThe final resting place of Pope John Paul II has now been prepared. In a private ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica April 8, the remains of Pope Innocent XI were moved from the altar in the Chapel of St. Sebastian to make way for the soon-to-be beatified Pope John Paul. Pope John Paul is presently buried in the crypt below the basilica’s high altar. His body will be transferred following his beatification on May 1. (CNA)

Papal preacher says true charity requires inner love, outer action Genuine love for others is the cornerstone of charity, but it needs to be backed up by concrete action to be a complete expression of God’s love for humanity, the papal preacher said. In a Lenten meditation released by the Vatican April 8, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa explained that Christian charity should be characterized by “a love that is both sincere and active; a love from the heart and a love, so to speak, of the hands.” (CNS)

across the country. In announc-ing the step, church leaders said they wanted to show that they practice what they preach. They called on all Italians to make a “new effort of solidarity,” de-spite the prolonged economic downturn in the country.

That is not a popular message these days. But it is very much part of traditional church teach-ing on immigration, which goes back more than a century.

The responsibility to welcome

the stranger has roots in the Bible, and as Pope Benedict XVI recently noted, Jesus was himself a refugee when the Holy Family fled into Egypt. The “right to emi-grate” was defended in a 1952 ap-ostolic constitution by Pope Pius XII, who also noted that states can control the flow of migration, but not for arbitrary reasons.

In short, the church has consis-tently taught that states have the right to regulate their borders, but must not enact so many

restrictions that it nullifies the right to emigrate.

Global migration has changed greatly from the 1950s, however. When Pope Pius wrote his docu-ment, immigration was viewed as a nation-building resource that usually involved permanent settlement in a new land. Modern migration is often for temporary employment and involves mil-lions of documented and undocu-mented workers. (John Thavis / Catholic News Service)

VALENCIA, Spain, April 4, 2011―Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid, Spain called priests to make frequent confessions in order to end “the crisis in priestly ministry.”

The cardinal made his remarks in Valencia during an April 1 conference.

He noted that both Pope Bene-dict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II made enormous ef-forts to end “the crisis in priestly ministry.”

To accomplish this, he ex-plained, priests must “truly” believe in God and “understand the priesthood.” They should “love Christ and God in a dy-namic way,” because “in order to love one’s neighbor, he must first love God.”

Cardinal Rouco urged priests “to live in a state of grace,” emphasizing that frequent con-

fession is “essential.” The “ex-ercise of obedience,” which he described as “living the cross,” is also necessary even if it leads to “suffering.”

The cardinal said the crisis “is beginning to subside” after it reached a crescendo between 1965 and 1985.

He noted that during this peri-od, many abandoned the priest-hood and religious life. Priestly celibacy was often questioned and “alternative forms of living the priestly ministry” emerged in opposition to the traditional priestly role, the cardinal said.

Some “tried to reconcile the work of the Church with other civil activities” at the public and private levels. “Thus seculariza-tion advanced” while “the sense of the priesthood” began to slip away, he stated. (CNA/Europa Press)

A3Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

nels with new media platforms through a series initiatives in recent years.

The Vatican has only gradu-ally entered social networks, setting up YouTube and Fa-cebook accounts for the Pope and even promoting John Paul II’s May 1 beatification through Twitter.

The Holy See’s relationship with blogs, however, has been a little more prickly. During a press conference to present Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Social Commu-nication’s Day last January, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli decried “aggressive blog sites that excommunicate and don’t have a Christian style of presence.”

While it was not clear to which Church-themed blogs he referred, he said that Internet users needed to approach blogs with an eye on “to what point they are truly Catholic.”

But the May 2 event aims give bloggers and Church rep-resentatives a chance to move beyond the relatively imper-sonal medium of the Internet

News Features

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Archbishop Claudio Celli and Fr. Federico Lombardi

VATICAN City, April 6, 2011—Pope Benedict XVI described ongoing con-flicts in the African countries of Libya and Ivory Coast as a “defeat” for humanity, in remarks following his Wednesday general audience.

“Violence and hate are always a de-feat!” said the Pope. “I therefore make a renewed and heartfelt appeal to all parties to the cause, to initiate a process of peacemaking and dialogue, and to avoid further bloodshed.”

Pope Benedict said he continued to follow the “dramatic events” in Ivory Coast and Libya “with great

VATICAN City, April 8, 2011—The Vatican is inviting Internet bloggers to Rome next month for an unprecedented meeting to foster “informal exchange and contact.”

The May 2 event aims to take advantage of the influx of international bloggers coming to Rome for the beatification of Pope John Paul II a day earlier.

While all are invited to ap-ply, only a limited number of blogging attendees will receive a formal invitation. The objective of the Vatican departments organizing the event is to fill the 150-seat St. Pius X auditorium with a group representing the diversity of the “blogosphere.”

Participants will be selected with reference to the timeliness of request, blog subject and the language and geographical lo-cation of the blogger. Attention will also be given to the nature of blogs as institutional or pri-vate, multi-voice or personal.

The encounter marks a first for the Church, which has put emphasis on opening up chan-

and establish a more personal connection.

According to an April 7 statement from the two Vati-can departments in charge, the objective is “to allow for a dialogue between bloggers and Church representatives, to listen to the experiences of those who are actively involved in this arena, and to achieve a greater understanding of the needs of that community.”

During the one-day meeting, Church initiatives to engage those who work in new media will be presented and panel discussions will be held.

The first panel will include five bloggers representing the Italian, English, French, Polish and Spanish languages, respec-tively. Each of the five will take on a specific subject relevant to the blogosphere.

A second panel of still unan-nounced Church communica-tions personnel will offer their experiences in new media and look at initiatives meant to engage bloggers.

Interpreters will be on hand to provide simultaneous trans-

Vatican seeks greater interaction with bloggers in first-ever meeting

MANILA, April 4, 2011―Young Filipi-nos have pledged to plant 1 million trees across the country in one year.

The youth ministry of the Couples for Christ (YFC-CFC) has initiated a nationwide drive for the conservation of the environment.

Dubbed “Greeneration” the national movement will launch the crusade to plant 1M trees on April 12-14 in Cami-guin.

The year-round campaign, one of the many activities lined up in celebration of the CBCP Year of the Youth, will involve all the regions in the country, as well as schools, universities, out of school youth and possibly even those in prison.

The tree-planting will take place in the different dioceses and provinces, following the prescribed months for planting per region, as they may differ region to region.

Young people are starting to plant in some areas like Basilan, where the prelature of Isabela planted mangrove trees.

Aside from local youth ministers in the dioceses and parishes, groups like Focolare, YFC-CFC, CARE Foundation and other youth organizations are com-mitting to see that the millionth tree gets planted.

Organizers believes that the effort to protect the environment should go beyond the Year of the Youth, tran-scending the idea of plant a seedling for a one-day event and then forgetting about it eventually.

Diana Cajilog of Baguio, a member of CFC-Singles for Christ, one of the youth ministries taking on the cause of the 1 million trees, said that more important than just planting is to make sure the plant grows into a tree.

“I don’t advocate tree-planting; I advocate tree-growing. It is not enough that we plant, we need to make sure the trees thrive and recover,” she said.

Youth’s community involvementThe CBCP declared 2011 as the “CBCP

Year of the Youth” with the intention of encouraging young people to “establish and strengthen the youth’s relationship with Christ... and to encourage com-munity involvement.”

Going against the popular percep-tion of the Church as inward-looking, the Year of the Youth or YOTY aims to reach out, not just to young Catholics but to all young people, regardless of religious beliefs.

Fr. Conegundo Garganta, the Execu-tive Secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth (ECY) explains the reason why the Church wants to reach all young people and not just Catholics.

“The ECY hopes to celebrate its an-niversary, not focusing on itself but on the youth, the object and subject of its existence... (Also) because it is the mis-sion of the Church to reach out to all people,” he said.

The YOTY was declared on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the CBCP-ECY, the commission that is in charge of youth ministry in the Philippines. (Nirva’ana Delacruz/CBCPNews)

Filipino youth aims to plant 1M trees in 1 year

Pope calls violence in Libya, Ivory Coast a defeat for humanity

VATICAN City, April 1, 2011— Pope Benedict XVI urged young people not to abandon their faith in God because of the “attacks of evil” within the church.

“Carry intact the fire of your love in this church every time that men have obscured her face,” he said in a foreword to a new catechism edited specifi-cally for young people.

The new “Youth Catechism,” also called “YouCat,” will be included in each pilgrim back-pack for World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid.

The pope said he wanted to supplement the Catechism of the Catholic Church by translating it “into the language of young people and make its words pen-etrate their world.”

In the foreword, the pope urged everyone to study the catechism “with passion and perseverance” either alone, in study groups or in exchanges with others online.

Today’s Christians really need to understand their faith more than ever before in order to re-sist modern day challenges and temptations, he wrote.

“You have need of divine help if you do not want your faith to dry up as a dewdrop in the sun, if you do not want to succumb to the temptations of consumerism, if you do not want your love to be drowned in pornography, if you do not want to betray the weak and the victims of abuse and violence,” he wrote.

“You must know what you believe; you must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in infor-mation technology knows the (operating) system of a com-puter; you must know it as a musician knows his piece,” the foreword said.

While not specifically men-tioning the clerical sex abuse crisis, the pope acknowledged the effect it has had on the faith-ful and said “the community of believers has been wounded in recent times by the attacks of evil” and sin in the heart of the church.

“Do not take this as a pretext to flee from God’s presence; you yourselves are the body of Christ, the church!” he told young people. (CNS)

Don’t abandon God because of ‘attacks of evil’ in church, pope says

Spend Holy Week doing charitable works, says prelateMANILA, April, 2, 2011—A young Catholic prelate called on the faithful to spend the Holy Week steeped in loving others and doing charitable works to the needy.

Lingayen-Dagupan Arch-bishop Socrates Villegas re-minded the faithful that prayers or penance alone will not make the Holy week holy.

Those pious practices are without meaning if not founded on love, because it is “love that makes this season holy,” he said.

“Prayers can be inspiring and penances can be admi-rable but only love can re-deem. Only love saves. Love alone sanctifies us,” Villegas stressed.

Alternative way to spend Holy Week

The prelate told the faithful to do acts of charity as an al-ternative way of spending the Holy Week meaningfully.

“As we keep our pious practices like the stations of the cross, confessions, visita iglesia and penitensiya, let us also consider making acts of charity to the poor as the way to share in the spirit of the Lenten season,” he said.

He said one may “consider visiting fourteen patients in our government hospitals and medi-tate, as you visit them, on the suf-ferings of Chr is t ,” he said.

N e a r them, one c a n s e e “how the sufferings of Christ continue i n t h e midst of u s , ” h e said.

V i l l e -gas also r e c o m -m e n d e d jail visita-tion as an-other way to share G o d ’ s love and mercy to those be-hind bars.

“ W e can bring them our prayers and greetings and volunteer to be couriers of their letters that they want to send to their loved ones who are

unable to visit them,” he said.The prelate said one can also

bring food and clothes to the poor in honor of Jesus’ humiliation at

Calvary.V i l -

l e g a s reca l l ed Pope John Paul II’s v i s i t i n the coun-try in 1981 when lep-ers from Tala Lep-rosarium w e r e b r o u g h t to him so he could b l e s s t h e m . I n s t e a d the pope knelt be-f o r e a leper and kissed his l e p r o u s h a n d s a n d e x -claimed,

“My Lord!”“Give love this Lenten season.

Pour love into your prayers. Let your penance overflow into

charity,” he stressed.

Pilgrimage of CharityAs part of its Lenten obser-

vance, the archdiocese will reach out to the poor and mar-ginalized through a pilgrim-age of charity by conducting charity medical, dental and surgical missions.

“The sick and the poor in our marginalized areas will receive charity medical assistance from their healthier brothers and sisters,” Villegas said.

The pilgrimage of charity will start on April 4 at the Par-ish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Canan, Malasiqui; April 7 at Saint Catherine of Siena Parish, Villanueva, Bautis-ta; April 9 at Cristo Divino Tesoro in Buenlag, Calasiao; April 11 at Holy Family Par-ish, Tandoc, San Carlos City; April 16 at the Lay Forma-tion Center, Bonuan Gueset, Dagupan City; and May 2 at the San Lorenzo Ruiz Parish, Wawa, Bayambang.

Help and support for the charity project came from friends from Pangasinan, Edsa Shrine, Order of Malta, Makati Medical Center and the Saint Paul de Chartres Sisters. (CBCPNews)

apprehension” and prayer for those involved.

The Pope also offered an update of sorts about a peacemaking mission that he sent Cardinal Peter Turkson on to Ivory Coast. “I hope that Cardinal Turkson, whom I have commissioned to visit Ivory Coast to demonstrate my solidarity, may soon be able to enter the country.”

In Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Kutwa told Fides news agency that “violent fighting” was continuing. Pres-idential incumbent Laurent Gbagbo has

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locked himself inside the presidential residence, following an influx of troops loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara.

Gbagbo’s attempts to negotiate a cease-fire on April 5 have reportedly failed. Gbagbo has sought a recount of ballots from the November 2010 election—which international authori-ties say he lost—while Outtara is main-taining his demand for Gbagbo to step down immediately.

In Libya’s capital of Tripoli, Bishop Giovanni Martinelli thanked the Pope for his appeal. “It is a further boost to diplomacy to not give up strength, and

to act in a way that keeps the possibility of reconciliation alive,” said the bishop, who has questioned airstrikes intended to protect civilians.

“Fighting does not help to create peace,” said the bishop.

His remarks came as Libyan rebels, who seek to overturn the government of Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, criti-cized NATO for what they described as the alliance’s slow response time and ineffectiveness. Questions continue to surround the scope of NATO’s commit-ment and the rebels’ chances of success. (CNA/EWTN News)

lation for the five chosen lan-guages.

Vatican representatives tak-ing part in the encounter in-clude Archbishop Celli of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of the Pon-tifical Council for Culture, and Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, director of the Holy See’s Press

Office, Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center.

According to the Vatican statement announcing the ini-tiative, the organizers see the meeting as “an opportunity for informal exchange and contact between those attending with a view to opening further av-enues of interaction.” (CNA/EWTN News)

Archbishop Socrates Villegas FILE

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A4 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

ARMM Elections

IS the Philippines ruled by a duly framed and approved Constitution? Does this country have a republican democracy? Are the Filipinos free as citizens and sovereign as a people? The elementary and immediate answers to all such three simple questions are in the positive. Honest, it is not only inspiring but also endearing to know and to live the truths advanced by such answers in the affirmative. Moreover, it is not simply proper but likewise just for the Filipino citizens to be told that such sound socio-political realities are existent and alive in their basically docile society.

But then comes the pressing disturbing question: How does one explain with rhyme and reason the following devious design being seriously entertained by the present administration: One, the postponement of the duly legislated and scheduled ARMM elections. Two, the disregard for the political will and societal expectation of the people in the Region. Three, the subsequent appointment of the public officials therein at the preferential option of Malacañang. Where is the Constitution? Where is democracy? Where is sovereignty?

The truth of the matter is that the above issue is neither merely social in nature nor purely political in significance. At the core of such plan runs the counter-ethical principle—not to mention immoral elements—that undermine human dignity and trample upon human rights. And this is no little matter whereas it is the manifestation of a thwarted conscience, not to mention the revelation of the well-covered dictatorial tendency—all of which run counter to the inherent aspiration and consequent expectation of the people in general.

Time and again, there is not only the disturbing but also disgusting phenomenon that Filipinos are the first-hand witnesses of—in the course of their history as a people. This: When the political candidates present themselves for election, they loudly and repeatedly claim their pro-people stance, not to mention their unconditional dedication to public service. But when already elected as public officials, majority of them feel like demigods adorned with some kind of omnipotence to do what they like, how they like it done—and when.

After so many decades of Philippine history, it is worth asking: When will the Filipinos ever have political leaders who would really bring them to the knowledge of objective truth, the experience of social justice, the joy of genuine peace? To this date when they have a supposedly populist national leadership, it is instead its self-adoring and pro-self governance that Filipinos experience, witness and suffer from.

Alay Kapwa

THIS year we shall celebrate Lent with something new. We are launching, for the first time in the history of the Philippines, a National Lenten Action Program. It is called: ALAY KAPWA—offering to our neighbor.

Of course not everything will be new. Every year we have been celebrating Lent in a spirit of intensified self-sacrifice. This has been of value. But perhaps we tend to emphasize self control for its own sake. Often we are gloomy about making sacrifices.

This Lenten Action Program, in 1975, is a nationwide, intensive renewal. It reminds us that sacrifice finds its fullest meaning in service to our fellowmen.

Christ our Lord taught the love of God through love of neighbor. When he was asked: “Who is my neighbor?”—he told the story of a man left in a ditch by the road. A kindly stranger came to his rescue.

Christ taught this lesson also by coming into this world, by his suffering and death that we may live.

He came among us not to be served, but to serve! And it is on our service to others that he will judge us on the last day.

We in the Philippines are grateful for the privilege of being the only Christian nation in the East. Yet we suffer from a serious inequality in the distribution of land, of wealth, and of power. Unemployment and underemployment stare us in the face.

The City of Manila alone has more than a million squatters. Our average per capita income is only about P3 a day. For 70% of our people poverty has become a way of life.

Thus, we have to admit personal and collective failure to share our goods among our people.

For this reason, our Lenten Action Program has been called: ALAY KAPWA—offering to our neighbor. It asks us to look around and identify our neighbor. Who are the people who most need our help?

From this awareness we are asked to reflect on the reasons for this. Why are they poor, lonely, homeless, jobless, hungry, in rags, beggars, squatters?

This is a call to analyze the root causes of misery—not only in terms of individual selfishness, but in terms of socio-economic, political and religious structures that may be causing, or maintaining, these injustices.

Finally, we must ask the personal and challenging questions: “What should I do about this? What can I share, with my neighbor, of God’s gifts to me—my time, my talent, my treasure. Am I not merely the steward, the caretaker, the manager of God’s gifts? Do I have the right to have more than I need when others around me are in dire poverty? Is it not a duty of love to share with others?”

―Lenten Pastoral Letter of the CBCP on Alay Kapwa, 1975

EDITORIAL

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Opinion

Lenten fast and Easter feast

My father and evangelization

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

In the Church fasting is a religious practice that carries with it a penitential overtone. Its purpose is to discipline man’s body, its desire and its instincts. It is for this reason that the Sea-son of Lent starts up with fasting together with prayers and alms-giving. These acts of penances are there to call the faithful to revisit the import of religious

IT was March 9, 2001 when my father passed away. Allow me to print my thoughts regarding a man I owe a lot to.

I was a scrawny sickly boy. My father—just ‘Tatay’ to all of us his children—was a mechanic and a copra truck driver, mostly one and occasionally the other. My mother—‘Nanay’ to all of us—was a public elementary school teacher. She taught in places either too far or too hard to reach, at least in the initial stages of her career. I remember times as a child, when I was down with fever and my stom-

discipline in their lives, in their behavior and character. In the journey of life, man’s instincts sometimes go haywire, his heart hardens due to selfishness and greed for things of this earth, character slackens as he indulges himself with the ease and com-fort of fine living, consciousness gradually being pushed further away from the presence of the transcendent God. He needs to recover his Christian poise and original integrity that is pleasing to the Father. And to do that, the Church a good mother as she is, reminds us of her precept that runs this way: “You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence”. It is hoped that this precept will help the faithful to regain the mastery over his instincts and the free-dom of heart which marks him a genuine child of God.

Fast and abstinence, though

ach aching so unbearably and my head throbbing, I would call out, “Nanay, Nanay” in pain (I often wondered why it’s the mother we first remember in dire circumstances). But she wasn’t, no she couldn’t, be there. My father, God bless him, would force himself to be there. Now I realize it was such a sacrifice for him. He had to take a leave off work and that meant no money for the family. Still my earliest memory of my father, I mean the one that has stuck to this day, is still very clear. I was a boy of two or three, shivering in

serious with the job they accepted. I wrote His Eminence and the CMMA Board imme-diately to make my protest. And they did respond with an apology that they would be more careful the succeeding years.

I decided to write on this topic because I was given a paper yesterday by Atty. Jo Im-bong prepared by her students in Media Law. It is a review on the dancing incorporated in noontime shows—referring of course to Sexy Dancing. All of us in the Pro-life Movement from Luzon to Mindanao know who Atty. Jo Imbong is. She was one of the senatorial candidates of Kapatiran Party in the last elec-tion. She is also the legal officer of the CBCP, especially on pro-life and pro-family matters in congress. I am glad there are professors like her who give practical assignments that we can use in our educating and influencing the public towards moral values.

They commented on the two main dance groups: the Sexbomb dancers of GMA7 Eat Bulaga that started in 1999 and the ASF danc-ers in Wowowee of ABS-CBN then, until it transferred to ABC 5 as Willing Willie. Many of the dancers have become multimedia art-ists. This phenomenon has encouraged the young girls to learn how to dance like them,

Sexy dancing

I SELDOM watch television. I sit every now and then to watch the evening news. But never do I see the TV during the day as I have so many other concerns to attend to. Now how do I know about “Sexy Dancing”? It is when I am in a bus riding to Tagaytay or to places going north when the bus’s TV is on throughout the trip that I get to see those noontime programs showing scantily clad women boldly gyrating in front of the cam-eras for people of all ages to see. A couple of times I shout to the conductor to change the channel—not realizing that the other channel also has the same type of shows. Besides, the passengers seem to be enjoying them so much and who was I to be objecting? It is amazing how the Filipino society has come to accept such indecency without any protest as if it was the most natural thing for the public to see.

It was indeed a great shock for me when a few years ago, the Catholic Mass Media Awards gave Wowowee a citation for be-ing the Best Entertainment show. And the Cardinal was right there to give the award! Of course, the Cardinal had nothing to do with the judging. But that meant that some of the judges chosen that year were not too

Sr. Mary Pilar Verzosa, RGS

Love Lifein the hopes that they will be hired and they can also move out of their poverty to a more lucrative position in life. All of that with the blessings and pride of their parents.

The paper of the law students revealed some interesting facts—“The Sex Bob Girls are very frequent subjects of criticism. They have long been criticized since their incep-tion in 1999 for the immorality involved in what they do, first in their dancing, then in their choice of wardrobe, and lastly, to their thinly veiled use of sexual innuendos in their songs. More criticisms about the group involved the national elections. They were accused of meddling in politics for their choice of activities in the elections and mak-ing the elections less credible by being the personal cheerleaders of the late Fernando Poe, Jr. The opposing candidate, ex Pres. Arroyo, retaliated by hiring her own group. The use of the girls in the elections just bred further, an environment of prostitution. It may have been less obvious, but what is the difference?”

The paper ends with this reminder—“Ethics in Communication, published by the Vatican in the year 2000 tell us that great

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

Fasting/abstinence needless to say is a revered practice in any major religion. A religion that does not oblige fasting from their followers is a religion not worth its name. The Mohammedans strictly keep the fast of Rama-dan, wherein the faithful have to abstain from eating from dawn to sunset. The genuine Israelites assiduously keep fasting on the Day of Atonement. The Book of

thirty-eight-or-so degree fever and in pain, he was carrying me in his arms and rocking me gently, then again gently rolling a bottle filled with warm water over my aching tummy. And, miracle of miracles, the pain would go away. He would then hum or softly sing me to sleep. It seemed it was all the medicine I needed.

When my father passed on to what I call “the fuller life” on March 9, 2001, a poem which later became a song thrust itself to me through the two words I described him by dur-

Leviticus prescribed this once a year fasting, obliging all men to mortify themselves from morn-ing to evening (cf. 16:29-34) Dur-ing the time of Jesus, however, the Israelites did not only fulfill fasting on the Day of Atonement, but many of them practiced pri-vate fasting. It is no wonder that the disciples of John the Baptizer asked Jesus ‘why is it that while we and the Pharisees fast, your disciples do not’? Jesus had a good response to the query, but He did not totally dispense his disciples from fasting. In fact, Jesus immediately declared: “When the day comes that the groom is taken away, then they will fast” (cf. Mt 9:14-15).

Because of the deprivation of the body of its basic need such as food, fasting unfortunately has not caught the fancy of our mod-ern day mind-set. It is a depress-

ing a wake I presided over: “GENTLE SOUL”. Yes, my father was to me a gentle soul. He was gentlest to us his chil-dren. There were countless times when some of us made him very angry, as when we simply did the opposite of what he asked us to do, and when it seemed he would hit us with his hand or anything near him (as I noticed other fathers did), he would behave in a way that baffled me. For instance, when my sister Annie fell off the roof of a shelter fronting the house

Bp. Leonardo Y. Medroso, JCD, DD

Tidbits

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Rev. Eutiquio ‘Euly’ B. Belizar, Jr., SThD

By the roadside

By the roadside / B5

Love Life / B5

Tidbits / B7

Pedro C. Quitorio Editor

Pinky Barrientos, FSPAssociate Editor

Roy Q. LagardeNews Editor

Kris Bayos Features Editor

The CBCP Monitor is published fortnightly by the CBCP Communica-tions Development Foundation, Inc., with editorial and business offices at 470 Gen. Luna St., Intramuros, Manila. P.O. Box 3601, 1076 MCPO. Editorial: (063) 404-2182. Business: (063)404-1612.; ISSN 1908-2940

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A5Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor Opinion

Fr. Roy Cimagala

Candidly Speaking

Philippine cottage industry

Ultra vires?

THIS is admittedly a sad insight, a pitiful perception. The country with all its arable lands, water resources plus abundant sun, has been long sincerely engaged in import-ing such a basic commodity as rice. On the other hand, its past and present govern-ment have also perpetuated the exportation of Filipino workers as OFWs—no matter really where and how—all over the globe. Hence, in the event that there is a nation in any part of the globe that has no Filipino workers of one kind or another—this is a big exception.

In other words, the government made the Filipinos and Filipinas concerned as noth-ing more than a cottage industry. Oh, yes! For consolation, they are called “Bagong Bayani”. The fact however is that they are looked upon neither as “bago” nor as “bayani”. Reason: They constitute a long standing phenomenon and wherefore not in anyway “bago”. They are considered but

THE Latin expression simply means “be-yond the scope or in excess of legal power or authority.” DILG Secretary Robredo cited it when commenting on the now controversial Ayala Alabang ordinance regulating the availability and use of contraceptives and the like.

I was deeply disappointed with this state-ment of Robredo who otherwise enjoys the prestige of being an exceptional politician, one who is competent and honest. That com-bination is not easy to find. But in this case, I feel Robredo needs to know certain things and cover his likely Achilles’ heel.

As a result of my article on law and legal-ism, I received a number of reactions that ranged from the serious and the valid to the ridiculous and the impertinent. In the middle were some reactions that contained both legitimate and wild points.

It’s quite obvious that our human laws obviously cannot capture everything that needs to be regulated in life, no matter how well crafted they are. There are certain things of conscience that our human laws cannot enter.

In fact, they mainly regulate the external and social dimensions of our life, even if we try our best to attune them to the finer matters of conscience. That’s just how things are. Though we have to be serious with our laws, we should never forget that they are not perfect. They will always be in the state of perfectibility, a dynamic affair, not static.

In short, our human laws cannot be the last

as working cogs and profitable means, and therefore not “heroes” really. There is fur-thermore the despicable but as illegal “drug mules” and treated accordingly.

Never mind if they leave their families behind, if they do not see much less per-sonally care for their growing children—on proviso only that they can earn abroad and financially support them at home. Never mind as well when the countries they go to for work look down on them as honest to goodness servants—that is but one step above slavery. Never mind too in the event that they are considered but as tools of trade and industry. All these are pathetic factors for the OFWs in general whereas all of such demeaning perceptions and pursuant actuations are basically anti-human, viz., anti-human dignity and wherefore also anti-human rights.

On account of the socio-political disorders taking place in the middle East and North

word on how we ought to live and behave individually and collectively. They have to be crafted, implemented, then polished, revised, refined, etc. in a lifelong process of trying to conform them to the ultimate basis of our laws, which should be God’s laws, our knowledge of which also takes on a dynamic process.

Of course, given our human condition, we also just have to find a practical way of attaining an acceptable state of stability in the midst of all the dynamism involved in our life. Otherwise, there would be chaos. But our need for stability should not hinder but rather should foster our greater need for dynamism in an acceptable way.

Thus, to make our human laws the ulti-mate basis of what is right and wrong, what is fair and unfair, just and unjust, is to give our human laws “ultra vires,” opening them to all forms of legalism. We would be expro-priating what is proper of God and making it our exclusive own. That would be funny.

Of course, the question of the involvement of God in our law-making is a very tricky one. Among the reactions I received to my previous article was one that sarcastically asked me, which God should we follow—the one of the Catholics, the Protestants, the Muslims, etc.”

Yes, we need to acknowledge the com-plexity of the question, but it does not mean we should avoid it. That would be doing an ostrich that buries its head in the sand when faced with a challenge. We just have to tackle

Why them?EDITORIAL writers break out into a cold sweat when natural disasters strike. And a tsunami is a nightmare. What can be said to soothe the anguish? What can dull the shock at this reminder of our fragile purchase on life? Words fray and crumble. In fact, most major papers avoided the challenge.

News report from Japan have been so full of clichés that they seem written with an iPhone app: “tragedy strikes”, “the wrath of Nature”, “utterly unpredictable”, “pouncing without warn-ing”, and so on and on. It’s understandable; what else can a reporter say? The Economist dug out of its archives a report on the 1923 earthquake and ensuing fires which flattened Tokyo with a loss of well over 100,000 lives. It began: “Words very inadequately express the emotions aroused by such a tragedy as that which has occurred this week in Japan.” It could have been ABC News this weekend.

Just as The Economist did in 1923, journalists focus on the numbers: How many have died? How much will it cost to rebuild? How will it affect the stock market? The additional complication of a possible nuclear meltdown is bad for Japan but a lucky break for journalists. This twist has inserted human agency into an uncommentable panorama of simple bad luck. Unlike a tsunami, a malfunctioning power plant is someone’s fault. You can point fingers and demand explanations. And avert your eyes, for a while, from thousands of people who died for no seeming reason.

What is remarkable is how few people are asking the ques-tion posed by the Book of Job 3,000 years ago—why does bad stuff happen to good people?

The Sendai tsunami seems like the paradigm event—in the blink of an eye, to dust off a cliché, up to 10,000 people may have perished and the local infrastructure was pulverized. Death seemed to come so randomly—one elderly man was found floating on the roof of his house 10 miles offshore while his wife was swept away.

But journalists, like the rest of us, are schooled never to ask “Why?”, only “How”? “Why” seems naïve and country-bumpkin-ish. Only children ask Why.

This is a legacy from the Enlightenment inaugurated by the English philosopher Francis Bacon. The only causes which can be discussed in a rational fashion, he argued, are efficient causes where there is discernible physical causality. In this scheme of things, inquiring about the final cause, ie, the pur-pose of an event, makes no sense whatsoever. Stuff happens. Just deal with it.

There were a few commentators who mentioned the mean-ing of the tsunami in the past few days, but they came from the school of Francis Bacon. Writing in Scientific American, re-search psychologist Jesse Bering jeered at “reality-challenged” fools who invoked God as the cause of the disaster. “The un-thinkable truth”, he says, is “that there is no answer because there is no riddle, that life is life and that is that”.

Then there was the mayor of London and former editor of The Spectator, Boris Johnson, who advised us to send aid to the freezing Japanese and stop viewing the rubble as a sign of Gaia’s wrath or God’s justice. “There is no rhyme or reason to an earthquake, and we should for once abandon our infantile delusion that we are the cause and maker of everything.”

But sneering at a question which has created the greatest works of literature in our culture—the Iliad, Job, Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Primo Levi… ― exposes an enormous weakness in our post-Enlightenment culture.

Why can’t we ask Why? It is the most fundamental of ques-tions. It is downright stupid to dismiss it as an infantile delu-sion. In university lecture theatres, the most ancient taboos and our most heartfelt beliefs are being subjected to corrosive scrutiny. But “Why them?”, the question foremost in our minds when we look at those appalling videos of a slurry of cars and boats and containers and drowning people racing over coastal towns, is said to have no answer.

Agnosticism about natural disasters is dangerous. Eventu-ally people are going to seek answers. And they will find them in loopy places. The senior pastor of what is reputedly the largest single Christian congregation in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, in South Korea, declared that the tsu-nami and earthquake were “warnings from God against the Japanese people’s atheism and materialism”. And a young Christian (or is she?) with a demented smirk is exulting on YouTube that God smote the atheists and heathen in answer to her prayers.

The problem is that the dead hand of atheism is suppressing a legitimate spirit of inquiry. Detecting a purpose suggests that there might be a God, which is a kick-sand-in-my-face assertion nowadays. But isn’t a philosopher who allows you to ask questions preferable to one who says, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Get over it”? If asking why so many people died in Japan ultimately leads to God, well, atheists will just have to deal with it.

(Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. This is reprinted here under special publishing arrangements with MercatorNet)

WE thank those who responded to our March 28, 2011 column. We value your feedback and we appreciate that you gave favor-able comments. Thank God we are all united in protecting the life of the unborn and the health of the mothers; that we are one in defending the family as a basic social institution. Let us continue our prayers that our Pro-Life lawmakers will continue to re-ject RH Bill; that the Pro-RH Bill lawmakers will have a change of heart and become Pro-Lifers; that the undecided lawmakers will stop RH Bill from becom-ing a law.

Let us continue our watch over our respective congressmen to make sure that they are pro-life when Congress resumes session on May 9.

In our parish in San Ildefonso, Navotas City, we pray the Oratio Imperata after communion dur-ing Sunday Masses imploring our Almighty Father to enlighten and guide our lawmakers when they discuss in plenary session the RH Bill and that it be totally rejected. Let us pray for the in-tercession of our Blessed Mother in our fight for life and preserva-tion of Filipino families.

***We would like to take this op-

portunity to thank the Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, His Grace Archbishop Edward Jo-

Diocese of Kalookan Papal Fam-ily where I am the President and that of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (Council of the Laity of the Philippines).

To you Archbishop Adams, we fervently hope and pray for your successful mission to propagate the Catholic Faith in Europe. The Philippines’ loss is Greece’s gain.

***We condole with the family of

the three Filipinos who were ex-ecuted in China for being “drug mules”. It is really very sad to note that some of our modern heroes still fall victims to the maneuvers of their recruiters and employers. They should also think first of the consequences of their act before succumbing to “easy and big money”. Everyone must realize that drug use and drug trafficking are international crimes which every country strictly enforces. Such crimes are punishable by death, if not life imprisonment.

***Much had already been

said about the disaster that devastated Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radia-tion. We came to realize the disaster-preparedness of Japan as compared with ours. Ques-tions had been asked: what if such disaster happened in the

Let us protect our blessings

Oscar V. Cruz, DD

Views and Points

seph Adams, for the grace-filled tour of duty in the Philippines. The Nuncio’s tenure in the Phil-ippines ended when the Vatican assigned him to be the Nuncio in Greece.

The first time I met the Nun-cio was during my investiture as Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice awardee on December 27, 2008 at San Roque Cathedral in Ca-loocan City. The ever punctual Nuncio arrived more than 30 minutes earlier, during which he enjoyed his conversation with the members of my family and was very kind and attentive to my then 91 year-old mother Gloria (she is now 93). My sib-lings seized the opportunity and had photo ops with the Nuncio, to the delight and enjoyment of the latter. He also agreed to have photo ops with everyone after the Mass. He joined my guests at the reception, had another photo ops, enjoyed the discussion on several topics which ranged from history of the Philippines, Catholicism in the Philippines and the role of the Church to have a better Philippines.

What I love most is the Nun-cio’s warmth, kindness, friendli-ness. He is cariñoso (affection-ate), which makes him easily loved by the people. He also remembers people and faces—he remembers me during the cour-tesy calls of the officers of the

Africa plus the natural disasters that hit Japan hard, a good number of the OFWs are back home. But there is no work here and poverty is all around. This is why the recourse being assiduously entertained and acted upon by the government is to look for work on their behalf. Never mind where. Never mind too at what costs to them. The over-all consideration is to get them out of the country and to make them dollar remit-ters to fund not only their families but the Philippines as well.

Meantime, the national leadership is busy appearing busy, changing expensive cars one after the other, engaging in but speeches here and there, not to mention the public privacy of romantic ventures. This is not to mention the reality that graft and corrupt practices remain the spectacle in the country, poverty is still all around, and people in general are still waiting for much more than merely the disappearance of Wang-Wang.

that difficulty, no matter what it takes—of course, doing it as cordially as possible, avoiding violence and bitter zeal.

Since we can have different conceptions of God, we obviously have to go slow in our exchanges, but never to stop. Religious freedom should not be taken to mean that we just keep a kind of permanent détente among the different religions, or worse, that we shun the question of God.

While religious détente has some value and advantages, it should be understood as a practical, temporary means to keep peace and harmony in society. But it should not hinder the attainment of the fullness of re-ligious freedom which always involves the lifelong search for the true God.

That is why, the role of religion and ev-erything related to it should not be avoided in pursuing and developing our temporal affairs, like making the laws of our land. We have to debunk and outgrow that erroneous understanding of the doctrine on separation of Church and state that puts God out of the picture in our state affairs.

Putting God out would leave us in the cold, groping in the dark and relying simply on our own lights that at best can only be limited. Putting God out would lead us to the tyranny of the majority, the powerful, the rich. It can-not be fair for all. Affirmations of pursuing the common good would just be hot air.

We need to make a paradigm shift in our thinking and attitude towards our human laws and avoid “ultra vires.”

By the roadside / A4

Love Life / A4

Atty. Aurora A. Santiago

Duc in Altum

CommentaryMichael Cook

Philippines, what would be the casualty? Are the citizens pre-pared for such calamities?

It is about time that the Filipi-nos are oriented on how to cope up when catastrophe struck. Schools, offices and the Baran-gays should start not only infor-mation campaign about disaster preparedness through seminars and workshops but also begin to conduct earthquake and fire drills. As it happened, fire and tsunami followed soon after earthquake hit Japan.

We must learn from the Japa-nese experience. They were very calm and prepared when disaster happened, they did not panic. They waited in line in groceries and gas stations, no stealing or ransacking of stores. Media did not headline the number of casualties nor showed dead bodies. Politicians did not take advantage of the situation to earn media mileage. Nobody pretended to be a victim.

***Happy Birthday to Rev. Fr. Ric

Torrefiel of San Bartolome Par-ish and our former Parish Priest Rev. Fr. Tony Nopasa, both from the Diocese of Kalookan. Congratulations to Most Rev. Bishop Jesse Mercado of Diocese of Parañaque and National Di-rector of Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas on his 14th Episcopal Anniversary last March 31.

we lived in as growing children in my mother’s hometown, it was because we didn’t listen to him telling us not to play on the shelter’s rooftop. He was so angry at our disobedience and raised his hand, I thought he was about to hit us as our just desserts. But when he saw my sister who was in pain as a result

of our disobedience, he simply stopped and wept. He simply couldn’t hit us. The effect on us was just as baffling: We never played again on the shelter’s rooftop without making sure we were on its safer side and had our father’s permission.

In so many words I’m sim-ply saying how lucky or shall

good come from the use of me-dia. However, it also warns us about the evil in the wrong use that media could bring. The ethi-cal issue then, for every media form is: Is it being used for the good or for evil? Media should not leave their decisions solely on economic factors because they do not necessarily safe-guard the public interest. “

Most alarming is the effect of such shows to the children who think that what they see on TV is acceptable and normal.

We could complain to the KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas) and to MTCRB but those agencies can comment and sanction only on taped

products—which would be way after the show is over. They have no control over the show while it is going on.

There was a lot of reaction against the six-year old boy do-ing macho dancing while crying during the Willing Willie show. But what about the dozens of six-year old girls that have been exploited in such shows doing the sexy dancing (I read about this only, I have not seen them, or I would have protested im-mediately!)

So where does that leave us, except for all of us to stand up, unite, and speak out before our next generation end up gyrating naked in our streets.

I say “blessed” I was to have a father like my father. He made it easier for me to pray the “Our Father”. He made it easier for me to understand that God is my Father too whose love is what has made all human beings who we are, what we are and where we are meant to be. My father’s love mirrored God’s love for me

and for my siblings in a way no one among us could gainsay. I often felt sorry for other chil-dren whose fathers would hit or shout at them in a way that was unlike our Tatay. Incredible as it may seem, he wasn’t any of that. Even when he seemed pained, angered or disappointed with anything we had done, I

never sensed for a second that he stopped loving us.

If my father could love us his children the way he did, I often asked myself: “What would it be like to experience the love of God as Father”? His love must be infinitely more and better than my own father’s love for us his family. But now, after so many

years, I realize how grateful I should be that my own father had proclaimed to me in antici-pation, perhaps unbeknownst even to himself, the love that had led me to the love of God the Father of all.

My father was my first evan-gelizer. Now, as a priest, I try not to be a bad copy.

A6 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP MonitorLocal News

Parents / A1

Cyberspace / A1

Covenant / A1

THE Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) of St. John the Baptist Parish staged their annual Lenten Station of the Cross in a new form as a way of bat-tling the culture of death espoused by the controversial RH Bill now pending in Congress.

Dubbed as “Krus ng Buhay,” the fourteen Stations correspond to specific moral values as the Christian response to issues confronting the people as indi-viduals, as a family, as a nation and as a Church, both in religious and secular perspective.

At 3 p.m. on April 8, BEC’s from four barrios and sitios simultaneously started the yearly traditional activity from first to tenth Stations and con-verged at the town’s Kalayaan Park for the eleventh Station.

The group proceeded up to the four-teenth station marching along the main road while silently carrying placards that voiced out concerns on morality, human dignity and sanctity of life, fam-ily and marriage.

Devotees carried two significant images—Our Lady of Guadalupe and a big wooden cross.

The Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Philippines and the unborn children. She was venerated in the eleventh station as the “Mother of Life who cares for us from womb to tomb.”

The big wooden cross in the fourteenth station was made more profound when around 800 penitents formed a huge “human cross” as they “professed their baptismal vow as missionary Catholics,

Parish BECs stage human cross against RH Bill

kabalikat Para sa Matuwid na Pama-mahala,” the program seeks to advance principles of clean governance at the barangay level.

The program covers the villages of the cities of Quezon, Caloocan, Navotas and Malabon.

From the government, signatories of the covenant were: Mayors Herbert Bau-tista of Quezon City, Canuto Senen Oreta of Malabon City, John Reynald Tiangco of Navotas City and Enrico Echiverri of Kalookan City; and Presidents of league of barangays of the four cities.

The church sector, meanwhile, were

led by Bishops Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao, Deogracias Iñiguez, Jr. of Kaloo-kan and Antonio Tobias of Novaliches; representatives of the Diocesan Lay coordinators.

Robredo said partnership is the Church’s response to the government’s call for its active involvement in the Department’s renewed and zealous effort to realize good governance at the barangay level.

“Nalulugod po kami at naging mabilis ang pagtugon ng Simbahan sa aming panawagan at hamon na makibahagi at makiisa sa kampanya para sa isang mabuti

at tuwid na pamamahala,” he said.Earlier, the DILG chief called on the

active participation of the Church and other sectors of the society in the task of nation-building, particularly in in-troducing reforms and changes in local governance.

Among those who attended the affair were DILG Regional Director Renato Brion, Dir. John Castañeda of the National Barangay Operations Office, Philippine National Police Chief Director General Raul Bacalzo, Fr. Antonio Labiao Jr., among others. (CBCPNews)

THE Philippine Climate Watch Alli-ance had criticized President Benigno C. Aquino III for having turned a “deaf ear” on the environmentalists’ call to give a halt to the operations of coal-fired power plants in the country.

Adding insult to injury, they said, was the chief executive’s inauguration 10 days ago of the Panay Energy Develop-ment Corp.’s (PEDC) coal-fired power plant in Iloilo. PEDC is an affiliate of Global Business Power Corp., a unit of the MetroBank Group of Companies.

Meggy Nolasco, PCWA spokes-person, in a statement said that the ‘unintelligent’ preference to coal and coal power plants as source of energy shows his adamant subservience to the dictate of foreign and private energy companies. Even if it is sustainable, reliable and cheaper to develop our own indigenous renewable resources, the government chooses to remain dependent to imported dirty energy sources. PCWA had been advocating alternative energy sources, especially wind, solar and geothermal energies, as the country is rich on such sources of clean energy.

Meanwhile, the Kalikasan People’s Network to the Environment (KPNE) revealed that the people of La Paz have strongly opposed the erection of the said power plant for it would be a huge source of water and air pollution. Experts say that coal-fired power plants play a major role in the climate change

as they are the major emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is one of the most important greenhouse gases that thin the ozone layer, as well as blocks the heat in going out into the outer space, thus making the earth’s temperature higher.

In addition to being contributory to climate change, the smoke coming from the chimneys of these plants are said to be the cause of the development of cardiopulmonary and respiratory diseases.

What makes the project more con-troversial is that it was suspended by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) due to al-leged violations of the Clean Air Act of 1999.

“Its construction and testing op-erations were met by protests from the communities, religious sector, busi-ness groups, academe and students, and activist groups in Iloilo. Last time, the residents near the power plant complained of noise and air pollution coming from the plant,” Marjorie Pa-mintuan, spokesperson of the KPNE said in a statement.

Aside from Iloilo, there are also coal-fired power plants operating in Sual, Pangasinan; Masinloc, Zambales; Mauban and Pagbilao, Quezon; Toledo City and Naga, Cebu; La Paz, Iloilo, and Semirara, Antique and Villanueva, Mis-amis Oriental, Pamintuan said. (Noel Sales Barcelona)

P-Noy stance on coal power plants assailed

the media office of the Catho-lic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), in time for the Holy Week observance, has launched a website that caters to overseas Filipino workers and physically impaired to join the celebration of Holy Week and Easter.

Dubbed Visita Iglesia Online, the Lenten site which can be accessed at http://visitaiglesia.net offers a virtual experience of celebrating Lent, Holy Week and Easter at the comfort of one’s room—in front of a multimedia laptop or desktop which some-how becomes a virtual chapel for those who will not make it to churches.

But CBCP Media Director Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, said the site should not be used as a sub-stitute to the liturgical celebra-tions done in parishes.

He said those who have the capability to celebrate liturgical

services in their parish churches should do so.

“The liturgy is a community act and being so it is most mean-ingfully celebrated in the context of the community or the parish,” he stressed.

The website features various resources for spiritual growth and deepening of one’s faith.

It also includes catechesis and reflections for Lent, Holy Week and Easter preached by bishops and priests.

The “online church-goer” (OCG) will have the traditional Visita Iglesia in a multimedia presentation that features 14 shrines and pilgrimage churches to correspond with the 14 Sta-tions of the Cross with reflec-tions given by priests.

It also features the tradition-al Seven Last Words and the Pasyon.

The site likewise highlights the architectural marvel of cen-

turies-old baroque churches in the country.

Social networksVisita iglesia online is only one

and the latest among the list of media platforms the CBCP me-dia office maintains to intensify its work of evangelization via the internet.

Aside from its regular web-sites: www.cbcpnews.com; www.cbcponline.net; www.cbcponlineradio.com; www.cb-cpworld.net; the media office has also brought its evangelization efforts into the arena of social networking through Facebook and Twitter.

The sites of Good Morning CBCP and CBCPNews on Face-book currently have a registered likes of 3,121 and 2,437 respec-tively, while CBCPNews in Twit-ter has 1,876 followers.

The office also keeps a You-tube account at www.youtube.

com/cbcpmedia and blogs of bishops and priests at www.cbcponline.net.

Internet bloggers

Although the Vatican has solidified its presence in vari-ous social networks, setting up Youtube and Facebook accounts for the pope, its’ “relationship with blogs, however, has been a little more prickly,” according to a CNA report.

In an unparalleled move, the Vatican has issued an invitation for a meeting among internet bloggers in May, in time for the beatification of Pope John Paul II and the expected influx of in-ternational bloggers in Rome.

The first ever meeting is seen as an effort on the part of the Church “to give bloggers and Church representatives a chance to move beyond the relatively impersonal medium of the In-ternet and establish a more

truth of Christ.“In this field too we are called

to proclaim our faith that Christ is God, the Saviour of humanity and of history, the one in whom all things find their fulfillment” (cf. Eph 1:10), said the pope.

“Believers who bear witness to their most profound convictions greatly help prevent the web from becoming an instrument which depersonalizes people, attempts to manipulate them emotionally or allows those who are powerful to monopolize the opinions of oth-ers,” the pope further said.

Recognizing the expertise of young people in digital technol-ogy and their ubiquitous pres-ence in social networking sites, the pontiff urged them to “make good use of their presence in the digital world”, even as he noted that new technologies play a great part in the preparations being done for the upcoming World Youth Day in Madrid.

PROTESTING employees of Philip-pines Airlines (PAL) have appealed to the church for help over their dif-ferences with the carrier.

The Philippines Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) said that their case is a moral issue that demands church guidance in their fight for “regular jobs.”

“This is not an impossible dream… employers need only be guided by Christian teachings on sharing the fruits of production,” one of the country’s oldest unions said in a statement.

According to PALEA President Gerry Rivera, they believe that the “church-labor solidarity is just as important as the labor unity forged

in support of PALEA’s fight for regular jobs.”

The union issued the statement April 6 as it continues to map out coordinated moves of a series of mass actions against contractualization.

Rivera said about 2,600 union mem-bers were expected to lose their jobs if PAL would pursue its plan to spin off its ground operations.

The union has already threatened the PAL management with a strike aimed at paralyzing the carrier’s operations.

The decision came after President Aquino’s pronouncement that PAL’s plan is valid and that it “could not be held liable for unfair labor practice for pursuing a legitimate exercise of man-agement prerogative.”

Church help sought over PAL, workers labor rowThe PALEA, however, accused

Aquino of colluding with the PAL management.

“The office of the president closed its eyes to the fact that PAL will retrench [workers] despite a $1.6-billion projected annual profit,” they said.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Brod-erick Pabillo called on the public to rally behind the PAL workers planned labor strike to make sure their rights are protected.

“As a Church, we should be aware of the situation of our workers and support them. It’s clear in the teach-ings of the church that labor has priority over capital,” said Pabillo. (CBCPNews)

local parishes, Moortgat said that they have been promoting the sacrament of the anointing of the sick especially to the elderly, among others.

He also noted that it is not ECHC’s “plan to have a big office to dominate or to tell everyone what they are doing, but to help the needy.”

ECHC is anchored on four areas that they particularly focus on: the handicapped, the sick, the aged and the dying.

“We lift them up, help them to be ac-tive. We help them to stand up from the grassroots,” said Moortgat, who retired as the commission’s executive secretary last April 1. He is now a program direc-tor for ECHC.

“We envision the deaf helping the blind. The greater the need, the greater the care,” the priest added.

Beds for patient, college for deafSeeking to provide comfort to all pa-

tients, ECHC spearheaded the project called “A Patient, A Bed” that aims to provide beds to all mentally-ill patients who have been sleeping on floors in government psychiatric hospitals.

“Unknown to most Filipinos, there are many people in our mental hospitals who sleep on [the] floor, the hard and cold cement. We know people in the street who sleep on the floor, but even in mental hospitals they sleep on the floor. We want a bed for every patient, which is elementary enough,” said Moortgat.

The priest said they have brought this matter to then president Gloria Macapag-Arroyo who agreed and wrote a letter to the Department of Health, tagging them in the cause.

The Arroyo administration had al-

ready sent 80 beds to a mental hospital in Mandaluyong City.

But a change in presidency has put the operation to a pause. As of now, ECHC has been writing a couple of letters to President Benigno Aquino III and has yet to meet him.

“We want to pursue this. We must fight against it and we must not claim poverty for it,” Moortgat said.

In 1991, ECHC started a foundation called College Program for the Deaf that aimed to put to school children who are hearing-impaired.

De La Salle University-Manila and Col-lege of Saint Benilde have been tapped in the worthy cause and now have a total of 175 deaf students in the college level.

Calendar of eventsEvery year, the commission has a

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and that Christ died to give us Life.”Readings were modified according

to the context of concrete reality of our daily life. The prayerful response in the first Station, for example, was “shar-ing oneself to others as expression of Eucharistic love.” The twelfth Station reiterated “life as God’s gift that no man or government must rip asunder.” The thirteenth called to “choose Life, reject the RH Bill.”

Parish priest Msgr. Peter Cañonero joined the “human cross” in front of the main entrance of the church, while blessing and sprinkling the people with holy water. The activity concluded with the regular 6:00 p.m. celebration of the holy mass.

The BECs of St. John the Baptist have taken to heart the worldwide call of Pope Benedict XVI for the protection of the sanctity of life. On November 27, 2010, the eve of Advent season, the parishioners held a rosary-prayer vigil “to invoke divine protection on every human being called into existence, and to thank God for the gift of life we re-ceived from our parents.”

Since then, the parish BECs had cam-paigned for rosary-vigil with intention of protecting the unborn.

Looking forward to forming a ‘gi-ant living Rosary’ in October, the BEC leaders said, “may this Lenten ‘Human Cross’ be the crucifix of what we still have to labor―to form the ‘giant living Rosary’ beads which we envision as our spiritual weapon against the culture of death that is RH Bill, this October month of the Holy Rosary.” (Rufo Fernandez)

personal connection.”

Authentic presenceAlthough lauding the great

potential of digital technology, the pope nonetheless called for a more authentic presence, espe-cially in social networks, where there is the danger to create a “parallel existence.”

“Entering cyberspace can be a sign of an authentic search for personal encounters with others, provided that attention is paid to avoiding dangers such as enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world. In the search for sharing, for “friends”, there is the challenge to be authentic and faithful, and not give in to the illusion of constructing an artificial public profile for oneself,” he said.

He said that the presence of Christian believers in cyber-space help bear witness to the

lineup of 12 activities that caters to all disabilities and illnesses that includes a day dedicated to the blind in February, a day for the elderly in March and some special education courses for mentally-challenged patients where they invite key speakers and people to reflect.

“We try to attack things on many angles. We just don’t focus on one aspect,” said Moortgat, noting that the commission wants to give equal atten-tion to all disabilities and sickness.

This year, they celebrated the World Day of the Sick last February 11.

Revamped 12 apostlesFr. Moortgat plans to remake the 12

apostles that will be portrayed on Holy Week by inviting disabled or ill people who could represent his or her sick-ness to play the part, instead of young,

healthy men.He noted that this is a good advocacy

to all those who are suffering from ill-nesses and added that it does not cost anything, considering that they do not get any funding from the Catholic Bish-ops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Meanwhile, the priest said their second collection for their finance has amounted to over 100,000 pesos, still a pea-size fraction compared to their mil-lion peso expenditure annually.

Moortgat admitted that he has used up all his savings, including his retire-ment funds, to finance the activities of the commission.

“I look left and right to beg for money. The companies we have asked for some donations have backed out since they are retrenching from the economy’s slip,” he said. (Brylle B. Tabora)

A7Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

Lipa archdiocese ends centennial celebration

Diocesan News

BriefingLaguna clergy are vocal vs RH Bill, says priestSAN PABLO City―A priest from the diocese of San Pablo belied the opinion that members of the clergy are not vocal enough against the Reproductive Health Bill. Fr. Jerry Oble-pias, Diocesan Director of the Family Life Ministry in Laguna said the clergy of San Pablo Diocese are not just speaking against it; they are marching in the streets, he said. The only thing is that those mass actions are not being covered well by national or local media, the priest said. (Fr. Romulo Ponte)

Provide concrete job plan, gov’t toldANTIPOLO City—Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino urged the government to devise concrete job creation plans as 400,000 graduating students will eventually join the workforce this year. With scarcity of job offers, the young lawmaker fears that the 2.8 million jobless, will be 3.2 million beginning May or June. While there is effort by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), to provide jobs for these graduates, Palatino sees it as “inadequate.” (Noel Sales Barcelona)

Bishop nixes burial of Marcos at heroes’ cemeteryCAGAYAN DE ORO City—A Catholic archbishop has op-posed calls to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Heroes’ Cemetery. Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Anthonio Ledesma said many Filipinos will not allow such idea especially those victims of human rights violations under the Marcos dictatorship. “I’m a Filipino citizen and I’m against it. We know how massive the human rights abuses during the Marcos regime,” Ledesma said. (CBCPNews)

Energy-saving measures to save country P60-BCAGAYAN DE ORO City— At least sixty billion pesos (P60 billion) will be saved this year alone if businesses implement energy-efficiency measures, an officer of The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) said. “Of this amount, at least P12 billion would come from the Mindanao areas,” said Jesus Anunciacion, assistant director of the Energy Utilization Management Bureau of the Department of Energy (DOE), during the National Training Workshop on Energy Efficiency and Conservation at the Dynasty Court Hotel, March 16 and 17. (Bong D. Fabe)

ARMM bishop fears fresh conflict could escalateCOTABATO City— As the conflict between the armed allies of the Mangudadatu clan and the MILF is heating up, a Catholic bishop is concerned that the fighting could escalate. Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo said many people are apprehensive about the worsening armed conflict in Maguin-danao. He appealed to the government to immediately resolve the conflict between the MILF and the political supporters of Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu. (CBCPNews)

Women’s group claims ‘harassment’ of health workersBAGUIO City— Women’s rights group, Tanggol Bayi (Wom-en Defend!), assailed the alleged harassments by government forces against three community health workers here. Cristina “Palabay, Tanggol Bayi’s convener said that Milgaros Ao-wat, Germelina Dacanay and Rosalinda Suyam, all working for Community Health Education, Services and Training in the Cordillera Region have been receiving death threats via text messaging and that there were “suspicious” men who were following them, wherever they go. (Noel Sales Barcelona)

JP II / A1

CAGAYAN DE ORO City—A Jesuit peace-builder has urged Catholic institutions and Catho-lic educational centers to be channels of peace communica-tion for the achievement of last-ing peace in Mindanao.

Cagayan de Oro City-born Jesuit Fr. Albert Alejo said that Catholic schools should be chan-nels of peace communication to inform the people and affect them in such a way as to move them towards becoming peace advocates and peace builders.

Alejo, a member of the gov-ernment peace panel now nego-tiating peace with the National Democratic Front, said that Catholic educational institutions must do its part also in crafting a peace roadmap for Mindanao.

“Schools, colleges and univer-sities, acknowledged as neutral agents of change, can play a stra-tegic and leadership role in helping craft a Mindanao peace roadmap, build broad support around it, and provide timely assessments and inputs as to its implementation,” he said during the 4th National Volunteers Summit held April 8-10 at the South East Asia Rural Social Leadership Institute (SEARSOLIN) of Xavier University.

“The conventional notion that education is the long-term solution to the peacelessness “self-limits” the vast potentials of educational institutions as credible and effective platforms for peace-building and peace-making in short and medium term,” he said.

Catholic schools urged to be channels of peace communication

LIPA City―The Archdiocese of Lipa ended its year-long Centennial celebration with a solemn Mass presided by Lipa Archbishop Ramon C. Arguelles together with other bishops.

Concelebrating with Arguelles were two former Lipa Archbishops Gaudencio B. Cardi-nal Rosales of Manila and Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal, archbishop emeritus of Cebu; CBCP Vice President and current Cebu Archbishop Jose S. Palma, 30 other prelates and about 200 diocesan and religious priests from the archdiocese.

Arguelles unveiled a historical marker from the National Historical Institute, represented by its Executive Director Ludovico Badoy at the San Sebastian Cathedral grounds, before the 3:00 p.m. Mass.

Vice President Jejomar C. Binay and Su-preme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, both Batanguenos, assisted Arguelles in the simple unveiling rites. Cardinal Rosales pre-sided over the marker’s blessing.

His Eminence Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal also presided over the blessing of a wall marker, earlier unveiled by Lipa Auxiliary Bishop emeritus Salvador Quizon and Lipa City Mayor Meynard Sabili.

Arguelles, in his homily, traced Lipa’s history as St. Pope Pius X established it along with Zamboanga, Tuguegarao and Calbayog as separate dioceses in 1910. The Prefecture of Palawan was also established in the same year.

The evangelization of Southern Tagalog began with the first missionaries that accompa-nied Martin de Goiti and Juan de Salcedo, who both undertook various expeditions around Lake Taal, from where the evangelization of the different nearby provinces started.

“After Cebu, (the province of) Batangas can boast of having served as gateway of the Gospel to these islands of evangelical impor-tance,” he said.

He also referred to the “Glorious Cross”

which his predecessor, Archbishop Rosales, launched during the Great Jubilee Year 2000 which had two sides, the Holy Trinity and the Holy Family.

“Hardly did anyone imagine that ten years later, during the local Jubilee, the focus will again be the Glorious Cross,” he said.

He added the whole ecclesial province was drawn to a deeper reflection on the depth of the mystery of Consecratio ad Trinitatem Sanctam and Transformatio ut Sancta Familia.

The archbishop invited the faithful to pre-pare for the next centennial event as he urged them to become steadfast in carrying out three “missions” that requires Sanctification, Evangelization and Communion.

A dinner-reception at the Lipa City Youth Center followed the liturgical celebration. The Lipa Diocesan Catholic Schools Associa-tion (LIDICSA) took charge of the program and video presentation. (Fr. Nonie Dolor/CBCPNews)

was established January this year as a joint undertaking between the Diocese of Balanga and BTPI, which is now eyed as an eco-tourism destination.

To date, the BTPI maintains a mu-seum to showcase the history and devel-opment of the PRPC and its legacies.

The park has also retained most of the historical landmarks—the former shrines and monuments crafted as a legacy of the “boat people” in the former refugee camp.

“Now the establishment of the memo-rial shrine is symbolic for the love and reverence to Pope John II who loved our country and remembered and remained in the hearts and minds of the people,” Sanglay said.

Aside from venerating the late pope, he said other objectives of the shrine include serving as a “vehicle of uplifting the moral, religious and spiritual life of the Filipinos.”

The shrine’s inauguration will be led by Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos, BTPI

officials, and Bataan 1st District Rep. Herminia Roman.

Also set to deliver her speech is the event’s guest of honor, Ilocos Norte 2nd District Rep. Imelda Romualdez Marcos, former Minister of Human Settlement.

JP II’s feast day

In Rome, Zenit news agency reported that John Paul II’s liturgical memorial will be observed every Oct. 22 in Rome and Poland, according to a decree issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments on April 11.

The decree, which acknowledged the “exceptional character” of the Pontiff’s beatification, regulates the public li-turgical observance, also known as the “cult,” of the soon-to-be Blessed John Paul II. The Pontiff’s beatification will take place May 1 in the Vatican.

Even though Mass of thanksgiving following a beatification are normally limited to the places where the blessed lived or worked, the Vatican has granted

permission for local Churches around the world to celebrate a thanksgiving Mass during the year following the Pontiff’s beatification.

The date for the thanksgiving Mass is to be selected by the diocesan bishop for his diocese, and by the general su-perior for religious congregations and orders, but it must take place before May 1, 2012.

An Oct. 22 liturgical memorial will be automatically inserted into the liturgical calendars of the Diocese of Rome and the dioceses of Poland, and other local churches and religious families may request permission to do the same.

For those churches where a liturgical memorial is observed, a church may be named after John Paul II, but in other dioceses an indult must be granted by the Vatican.

The decree also published the text of the opening prayer to be used in the liturgical memorial and the Masses of thanksgiving. (Roy Lagarde)

family,” Sanchez said.“I’m 91 years old already but

I said I want to go home to the Philippines and somehow use my voice in the pastoral life of the church,” he said.

Sanchez claimed the bill, if passed, is just the beginning of more “immoral “and anti-Christian laws.”

“I only pray that the Filipinos become more aware of this… we have our tradition and that is protecting our family from the beginning,” he said.

Sanchez noted that Christian families, not just in the Philip-pines but across the world, are faced with serious threats.

Cardinal / A1

Tidbits / A4

He said the church hierarchy must do something to strengthen again the faith of Christian be-lievers by intense preaching.

“Let’s strengthen the faith among the faithful… let us preserve faith in the Philippines and let’s protect the Christian family,” he said.

Aside from making public state-ments and holding rallies, he said, the church’s continuing education against the RH bill would better be done in private way.

“The priests are precisely for this to preach the Gospel per-son to person,” he said. “This is the best way of communication where he can talk to everybody

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ing activity to say the least, a remnant of a medieval kind of spirituality that is too heavy and too ascetic. In recent years, however, fasting has experienced a resurgence of its practice. But the motivations that cause its resurgence are varied and oftentimes secular. Some groups who are religiously practicing fasting today are believers of the great religions of the East. To enter into the meaning of yoga and transcendental meditation, they have to undergo fast-

ing. They have to restrain themselves from eating indiscriminately. To acquire the spiritual power that they want, or, to reach the peace of mind amidst the ambiguities of life, they have to undergo these religious practices that include the discipline in the proper intake of food. Other groups take good health as their motivation for fasting. Actually, they do not call it fasting. They call it dieting. These groups believe that easy life is unhealthy, that the undisciplined intake

of food makes one soft and flabby. In contrast regulated dieting makes one trimmed, healthy and disciplined.

But the Christian fulfills the practice of fasting as duly prescribed by our Lord Jesus Himself and His Church. As our Lord said: “When I am no longer with them, then, they will fast” (ibid). And so we fast. And we do it for we are convinced that by rendering our table poorer and denying our stomach of some of our favorite food, we learn

to free ourselves from our selfish selves, start to discover that there is Someone besides ourselves, “the One and only God, whom we shall adore” (cf. Dt. 6”4-9), and hope to recognize Him in the faces of our least brothers and sisters (cf. Mt. 25: 40). It is hoped that the Lenten fast would lead the faithful to the real celebration of Easter which can only be savored to the fullest by one who has undergone the agony of a stomach in fasting, articulately expressing the

empty spirit it has in its struggle to reach out to God and neighbor. Here, fasting has evolved itself into a feasting.

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

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

Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, former

archbishop of Lipa; blesses the centennial marker at the closing

of the archdiocesan centennial celebration as Lipa Archbishop

Ramon Arguelles looks on.

Fr. Albert Alejo, S.J., stresses the importance of crafting a Peace Communication Program in Catholic education institutions to help attain lasting peace in Mindanao.

Alejo, assistant to the president for Social Development of the Ateneo de Zamboanga Universi-ty as well as national coordinator of Konsult Mindanaw, stressed that before Catholic institutions and Catholic educational centers can become effective channels of peace communication, they have first to acknowledge their role in the historical marginalization of minority groups in Mindanao.

“The Catholic Church in gen-eral and Catholic educational in-stitutions in particular are weighed down by ‘baggages’ as a repository of confessional and historical bi-ases against Muslims and Lumads. The success of peace-building programs of Catholic education-al institutions must be gauged among others on how they move

Christians into admitting that they play a part in the historical margin-alization of minority groups and that there can be no just resolution to the Mindanao conflicts without their support,” he said.

He said it is very important that Catholic educational institutions must also develop a program for training of people in dialogue.

“A study reveals that both Muslims and Christians have de-veloped prejudices against each other, but that Christians seem to have stronger prejudices against the Muslims. One problem is the prevalent lack of training in dialogue. Much of education is monologue, or debate. While we have debating teams, we do not have dialogue clubs,” he pointed out. (Bong D. Fabe)

with heart and conviction. The church needs to preach now more than ever before.”

Sanchez arrived in Manila last December and is report-edly residing in the country for good. He currently stays with a community of religious sisters in Novaliches, Quezon City.

He was first seen in public during the massive church-or-ganized prayer rally against RH bill at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila last March 25.

A native of Pandan in Cat-anduanes, he is the 5th out of six Filipino cardinals produced by the country from the time of Pope John XXII including the late Rufino Car-

dinal Santos, Julio Cardinal Rosales and Jaime Cardinal Sin.

Aside from Sanchez, the two other living cardinals are Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and retired Cebu Arch-bishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal.

After serving as bishop in several Philippine dioceses for many years, Sanchez was appointed as Secretary of the Congregation for the Evange-lization of Peoples in the Vatican in 1985 by the late Pope John Paul II.

He was made a cardinal in 1991, and also became, a month later, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. He retired from this position on June 15, 1996. (CBCPNews)

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aired on TV 5 last March 12.“The management and host of the

show brought shame not only to Jan-Jan and his parents but to media prac-titioners in general,” said Fr. Edwin Gariguez, Nassa executive secretary.

Gariguez said Nassa, chaired by Ma-nila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, supports the calls for further investiga-tion on the said television episode.

He said appropriate intervention and assistance must also be extended to Jan-Jan and his family.

“Only by examining carefully the many elements that gave rise to the con-troversy can a clear-sighted assessment of critical issues be looked into and liable persons are meted out the appropriate penalty under our laws on human rights and child protection,” he said.

The CBCP official also appealed to media networks to uphold the “human dignity” at all times and avoid “the be-trayal of trust that was placed on their shoulders.”

“We need to remember that media’s primary role is to promote social aware-ness and safeguard the dignity and welfare of the people, especially the youth,” he said.

“This explicitly entails social respon-sibility that will proscribe commercially-driven shows that induce people to think and behave in ways that have grievous moral consequence to society.”

“In the same way that freedoms in the media are respected so should media practitioners put utmost regard to the dignity and rights of the people whom they serve,” Gariguez added.

He said mechanisms must also be pro-vided by media networks to ensure that participants in any game shows, “most of whom poor, are not exploited.”

“We need to install monitoring system to ensure compliance to child protection policy that will best [put] the interest and the welfare of children and that will pursue liabilities of those who dare transgress it,” he said. (CBCPNews)

Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP MonitorA8 People, Facts & Places

APPOINTED. The superior of the local Vincentians, Fr. Rolando Crisostomo Santos, C.M. has been named Bishop of Alotau-Sideia in Papua New Guinea on April 6. Born in 1949 in Malabon, Rizal Province, bishop-elect Santos entered the Congregation of the Mission (Philippine Province) in 1966 after his studies at the Vincentian Minor Seminary in Valenzuela, Bula-can and two years of formation at the Vincentian Hills Seminary in Angono, Rizal. He was sent to the US Eastern Province of the Congregation to the Mary Immaculate Seminary in Northampton, Panama for his Philosophical and Theological studies. He later took his vows in 1971 and ordained to the priesthood in 1974. As a young priest, he was formator at the St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary in Iloilo city. In 1975 he was assigned parochial vicar and pastor in Calumpang, Iloilo city. In 1984, he was appointed rector of the Vincentian Seminary in Tandang Sora, Quezon City. Fr. Santos became an active member of the pastoral ministry of the Provincial Mission Team. In 1987, he was appointed Director of the Daughters of Charity Philippine Province in addition to his being vicar of the National Shrine of the Miraculous Medal in Muntinlupa City. In 2001, Fr. Santos was sent to Papua New Guinea and became Spiritual Director and Econome in the Holy Spirit seminary in Bomana, under the Archdiocese of Port Moresby. Before his appointment as bishop of Alotau-Sideia, he was Secretary-General of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The See of Alotau-Sideia has an area of 20,000 square miles, a population of 245,000 with 41,137 Catholics, 23 priests and 43 religious men and women.

CELEBRATED. Diamond Jubilee of Religious Profession of Sr. Ma. Carmen Bolaños of Tiaong, Quezon; Sr. Ma. Rosario Padilla of San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija; Sr. Ma. Luz Nitura of Urdaneta, Pangasinan; Mo. Ma. Eufemia Lauzon of Tolosa, Leyte; Sr. Ma. Amparo Serra of Sagay, Negros Occidental; Sr. Ma. Susana Quiñones of Malabuyoc, Cebu; Mo. Ma. Bibiana Vendiola of Bacong, Negros Oriental; Sr. Ma. Lucila Reyes of Cavite City; Sr. Ma. Auxiliadora Somosot of Clarin, Bohol; Sr. Ma. Clara Flores of Balamban, Cebu; Sr. Ma. Nicholasa Sabado of Bogo, Cebu; and Sr. Ma. Visitacion Visitacion of Badian, Cebu, among the Augustin-ian Recollects Sisters (AR), April 16, 2011. His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales will preside the thanksgiving Eucharistic celebration at the St. Augustine Chapel, Tagaste Retreat House in Tagaytay City.

ORDAINED. Sem. Nestor Del Mundo Edrozo, Jr. of San Vicente Fer-rer Parish, Mamatid, Cabuyao was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons by Bishop Leo Drona on April 8, Friday at 9:30 a.m. at the St. Peter’s College Seminary. Edrozo is a graduate of the SVD Theological Seminary in Tagaytay City.

Markings

Pauline sisters hold media assembly

Young Filipino Catholics advocate chastity

THE Permanent Committee for the Cultural Heritage of the Church (PCCHC) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines is holding its 7th Biennial National Convention of Church Cultural Heritage Workers and Practitioners in Tacloban City, Leyte, on May 9-12, 2011.

Keynote speaker of the 4-day assembly is CBCP president and Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar.

Msgr. Jaime C. Vilanueva, Palo archdiocesan administrator, and the Honourable Jericho L. Pe-tilla, Leyte governor, will respectively deliver the welcome remarks on behalf of the archdiocese and the provincial government.

Topics to be discussed cover the different cul-tural heritage typology, and will be elaborated by nine speakers that include Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus A. Dosado, C.M., Architect Clarissa Av-endaño, Fr. Brian Brigoli, Fr. Gilbert Urbina, Fr. Isidro Abaño, O.P., Architect Michael Manalo, Prof. Ferdinand Bautista, Msgr. Lope Robredillo, and Atty. Jo Aurea Imbong.

Convention venues are the Arcivu Hall in the Palo Metropolitan Cathedral compound; the Ba-lyuan Convention Centre, and Sto. Niño Parish Church, both in Tacloban City.

On May 11, the convention participants will trav-el to the Immaculate Conception Parish Church, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, for a heritage pilgrimage, passing by the historic parish churches of Basey and Balangiga.

The Guiuan church was declared a national cultural treasure in 2001 by the National Museum of the Philippines.

‘Informal school’The biennial national conventions began in 1996

at the initiative of the CBCP-PCCHC, currently chaired by Cebu Auxiliary Bishop Julito Cortes, to serve as a forum for the priests and lay collabora-tors assigned to take care of the cultural patrimony assets of particular Churches.

These assemblies have also effectively become an

THE Episcopal Commission on Health Care held a congress for interpreters during the Catholic Interpreters’ Day to highlight their significant role in society.

The congress, held last March 12 at the Paco Catholic School, also aimed to promote awareness and encouragement to those who are interested in becoming interpreters.

Fr. Luke Moortgat, CICM underscored the importance of interpreting at different occasions.

He said the day was also a great opportunity to inform the general public of the presence of deaf in our society who need our help to be accepted and to become productive members of our nation.

Fr . Moortgat discussed the various programs of the

IN a desire to bring a bit of the World Youth Day spirit to more young Filipi-nos, the Salesian Youth Movement has gathered the youth from Luzon and Visayas for a distinctively youthful celebration from April 2 – 6.

Also came to join the event at the St. Mary Mazzarello School, Victorias City, in Negros Occidental were selected Salesian youth leaders, together with their anima-tors, from South Korea and Vietnam.

An annual event, this year’s SYD was inspired by both the CBCP Year of the Youth and the upcoming World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid, Spain this August.

The SYD 2011’s theme “Salesian Youth: In faith we stand, in love we serve” was inspired by the CBCP Year of the Youth’s theme. Both were taken

Salesian youth relives WYD spirit in regional assembly

CHASTITY and abstinence are the answers to sexually transmitted diseases and un-wanted pregnancies, and not the reproductive health bill, according to a youth member of a Catholic organization for the family.

EJ Aguila, 27, a member of the CFC-Youth for Family and Life, voiced the senti-ments of a growing group of young, Filipino Catholics who advocate sexual purity as a personal choice.

During the interfaith rally that drew hundred of thou-sands at the Quirino Grand-stand on March 25, Aguila shared onstage that he has decided to remain single and

Congress for Catholic Interpreters held

Church Heritage committee to hold national confab

they observed in their practice of communi-cation… among them-selves, community, family, friends, and in the apostolate.

Manding dared par-ticipants to respond aggressively on the challenges posed by the Holy Father in his message, especially that of using more effectively the new media in the procla-

mation of the Gospel.Participants in the assembly were sis-

ters working in ministries that include media literacy education, radio, TV, audio-visual, information technology and pastoral involvement in arch/dioc-esan commission on social communica-tions and the media office of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. (CBCPNews)

wait until he is married to have sexual relations with the person God will give him.

He emphasized that “the youth don’t need sex educa-tion”, but instead championed the choice of having sex only within marriage.

Aguila also wanted to go against the image of the apa-thetic Filipino youth, stressing that the “the youth do care about life.”

“It is not true that we are Pro-RH Bill, we are instead Pro-Life,” he said.

In interviews during the rally, several youth talked about how the RH bill will negatively affect society.

Maann Termulo from Youth

for Christ (YFC) said the RH bill will lead to the abuse of young people, especially women.

She emphasized that wom-en will be used as sex objects when the bill is passed.

The youth will be led astray because they will think that they are doing the right thing. I hope that they will not be pro-RH bill anymore, but be-come pro-life, she added.

A good number of young Catholics made up the esti-mated 100,000 people pres-ent during the pro-life rally, mostly members of youth organizations, ministries, parishes and schools. (Jandel Posion)

THE National Clergy Discern-ment Group held a Lenten forum aimed to shed light on the future of peace negotiations and its challenges under the Aquino government.

The forum discussed the impor-tance of the Comprehensive Agree-ment on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) as an effective solution to put an end on the

Clergy group holds forum on peace negotiations

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Participants of the 6th Biennial Convention held at Laoag, Ilocos Norte in May 2009.

Episcopal Commission on Health Care including their ministry for the deaf and other persons with disabilities.

Thirty-six interpreters, teachers of the deaf and others who studied at least the first level of Sign language strongly supported the idea to be among the members of the local Diocesan and Parochial Commissions who are active volunteers for interpreting during Holy Mass, teaching catechism, and other activities.

He believed the commission s h o u l d b e i n f o r m e d i f parishioners find the interpreters during Mass a distraction.

The priest said there is a need to explain the significance of interpreters’ role for the active participation of the disabled during the Holy Mass.

He firmly suggested to have one Holy Mass every Sunday for all the handicapped.

The handicapped can take roles in the celebration, he said, such as a blind taking care of the first reading and intellectually disabled being part of the offertory procession together with those who are wheelchair bound and also the presence of an interpreter for the deaf.

Ms. Rosalynn Garcia, one of the speakers during the congress who is a full-time interpreter, proposed the creat ion of the national association of interpreters in the Philippines intended to draw more people who will care for the deaf. She also shared her various experiences in handling deaf people. (Vanessa Puno)

armed conflict in the Philippines.CASER is second in the agen-

da of the peace negotiations between the Philippine govern-ment and the National Demo-cratic Front which resumed in Oslo, Norway last February 15-21, 2011.

The forum likewise tackled the role of church people and the gen-eral public in achieving a just and

lasting peace in the country.Themed “The Pursuit for a Just

and Lasting Peace: A Christian Imperative”, the Lenten gather-ing was held on April 1, from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at De La Salle-College Saint Benilde, Taft Avenue Manila.

Among those who attended include religious, priests, aca-deme, students and representa-

tives from various faiths.A biblical-theological reflection

was given by Fr. Wilfredo Dulay, MJ, one of the convenors of Nation-al Clergy Discernment Group.

Representatives from the Nego-tiating Panels of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) were invited to grace the event. (CBCPNews)

from the letter of St. Paul to the Corin-thians, “Stand firm in the faith… do all your work in love.” (1 Cor. 16:13-14).

The Salesian Youth Day comes at a fitting moment when the presence of young people in the Church is given special significance.

Last July, the CBCP declared 2011 as the “CBCP Year of the Youth”. The period from December 16, 2010 until December of 2011 will be a time when special venues will be set up to help the youth to “establish and strengthen their relationship with Christ; “provide op-portunities for growth; and “encourage community involvement.”

The SYD 2011 also aimed to provide an occasion to bring the World Youth Day fever and its meaningful message to the Salesian youth in the country, in anticipa-

tion of the upcoming WYD in Madrid.According to Lea Dasigan, a full-time

staff worker for the Salesian Youth Movement, SYD participants also re-flected on the WYD 2011 message.

“It’s our way of bringing the WYD spirit to them, because not all the youth are going to attend (the) WYD in Ma-drid,” she added.

The Salesian Youth Movement is an international movement that encour-ages young people to live up to the spirituality that St. John Bosco devoted his life to.

The SYD event also aimed to drum up excitement for the 25th Anniver-sary of the Salesian Youth Movement in 2013 and the Bi-Centennial Birth Anniversary of St. John Bosco in 2015. (Jandel Posion)

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Pinformal “school of church heritage” to serve the continuing formation programme of both priests and lay faithful who devote their time to the conservation of the ecclesiastical cultural goods in their respective pastoral jurisdiction by mandate of their bishops.

The meetings are also open to all those who

work in tourism, arts, and vocation related to the cultural heritage of the Church.

This year’s convention will be hosted by the Archdiocese of Palo, with the Leyte-Samar Heri-tage Society, Inc., as co-host and lay agency.

Participants are asked to confirm attendance

by contacting the Palo secretariat c/o Prof. Anida “Birdie” Lorenzo (09173570650; anbelo02@yahoo.com) or Prof. Joycie Dorado-Alegre (09263843156; 09995573154; doradoalegre@yahoo.com).

A registration fee of PhP 2,000.00 will be col-lected from each participant. (CBCPNews)

PAULINE sisters di-rectly involved in the media apostolate held their annual media practitioners’ assembly and workshop at the Paulines Communica-tion Center in Pasay City on April 5-7.

Twenty one sisters of the Daughters of St. Paul from across the country and Malaysia gathered to share on their apostolic initia-tives and map out a more effective response to the challenges they encounter in their respective ministries.

Themed “Truth, Proclamation and Au-thenticity of Life in the Digital Age”, the seminar touched on the challenges of the media apostolate in the digital age.

Resource speaker during the seminar was Sr. Consolata Manding, FSP, directress of Paulines Institute of Communication in

Asia (PICA). She spoke on the culture of communication and expounded on Pope Benedict XVI’s message for 2011 World Com-munications Day.

Communication is in a flux, Manding said. The radical development of digital technol-ogy has altered the way people communicate with one another and so our way of doing the apostolate, she added.

She asked participants of the changes

B1Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor Pastoral Concerns

(The following is a liturgical reflection of Fr. Nicola Bux, professor of Eastern Liturgy and consultor of several Holy See dicasteries, on the key moments and symbols of the celebrations proper to Palm Sunday and the paschal

triduum; lifted from the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff)

THE Letter to the Hebrews is the only text of the New Testament that attributes to our Lord Jesus Christ the titles “priest,” “high priest” and “mediator of the New Covenant,” thanks to the offering of the sacrifice of his body, anticipated in the mystical Supper of Holy Thursday,

consummated on the Cross and presented to the Father with the Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven (cf. Hebrews 9:11-15). This text is meditated in the Liturgy of the Hours of the fifth week of Lent—or Passion week, as in the liturgical calendar of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite—and in Holy Week.

We Catholic priests must always look at Jesus Christ and have his same sentiments, to the point of absorption in Him; this ascesis occurs with permanent conversion. How does conversion take place in us priests? In the rite of Ordina-tion we are asked to teach the Catholic faith, not our ideas, “to celebrate with devotion and fidelity the mysteries of Christ -- namely, the liturgy and the sacraments—according to the tradition of the Church” and not according to our taste; above all, “to be ever more united to Christ high priest, who as pure victim offered himself to the Father for us,” that is, to conform our life to the mystery of the cross.

The Holy Church honors the priest and the priest must honor the Church with the holiness of his life—proposed St. Alphonsus Mary of Liguori on the day of his Ordination—with zeal, with work and with decorum. He offers Jesus Christ to the Eternal Father, that is why he must be clothed in the virtues of Jesus Christ to prepare himself to encounter the Holy of Holies. How important is the interior and exterior preparation to

instead, the letter omega; between the arms of the cross he traces four numbers to indicate the current year, saying: Christ yesterday and today. Afterward, having made the incision on the cross and the other signs, he can nail in the candle five grains of incense, saying: Through his holy wounds. Then, singing the Lu-men Christi, he leads the procession to the church. The priest is at the head of the faithful people here on earth, to be able to lead them to heaven.

It is the priest who intones solemnly the Alleluia. He sings it three times, gradually raising the tone of his voice: the people repeat it each time in the same tone.

In the baptismal liturgy, the priest, standing before the font, blesses the water singing the prayer: Oh God, through the sacramental signs; while he invokes: Descend, Father, on this water. He can submerge the Paschal Candle in the water once or three times. The meaning is profound: the priest is the fertilizing organ of the ecclesial womb, symbolized by the baptismal pool. Truly in the person of Christ Head he engen-ders children that, as father, he fortifies with the chrism and nourishes with the Eucharist. Also by reason of the marital functions to the Church Bride, the priest must be a man. All the mystical meaning of Easter is manifested in the priestly identity, coming to fullness, the pleroma,

as the East says. With him sacramental initiation reaches its culmination and Christian life the center.

Hence, the priest, having ascended the cross with Jesus on Friday and lowered into his sepulcher on Holy Saturday, can really affirm on Easter Sunday with the sequence: “We know that Christ has truly risen from the dead.”

The priest and the paschal triduum

A Meditation on the Liturgy from Palm Sunday to Easter

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the sacred Liturgy, to the Holy Mass! It is about glorifying the high and eternal priest Jesus Christ.

However, all this is carried out to the greatest degree in Holy Week, the Great and Holy Week as the Eastern Church says. Let us look at some of its principal ceremonies on the basis of the Pon-

tifical of bishops.

1 . On

P a l m Sunday, the priest enters Je-rusalem with Jesus in joy. On this Sun-day the C h u r c h celebrates

the Lord’s triumph and anticipates the joy of the victory of the Risen One. The solemn procession in honor of Christ the King is the most characteristic rite of the day: It recalls the triumphal cortege that accompanied Jesus on his entry in Jerusalem, ex-presses the actual meeting of the Church in the holy mysteries and represents, ahead of time, the entrance of the elect in the heavenly city, as the Apostle says: “Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17).

The liturgy of the Palms orients us, therefore, to the definitive Presence of the Lord, in Greek “parousia.” It is not just about commemorating the Lord’s entry in the heavenly Jerusalem but, bringing us close to the Eucharistic banquet, where the Bread will be bro-ken, about proclaiming symbolically what will really happen at the end of the world. Then the Lord’s Cross will open the entrance of the heavenly Je-rusalem to that “great multitude” that St. John contemplated in the prophetic vision, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues -- clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits

upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10).

2. With the Missa in Cena Domini of Holy Thursday, the priest enters the principal mysteries, the institution of the Most Blessed Eucharist and of the ministerial priesthood, as also of the commandment of brotherly love, signi-fied by the washing of the feet, gesture that the Coptic liturgy does ordinarily every Sunday. Nothing expresses it better than the song “Ubi Caritas.” After communion, the priest, taking the humeral cloth, goes up to the altar, genuflects and, helped by a deacon, takes the pyx with his hands covered by the humeral cloth. It is the symbol of the need for pure hands and hearts to approach the Divine Mysteries and touch the Lord!

3. Good Friday in Passione Domini, the priest is called to go up to Calvary. At 3 p.m., the Passion of the Lord takes place

in three moments: the Word, the Cross, Communion. It moves in procession and silence to the altar. After reverenc-ing the altar, which represents Christ in the austere nakedness of Calvary, he prostrates himself on the ground: It is the “proskynesis,” as in the day of ordination. Thus he expresses the conviction of being nothing before the Divine Majesty, and repentance for hav-ing dared to measure himself, through sin, with the Omnipotent. As the Son who abased himself, the priest recog-nizes his nothingness, and so begins his priestly mediation between God and the people, which culminates in the solemn universal prayer.

The exposition and adoration of the Holy Cross takes place: The priest goes to the altar with the deacons and there, standing, receives it and uncovers it in

three successive moments, or shows it already uncovered, and invites each of the faithful to adoration with the words: Look at the wood of the Cross. In its bare solemnity, here, in the heart of the liturgical year, tradition has endured tenaciously more than at other moments of the year. The priest, after depositing the chasuble, if possible barefoot, is the first to approach the cross, kneels before it and kisses it. Catholic theology does not hesitate to give to the word “adoration” its true meaning. The true Cross—bathed with the blood of the Redeemer—makes itself, so to speak, one with Christ, and receives adoration. Because of this, prostrating ourselves before the sacred wood, we say to the Lord: “We adore you, Oh Christ, and we bless you, because by thy Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

4. The Easter of the Kingdom of God has been realized in Jesus: the Supper

offered and consumed, “on the night he was betrayed”; immolated on Calvary on Good Friday, when “the earth was covered in dark-ness,” once again at night receives the consecration of divine approval, in the resurrection of Christ the Lord: From John we know that Mary Mag-dalene went to the sepulcher

“while it was still d a r k ” ; h e n c e , i t h a p -pened in the last hours of the night after the P a s c h a l S a t u r -day.

In the Novus Ordo, the priest, from the beginning of the Vigil, wears white vestments as for the Mass. He blesses the fire and lights the Paschal Candle with the new fire, if he proceeds, after hav-ing nailed, as in the old liturgy, a cross. Then he traces on the vertical side of the cross the Greek letter alpha and below,

B2 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP MonitorUpdates

BEC / B3

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Towards a Canonical Status for Basic Ecclesial Communities (Part I)

By Fr. Jaime B. Achacoso, J.C.D.

I am a priest in a diocese in Mindanao, where there is a strong impetus for the establishment of Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs). The work these are doing for the Christian faithful is undeniable, especially in those areas hardly reached by the inadequate number of priests. However, at times I have been at odds with such groups because of a certain tendency to supplant the parish. At times, such groups in the rural areas outside the poblacion even dissuade their members from going to town to attend Mass on holy days of obligation, with the reason that they already have what they call a “dry Mass”─basically a liturgy of the Word with the administration of Holy Communion outside Mass─in their chapel. In matters of governance too, at times such BECs are at odds with our Parish priest, because they impose requirements on their members (beyond those required by the Parish) in order to be included in the roster for the reception of Confirmation and Baptism, and even for Marriage. What does Canon Law say about this?

The Problem with BECs There are two basic problems

with the Basic Ecc les ia l

Communities. Firstly, although the term has been used quite extensively in the Philippines, the Magisterium has not really defined it authoritatively. Even in the Philippines, the bishops have not given a real definition. Hence, the margin for abuse of the notion is quite wide.

Secondly, if there is no theological definition, much less could there be a canonical one. The expression does not even appear in the Code of Canon Law. Perhaps it was for this reason─the lack of any clear idea of what they are in the first place─that they have not been treated seriously in the canonical forum.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon does exist and─in Mindanao and to a certain extent also in the Visayas─quite extensively, to the point that somebody had said “they are the new way of being Church.” Hence, it’s not something that can be left to develop helter-skelter, among other things because the Church is not something that develops out of human initiative, but rather follows a Divine design. Hence, if a phenomenon like the BECs is to develop─to borrow the aforementioned quotation─being Church, it cannot be allowed to develop without the proper parameters.

Here is where Canon Law can help, because even if there may not be a canonical definition of the Basic Ecclesial Communities yet, not for this does it follow that there is a normative gap as regards the phenomenon. There is a legal gap (lacuna legis) insofar as the very expression basic ecclesial

Why dates of Easter

differ (Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina

Apostolorum university, answers the following query:)

Q: I am an Orthodox reader and I have a question. As you know, the Catholic (Western) Churches and the Orthodox celebrate Pascha [Easter] on different Sundays most of the time. The rule of the Council of Nicaea says, “The first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.” However, in the notes on the council it tells us that, even using this calculation—there being no common calendar in the empire at the time—Christian churches were celebrating the feast on different Sundays based on when they calculated the equinox and full moons based on their particular calendars. To have unity within the empire, Constantine added the caveat, “But shall not precede or coincide with Passover,” and for more than 1,000 years, this worked and we all celebrated Pascha on the same Sunday. Then with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar this changed somewhat but, even if the imperial order was still honored in the West, we would still be celebrating Pascha together. Can you tell us why the Western Churches have chosen to neglect this order and will celebrate Pascha before or during Passover, as they did this year, while the Orthodox will still honor the rule and wait? Or can you tell us why the West, as is the case in some years, will celebrate Pascha on the Sunday when the full moon is Saturday night, which liturgically is Sunday?—G.J., Houston, Texas

A: First of all, it would appear that the supposed rule that Easter must be celebrated after Passover does not hail from the Council of Nicaea. It would appear that this provision was first proposed by the 12th-century Byzantine canonist Joannes Zonaras. It probably stems from the fact that the drift caused by the Julian calendar’s miscalculation of the solar year means that Easter now always falls after the start of the Jewish Passover. The fact that this happens gave rise to the belief that this was a rule, but the historical evidence does not seem to support this.

As our reader points out, early Christians calculated Easter using different criteria. Christians in Syria generally held Easter after the Jewish Passover whereas most other Christians within the Roman Empire calculated Easter with no thought for the Jewish festival. Thus Easter was often celebrated on different days in Antioch and Alexandria. Nicaea decreed a single date but left no precise indications regarding the criteria for calculating the date. It was only several decades later that the system used in Alexandria became generally accepted.

We had already dealt briefly with the question of the date for Easter on Feb. 28, 2006. Our present reply will flesh out what we said on that occasion.

Easter follows a lunar-solar, rather than a solar, calendar and is celebrated on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after March 21, the vernal (spring) equinox. Therefore, Easter cannot fall earlier than March 22 or later than April 25.

Thus, according to a detailed article in Wikipedia, “Gregorian Easter can fall on 35 possible dates. ... It last fell on March 22 in 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. It fell on March 23 in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it will fall on April 24, just one day before this latest possible date, in 2011. The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date, happening 220,400 times or 3.9%, compared to the median for all dates of 189,525 times or 3.3%.”

Most of the Eastern Churches follow the same basic principles but often celebrate Easter on a date different from Catholics and other Western Christians because they continue to follow the calendar of Julius Caesar without the corrections incorporated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

Julius Caesar’s calendar (from 46 B.C.) calculated the year as 365 days and 6 hours and thus was about 11 minutes and 9 seconds more than the Earth’s actual course. Although tiny, this excess puts the calendar off by a day, more or less, every 128 years. Thus, the Council of Nicaea already found it necessary to regress the date of the spring equinox to March 21 instead of the original date of March 25.

By the time of Gregory XIII the difference had grown so much that the spring equinox occurred on March 11.

In 1581 with the bull “Inter Gravissimas” Pope Gregory promulgated a widespread reform which, among other things, re-established the spring equinox on March 21 by eliminating 10 days from October 1582. Coincidence would have it that St. Teresa of Avila died on that very night of Oct. 4-15.

The error of Julius Caesar’s calendar was corrected by deciding that the turn of the century—always a leap year in the Julian calendar—would be so only when the year could be divided by 400, that is 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800, etc., whereas there would be no leap year in the others.

Most Catholic countries, and even some Protestant ones, accepted the reform almost immediately. Some countries, such as England, held off accepting the papal reform until 1752 while Russia did not adopt it until after the Communist takeover in 1918.

The calculation is still not perfect as there is still a difference of 24 seconds between the legal and the solar calendar. However, 3,500 years will have to pass before another day is added.

Although all Western countries now use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, most Oriental Churches continue to use the Julian calendar to calculate Easter. The difference between the two systems is now 13 days, so that although the Orthodox Easter also falls between March 22 and April 25 (inclusive), these dates correspond to between April 4 and May 8 (inclusive) in the Gregorian system.

community does not even appear in the Codex, but there is no normative gap (lacuna normativa), because the juridic structure of the Church is sufficiently fine so as to provide the pertinent norms to the actuation of the BECs. In other words, from the existing legal norms, it is quite possible to draw what is applicable to the constitution and conduct of basic ecclesial communities.

This, in fact, is the inspiration behind the 19th National Convention of the Canon Law Society of the Philippines, to be held this coming April 26-29 in Surigao City. In effect, what the CLSP proposes to do is to sift through existing legal norms in the Church to find what are applicable to BECs and then integrate them into a sort of a draft Guidelines for Basic Ecclesial Communities, for possible presentation to the CBCP for the latter’s adoption and if necessary Papal recognition.

Point of Departure: the Instruction Ecclesia de Mysterio of 1997

In 1997, the Holy See issued the Instruction Ecclesia de Mysterio, On Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests. It was co-authored by six

Vatican Congregations (for the Clergy; for the Doctrine of the Faith; for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for Bishops; for the Evangelization of Peoples; for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life) and two Pontifical Councils (for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts; for the Laity). The document reaffirmed the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (especially of Lumen Gentium, n.33 and Apostolicam Actuositatem, n.24). Its main purpose was to acknowledge and promote what is specific to the vocations of the lay faithful and of ordained ministers, with the goal of encouraging real communion in the Church.

Surprisingly, it was met either with criticism or with indifference. After almost 15 years, the problem of the BECs compels us to revisit this document, which enjoys the specific approval of the Holy Father.

As an introduction, it may be good to summarize the basic objectives of the Instruction, which simply reaffirms the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and of the more recent post conciliar Magisterium on the positive role of the laity in the Church’s mission.

1. Encourage the ordained ministers and foster the ordained ministry. It seeks to encourage ordained ministers by forcefully reintroducing the subject of vocations to the priesthood, stressing that the Church’s life depends on the sacrament of Holy Orders as a free, absolutely irreplaceable gift, because the

ordained ministry (Bishops, priests, deacons) is part of the Church’s very structure. Thus, the Instruction concludes by stating that “the solutions addressing the shortage of ordained ministers cannot be other than transitory and must be linked to a series of pastoral programs which give priority to the promotion of vocations to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”

2. Remind the laity of their specific role. The Instruction also reminds us how the fundamental equality of Christians—based on Baptism—is compatible with an essential difference—based on Sacred Orders—and that lay Christians, precisely because of Baptism, are called to the consecratio mundi, which differs from the task of anyone who belongs, through the sacrament, to the ministerial ranks. Thus, by avoiding every form of clericalism, lay Christians are encouraged to be more aware of their identity and to give their witness in the world and in the Church without considering the exercise of ministerial duties which they may perform from time to time as a form of advancement but only as one of substitution.

3. Expose the “functionalist” and “individualist” errors. The

Instruction also calls for critical discernment regarding certain modernistic trends that deeply affect people’s idea of the ministry.

The first, the “functionalist” approach, holds that human actions and things in general cannot refer to anything beyond themselves. In this mentality what really counts is to achieve the goal one has set for oneself. We can understand then how, even when moved by true pastoral generosity, some eventually think that whatever does not require the sacramental power of the Bishop, priest or deacon ad validitatem can be assumed ordinarily and permanently by the laity. But in doing so, the ordained ministry begins gradually to be eroded. This is illustrated by the complaint of our priest from Mindanao that some BECs are discouraging their people from attending Mass in the town proper, since anyway they have their own service─presided by a layman─in their barrio chapel.

The “individualist” approach, on the other hand, has become more and more widespread since the 16th century and leads to thinking in terms of “personal success”, “competitiveness” and “power”. There is no space to tackle this issue now; neither is it too relevant to the problem we have at hand.

4. Authentic promotion of the lay apostolate. The Instruction is not a limitation of the genuine promotion of lay participation in the evangelical and ecclesial apostolate. On the contrary,

this is encouraged in the right direction consistent with Catholic ecclesiology. However─as Card. Ratzinger emphasized then─”it intends to rebut and prevent the tendency towards a clericalization of the lay faithful, and the risk of creating, in reality, an ecclesial structure of parallel service to that founded on the sacrament of Orders.”1

The doctrinal principle at the root of these concerns is the twofold affirmation of the unity of the Church’s mission, in which all the baptized participate, and the essential difference of the ministry of pastors, rooted in the sacrament of Orders, with respect to the other ministries, offices and ecclesial functions that are rooted in the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.

5. Encourage terminological precision. In Article 1 of the practical provisions─-entitled “Need for an Appropriate Terminology”─the Instruction rightly insists on the need for a suitable terminology, clarifying the confused use of the word ministry, which describes both the officia and the munera exercised by Pastors in virtue of the sacrament of Orders, and those exercised by the non ordained faithful.

6. Eliminate abuses. As Card.

Ratzinger affirmed at the time: “The timeliness and urgent need of this Instruction is explained in the light of the situation occurring in specific and widespread ecclesial circles, which demands, special insistence on the faithful application of the principles and norms contained in the teachings of the Magisterium and the Church’s universal legislation in the concrete life of the particular Churches.”2

In view of the situation in certain ecclesial areas, specifically North Central Europe, North America and Australia, and noting the risk that abuses in the lay faithful’s participation in the sacred ministry of the ordained could spread to other ecclesiastical regions, Card. Ratzinger already affirmed then that “it seemed most timely and urgent to define clearly the various forms of assistance open to the lay faithful in the exercise of the priestly ministry.”3

An Important Observations: collaboration vs. participation

In the substantive level, the most important word─a veritable hermeneutic key─is a term that appears in the title itself of the document. In effect, the title speaks of the collaboration of the non-ordained faithful in the priestly ministry.

The term initially used in the preliminary discussions was participation. Thus, the title of the symposium in April 1994, which launched the serious preparation of this document, was “The Participation of the Lay Faithful in the Priestly Ministry”.

A Review of the Instruction Ecclesia de Mysterio

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to maternal mortality while never releasing any comprehensive data on abortion globally let alone data for maternal deaths that occur where abortion is “legally” permitted.

A pertinent and pregnant “life” phrase was uttered in a recent statement made at the UN by a visiting Head of State. On March 28, 2011, the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano,

By Vincenzina Santoro

THE right to life, abolition of the death penalty, children in armed conflict, elimination of all violence against women, the empowerment of women and women’s rights are all causes discussed, analyzed and embraced at the United Nations. Although they never are, all of these should apply to the earliest stages of life.

As life commences at conception, the “right to life”—as enshrined in Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights—must be nurtured until birth. The unborn are human beings in the early stages of formation, due to achieve fullness of viability upon birth. To voluntarily “interrupt a pregnancy” as some countries refer to abortion, is to deliberately deliver the “death penalty” to human life in its earliest stages. Is this not a form of “armed conflict” directed at a child in the making?

Abortifacient instruments are death dealing weapons employed against nascent life, against a being that is completely unarmed to resist the invader. What situation can be more belligerent, hostile and violent against both an unborn child and its mother than abortion?

A woman lies helpless, flat on her back, unconscious, in a death-dealing clinical environment, submitting to physical “violence” in the form of a bodily invasion to terminate the child-bearing mission that is entrusted only to a woman. As only women can bring life into the world, she witnesses

the horrific dismemberment and termination of life of a pre-infant child in development.

Can any woman truly consider this “choice” a “right” that makes her

“powerful?”Abortion statistics, when they

surface, can be disconcerting. In China more than 100 million baby girls are missing, as an Economist magazine

article revealed so vividly a year ago, either aborted outright or their existence terminated in unspeakable ways upon birth. In New York City, the latest abortion data revealed that

over 40 percent of pregnancies are voluntarily terminated. United Nations agencies such as the Population Fund (UNFPA), campaign ceaselessly for “safe abortion” as the primary solution

addressed the General Assembly. In his statement the President remarked: “Our opposition to the death penalty stems from our long established conviction in the right to life.” (The Italian Delegation was at the forefront in the adoption by the UN General Assembly of a 2007 resolution calling for a moratorium on executions in countries where the death penalty is permitted.)

The Italian President then went on to state: “In 1700, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria asked a simple question: ‘Did anyone ever give to others the right of taking away his life?’”

Can not the phrase be altered today to read: “Does a woman really have ‘a right to choose’ to authorize an abortion provider to take away the life of her unborn child?” Indeed, the Italian experience provides food for thought as Italy has become a “nation that has turned away from abortion.”

If we are a cohort of nations that endorse the right to life enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and if we abide by the rule of law, capital punishment should be banned fundamentally by application of the natural law—which is at the origin of all laws.

Has the time not come for aborting women’s empowerment through abortion?

(Vincenzina Santoro is an international economist. She represents the American Family Association of New York at the United Nations. This article is printed here under special republishing arrangements with MercatorNet.)

rate ever recorded for this age group, and 6% for women aged 25-29. Rates also declined for women in their 30s.

One notable feature of the in-formation was that fertility rates for Hispanic women fell more than for any other population group. While fertility dropped for all racial and ethnic groups, it fell by 9% for Hispanic women.

Another look at population figures came from data recently published by a private organi-zation in the United States, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB).

According to this the number of babies born in the United States fell by 2.3% in 2009, and the number is continuing to slide.

This meant that the aver-age number of lifetime births per woman, for 2009 was 2.01, the lowest level since 1998. With this drop in births the U.S. total fer-tility rate is now below the re-placement level of 2.1 births per woman.

Another fea-ture they re-marked on was that for the first

time in many years the rate of births to unmarried women declined. Nevertheless, births to married women declined even more, which meant that 41% of all births in the U.S. was to unmar-ried mothers, an all-time high.

The bureau speculated that the recent fall was due to the cur-rent economic downturn. This contrasted with the CDC report, which said that birth data alone is not enough to draw firm con-

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Why can’t the UN be consistent?

By Father John Flynn, LC

LOW fertility rates and an aging population will present Europe with a big economic challenge. This was one of the points made in a study published by the European Commission at the start of the month.

The “Third Demogra-phy Report” found that the number of children per woman has increased from 1.45 children, at the time of the last report in 2008, to 1.6. Nonetheless, this is still substantially below the level of 2.1 children that is required to maintain a stable population.

As well, life expectancy is increasing, which will push the trend to an aging population. Already in 4 countries—Bulgaria, Lithu-ania, Latvia and Romania—the population is decreasing due to a combination of more people dying than are born and emigration.

The report also found that the mean age of women at childbirth has been post-poned significantly over the course of the last three decades. The highest age at childbirth in 2009 was in Ire-land, at 31.2 years. Italy was close behind, 31.1, while the lowest was in Bulgaria, 26.6, and Romania, 26.9. In 13 of the 27 EU countries women tended to have their children when they were aged 30 or over.

According to the report fertility might continue to increase marginally, perhaps to just over 1.7 children per woman. At this rate a large inflow of immigrants would still be required to prevent the size of the population from shrinking in the long run, it noted.

It is unlikely that fertility

will rise sufficiently to reach the 2.1 replacement level, or that the aging of Europe’s popula-tion will be reversed, the report concluded.

About 5 million children are born each year in the 27 states that comprise the European Union and over 2 million people im-migrate from outside countries. Births outnumber deaths by only several hundred thousand persons each year. With net migration at well over a million annually this accounts for the largest proportion of the EU’s population growth.

The EU na-tions are now the home of some 20 mil-l ion people who do not have local citi-zenship. There is also inter-nal migration, with another 10 million EU na-tionals living in another mem-ber state. In ad-dition around 5 million non-nationals have acquired EU c i t i z e n s h i p since 2001.

OldestBeneath the

o v e r a l l E U p o p u l a t i o n figures there are significant differences be-tween the member states. For example, populations that are currently the oldest, such as Germany’s and Italy’s, will age rapidly for the next twenty years, then stabilize.

Others, with populations that are younger, mainly in the East of the EU, will undergo aging at increasing speed and by 2060 will have the oldest populations in the EU.

The report observed that by

2014 the working age popula-tion, in the age range of 20-64, will start to shrink rapidly, as the baby-boomers from the post World War II period retire.

In fact, already the number of people aged 60 and above in the EU is rising by more than two million every year, which is roughly twice the rate observed until about three years ago.

Currently half the EU-27 popu-lation is aged 40.9 years or over. This median age ranges from 34.3 years in Ireland to 44.2 years in Germany. The median age is projected to rise to 47.9 years

by 2060.The share of the population

aged 65 and over is projected to increase from 17.4% in 2010 to 30.0 % in 2060

The result of this will be an increased burden on those of working age to provide for social spending expenditure needed for an aging population.

This is even more obvious when looking at the projections regarding the number of people

Fertility decline continuesof working age, between 19 and 65, compared to those who are dependent, due to their youth or having retired.

At the moment the EU has about three people of working age for every two dependent people. By the year 2060 it is forecast that will be almost one person of working age for every dependent person aged under 19 or over 65 years in the EU-27.

United StatesEurope is hardly alone in ex-

periencing low fertility. In the United States the birth rate has

dropped in the period 2007-09, according to statistics published in the March data brief by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

From 2007 through 2009, births fell 4% percent to 4,131,019; and the provisional count of births through June 2010 indicated continued declines, the report added.

Birth rates fell 9% for women aged 20-24, to reach the lowest

clusions about the reasons a decline in the fertility rate.

But, the PRB observed, both the Great Depression of the 1930s and the hard economic times of the 1970s following the “oil shock,” were also periods of record low fertility in the United States.

The question is, the PRB remarked, is whether fertility will bounce back when the economy improves or will the lower rates become the new norm, as is the case in Europe and Canada.

CostlyIn Canada low fertility has

been the norm for some time and, as an article in the April 2 edition of the National Post newspaper pointed out, this is costly for the government. The latest budget figures calculate that in the period 2010-11 to 2015-12 spending on benefits for the elderly will surge by 30%.

This annual increases forecast will be well above projected rates of Canadian economic growth, the article noted. In fact, the article cited data according to which economic growth might fall to half the level seen in past decades, due to the impact of an aging population.

In spite of the serious prob-lems caused by low fertility and aging the United Nations is remaining still set on its objective of reducing fertility at all costs. The 44th session of the Commission on Popula-tion and Development will convene from April 11-15 in New York.

The press release announc-ing this stressed the need to extend family planning and to rapidly reduce fertility in Africa and Asia. Instead, maybe they would be better off looking at the serious economic problems that such a decrease is causing in many countries already. (Zenit)

If the world is moving towards abolition of the death penalty, why not abolition of abortion?

Economic Consequences of an Aging Population

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However, Pope John Paul II himself, in his address to that symposium, never used the term participation in this context. In fact, he belabored the distinction between participation in Christ’s priesthood by virtue of baptism and confirmation, and the eventual exercise of some tasks entrusted to them by the priests:

“The laity’s every ecclesial action or function─including those for which the Pastors ask them to stand in, where possible─is rooted ontologically in their common participation in Christ’s priesthood and not in an ontological participation (either temporary or

partial) in the ordained ministry proper to Pastors. Therefore, it is clear that if the Pastors entrust them, in an extraordinary way, with some tasks ordinarily and properly connected with the pastoral ministry but not requiring the proper character of Orders, lay people should know that these tasks are existentially rooted in their baptismal ministry and nowhere else! It must always be remembered that the exercise of such tasks does not make pastors of the lay faithful: in fact, a person is not a minister simply by performing a task, but through sacramental ordination.”4

The terminological shift is important. In effect, participation (“to take part in”) in the ministerial tasks could not strictly speaking take place without the subject ontologically taking part─for that matter─in the ministerial priesthood itself. This could only happen with priestly ordination. From this we see the aptness of the term collaboration (“to work with”) when applied to the non-ordained faithful’s cooperation with the ministerial work of priests.

Preliminary ConclusionsWith the aforementioned discussion,

we can point out the following doctrinal conclusions:

1. Lay collaboration in priestly ministry is not a right. The document contains several assertions that call for hermeneutic clarification. Thus, the part concerned with Theological Principles (n.4) says with respect to the tasks and functions which “are considered along the lines of collaboration with the sacred ministry” that “the non ordained faithful do not enjoy a right to such tasks and functions”. Obviously, there is no wish here to deny that these faithful can legitimately exercise the tasks and

functions mentioned. The document wants to state, however, that the non ordained faithful do not have the right to demand that they be assigned to the above mentioned tasks or functions.

Elsewhere the Instruction says: “the officia temporarily entrusted to them ... are exclusively the result of a deputation by the Church” (Art.1, §2). “Deputation by the Church” is a shorthand expression for “deputation by the Church’s lawful Pastors”. This complete formulation, used in other passages of the Instruction, avoids an identification of the Pastors

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to God. In tender words Jesus answered her: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… the hour will come—in fact it is here already—when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:21, 23-24).

Prayer confronts us to the truth about ourselves. It brings us to the hard realization that life which runs independently from the plans of God because it leans more to the promises of this world is always an empty one, a life devoid of meaning, wrought with so much lies, disappointments and frustrations. As Jesus once declared: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but losses his own soul?” This realization is critical to prayer. For it is only in this knowledge of our emptiness and inanity of life that we are led to search for another reality, the reality of God’s love who

is ever willing to embrace us with his mercy.

Psalms 69 gives these hopeful words to the despairing sinner who deep inside him realized that God is a Savior: “In your loving k indness , answer me, Yahweh, in your great tenderness turn to me, do not hide your face from your servant, quick, I am in trouble, answer me. Come to my side, redeem me, from so many enemies ransom me” (16-18). For me, the sharp description of a man in prayer is the blind man of Jericho found in the Gospel of Mark, who, having heard of Jesus passing by, unmindful of the scorn and insults of the people around him, threw aside his cloak, ran towards Him, unashamedly prostrated before Him, and begged: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner” (cf. 10: 46-52).

Prayer therefore is a discipline. It is a rigorous study of our life and serious acceptance of the demons that drive our day-to-day activities and behavior. As a discipline, prayer first of all

Features

By Most Rev. Leonardo Y. Medroso

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

Deep prayer is based on reality. It is not an imagined relationship with God, neither is it a mere conversation with the Father in Heaven clothed in pietistic burst of emotions and interesting words. Genuine prayer is reality. It aims to bring us down deep into the realization of the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel who, having been unmasked of her immoral love life and accepted it as a matter of fact, immediately asked Jesus about the nature of a true worship that is acceptable

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Archbishop Palma and Bishop Cantillas queueing up for the procession on the steps of the Shrine of the First Holy Mass in Limasawa.

Boatloads of people flocked to Limasawa from the mainland for the 490th anniversary Eucharistic celebration of the First Mass.

CBCP Commission holds symposium on catholic care for elderlyBy Vanessa Puno

THE Episcopal Commission on Health Care conducted a symposium on Catholic Care for the aged on March 19 at the Paco Catholic School in Manila, in an effort to provide quality care for the elderly, understand their needs and make them feel they are part of society.

Speakers focused on the ways on how to concretely provide the best care for the aged as well as to make the remaining days of their life more meaningful.

Fr. Marcelo Pamintuan, the new executive secretary of the CBCP Health Care Commission, zeroed in on the spiritual dimensions of caring for the aged.

He also shared that he valued the wisdom of the old and explained how people can treasure their golden days with us.

Dr. Jose Leo V. Jiloca spoke about the growing number of old people and discussed the health care issues involving them, such as lack of trained health workers at various levels, and legislation that improves the protection of the elderly from abuse within the family or by the society.

He also gave participants an update about multi-sectoral meetings to plan for the elderly care.

Ricardo Pening talked about the Golden Acres as a “Haven for the Elderly.” He introduced their new home for the aged in Tanay, Rizal and the programs and services they offer to the elderly.

Since the aged are at great risk for falls, Mr. Edward James R. Gorgon, PTRP talked about “Fall Prevention” among old people and also demonstrated some exercises. Moreover, he discussed the possible ways for the elderly to avoid places that pose fall risk to them.

One hundred forty-two elderly people, caregivers, children and members of different organizations who work for the elderly attended the symposium.

Participants were later divided into groups to discuss the input of the speakers as well as their own experiences, to put together ideas for action.

Aside from free admission to the seminar, the commission also provided free snacks, lunch and free babysitting to attendees.

Diocese of Maasin marks 490th anniversary of First Mass; proclaims Decade of Renewed Evangelization

By Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS

THE Diocese of Maasin last March 31 marked the 490th anniversary of the First Mass in the Philippines with a Eucharistic celebration that launched

the Diocese’s Decade of Renewed Evangelization Program. Presiding at the Eucharistic celebration held in an open field overlooking the Shrine of the First Holy Mass was Most. Rev. Jose Palma, DD, Archbishop of Cebu. Concelebrating were diocesan priests

led by Maasin Bishop Precioso Cantillas, SDB, DD.

Referred to as the diocese’s “decade preparation” for the forthcoming 500th anniversary of the First Mass in 2021, the ten-year countdown has for its theme “Renewed Evangelization”, concurring

with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) proclamation of the current decade as the Decade of Renewed Evangelization.

“We intend to spend the coming ten years with more dedication to the mission of evangelization and to a

more intense life of Communion in faith, hope and love for God and one another,” Bishop Cantillas said of the diocese’s program, adding that during his audience with the Pope at the ad limina visit last Feb. 14, the Holy

Prayer and the Season of Lent

Rich and poor study the Bible

togetherLuzviminda Lood of Barangay Turno, Dipolog City is a

Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) leader at Our Lady of Fatima Parish who has 17 households under her

care. Though her BEC members went through a regular study of the Word, however, they did not have copies of the complete Bible – only that of the New Testament. When the May They Be One (MTBO) Bible distribution was conducted in Dipolog in October 2009, more than 4,000 copies were distributed. Among the recipients were four members of Mrs. Lood’s BEC. The four members were only too happy to share their new blessing with their fellow BEC members, such that now during discussions, Mrs. Lood’s BEC has access to four complete Bibles.

As the BEC studied the MTBO Bible every week, Mrs. Lood observed that the members, comprising the very rich and the very poor were drawing closer to one another. The rich members began to have more concern for the needy while the poor became more at ease with mingling with the rich. In contrast to what used to be an air of indifference, one can now sense cooperation and kindness among the BEC members. This is particularly apparent when they work together on church projects. With respect to their spiritual journey, the members developed the habit of reading the Bible not only on Sundays but every day of the week. Mrs. Lood said that for her and her BEC members, a day is not complete unless it is accompanied with reading the Bible.

No. of Dioceses participating in the Bible Campaign – 80 out of 86 DiocesesBibles Distributed (Jan 1, 2011 – Apr 4, 2011): 56,910 cpsBibles Distributed by Languages - Tagalog (21,089 cps.), Cebuano (13,100 cps.), English (8,610 cps.), Ilocano (4,302cps.), Hiligaynon (5,131 cps.), Bicol (2,195 cps.), Pangasinan (33 cps.), Pampango (937cps.), Samarenyo (1,513 cps.)Parishes/Communities served: 72Total Bible Distribution: (Jan 2009- Apr 4, 2011): 346,045 cpsTarget No. of Bibles for Distribution for 2011: 400,000 cps.Total Funds Needed for Printing and Transport of Bibles in 2011: P60M

BEC leader Luzviminda Lood reads the Cebuano version of the MTBO Bible.

Praise God that both the rich and the poor have access to Bibles for Bible study through the MTBO Bible campaign.

Pray that more churches will have a “Bible Fund” to provide Bibles for their members who cannot afford to buy their own Bibles.

Members of the MTBO Advisory Committee: Bishop Brod-erick S. Pabillo, DD, Ambassador Henrietta T. de Villa, Mr. Rod G. Cornejo, Mr. Rene E. Cristobal Sr., Dr. Philip C. Flores, Mr. Dante M. Lanorio, Fr. Oscar A. Alunday, Fr. Antonio B. Navarrete, Fr. Art B. Orense and Mr. Albert S. Tanlimco.

May They Be One

Bible Campaign Help Put a Bible in Every Filipino Home

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B5Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor Statements

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DEAR Brothers and Sisters!The 48th World Day of Prayer for

Vocations, to be celebrated on 15 May 2011, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, invites us to reflect on the theme: “Proposing Vocations in the Local Church”. Seventy years ago, Venerable Pius XII established the Pontifical Work of Priestly Vocations. Similar bodies, led by priests and members of the lay faithful, were subsequently established by Bishops in many dioceses as a response to the call of the Good Shepherd who, “when he saw the crowds, had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”, and went on to say: “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest!” (Mt 9:36-38).

The work of carefully encouraging and supporting vocations finds a radiant source of inspiration in those places in the Gospel where Jesus calls his disciples to follow him and trains them with love and care. We should pay close attention to the way that Jesus called his closest associates to proclaim the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk 10:9). In the first place, it is clear that the first thing he did was to pray for them: before calling them, Jesus spent the night alone in prayer, listening to the will of the Father (cf. Lk 6:12) in a spirit of interior detachment from mundane concerns. It is Jesus’ intimate conversation with the Father which results in the calling of his disciples. Vocations to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life are first and foremost the fruit of constant contact with the living God and insistent prayer lifted up to the “Lord of the harvest”, whether in parish communities, in Christian families or in groups specifically devoted to prayer for vocations.

At the beginning of his public life, the Lord called some fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19). He revealed his messianic mission to them by the many “signs” which showed his love for humanity and the gift of the Father’s mercy. Through his words and his way of life he prepared them to carry on his saving work. Finally, knowing “that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father” (Jn 13:1), he entrusted to them the memorial of his death and resurrection, and before ascending into heaven he sent them out to the whole world with the command: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).

It is a challenging and uplifting invitation that Jesus addresses to those to whom he says: “Follow me!”. He invites them to become his friends, to listen attentively to his word and to live with him. He teaches them complete commitment to God and to the extension of his kingdom in accordance with the law of the Gospel: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). He invites them to leave behind their own narrow agenda and their notions of self-fulfillment in order to immerse themselves in another will, the will of God, and to be guided by it. He gives them an experience of fraternity, one born of that total openness to God (cf. Mt 12:49-50) which becomes the hallmark of the community of Jesus: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you

have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).It is no less challenging to follow Christ

today. It means learning to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus, growing close to him, listening to his word and encountering him in the sacraments; it means learning to conform our will to his. This requires a genuine school of formation for all those who would prepare themselves for the ministerial priesthood or the consecrated life under the guidance of the competent ecclesial authorities. The Lord does not fail to call people at every stage of life to share in his mission and to serve the Church in the ordained ministry and in the consecrated life. The Church is “called to safeguard this gift, to esteem it and love it. She is responsible for the birth and development of priestly vocations” (John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, 41). Particularly in these times, when the voice of the Lord seems to be drowned out by “other voices” and his invitation to follow him by the gift of one’s own life may seem too difficult, every Christian community, every member of the Church, needs consciously to feel responsibility for promoting vocations. It is important to encourage and support those who show clear signs of a call to priestly life and religious consecration, and to enable them to feel the warmth of the whole community as they respond “yes” to God and the Church. I encourage them, in the same words which I addressed to those who have already chosen to enter the seminary: “You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity” (Letter to Seminarians, 18 October 2010).

It is essential that every local Church become more sensitive and attentive to the pastoral care of vocations, helping children and young people in particular at every level of family, parish and associations – as Jesus did with his disciples – to grow into a genuine and affectionate friendship with the Lord, cultivated through personal and liturgical prayer; to grow in familiarity with the sacred Scriptures and thus to listen attentively and fruitfully to the word of God; to understand that entering into God’s will does not crush or destroy a person, but instead leads to the discovery of the deepest truth about ourselves; and finally to be generous and fraternal in relationships with others, since it is only in being open to the love of God that we discover true joy and the fulfillment of our aspirations. “Proposing Vocations in the Local Church” means having the courage, through an attentive and suitable concern for vocations, to point out this challenging way of following Christ which, because it is so rich in meaning, is capable of engaging the whole of one’s life.

I address a particular word to you, my dear brother Bishops. To ensure the continuity and growth of your saving

mission in Christ, you should “foster priestly and religious vocations as much as possible, and should take a special interest in missionary vocations” (Christus Dominus, 15). The Lord needs you to cooperate with him in ensuring that his call reaches the hearts of those whom he has chosen. Choose carefully those who work in the Diocesan Vocations Office, that valuable means for the promotion and organization of the pastoral care of vocations and the prayer which sustains it and guarantees its effectiveness. I would also remind you, dear brother Bishops, of the concern of the universal Church for an equitable distribution of priests in the world. Your openness to the needs of dioceses experiencing a dearth of vocations will become a blessing from God for your communities and a sign to the faithful of a priestly service that generously considers the needs of the entire Church.

The Second Vatican Council explicitly reminded us that “the duty of fostering vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it above all by a fully Christian life” (Optatam Totius, 2). I wish, then, to say a special word of acknowledgment and encouragement to those who work closely in various ways with the priests in their parishes. In particular, I turn to those who can offer a specific contribution to the pastoral care of vocations: to priests, families, catechists and leaders of parish groups. I ask priests to testify to their communion with their bishop and their fellow priests, and thus to provide a rich soil for the seeds of a priestly vocation. May families be “animated by the spirit of faith and love and by the sense of duty” (Optatam Totius, 2) which is capable of helping children to welcome generously the call to priesthood and to religious life. May catechists and leaders of Catholic groups and ecclesial movements, convinced of their educational mission, seek to “guide the young people entrusted to them so that these will recognize and freely accept a divine vocation” (ibid.).

Dear brothers and sisters , your commitment to the promotion and care of vocations becomes most significant and pastorally effective when carried out in the unity of the Church and in the service of communion. For this reason, every moment in the life of the Church community—catechesis, formation meetings, liturgical prayer, pilgrimages—can be a precious opportunity for awakening in the People of God, and in particular in children and young people, a sense of belonging to the Church and of responsibility for answering the call to priesthood and to religious life by a free and informed decision.

The ability to foster vocations is a hallmark of the vitality of a local Church. With trust and perseverance let us invoke the aid of the Virgin Mary, that by the example of her own acceptance of God’s saving plan and her powerful intercession, every community will be more and more open to saying “yes” to the Lord who is constantly calling new laborers to his harvest. With this hope, I cordially impart to all my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 15 November 2010

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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Alternative Holy Week

THE season of lent stands on three co-equal legs—prayers, penance and love. The prevailing atmosphere of this season is truly penance and mortification. More prayers are also offered to God on these penitential days. Sadly, the almsgiving and charity component of the Lenten season is not given the consideration it rightfully deserves. It is good to be reminded that what make the Holy Week holy are not the prayers we offer and penances we do. Prayers without love are empty. Penance without almsgiving could be just an ego trip on strengthening will power. Love makes this season holy. Prayers can be inspiring and penances can be admirable but only love can redeem. Only love saves. Love alone sanctifies us.

As we move closer to Holy Week, the Archdiocese of Lingayen Dagupan will carry a pilgrimage of charity in the poor sections of Central Pangasinan by conducting charity medical, dental and surgical missions. The sick and the poor in our marginalized areas will receive charity medical assistance from their healthier brothers and sisters.

The pilgrimage of charity will start on April 4 at the Parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Canan, Malasiqui. Here are the succeeding areas of pilgrimage—April 7 at Saint Catherine of Siena Parish, Villanueva, Bautista; April 9 at Cristo Divino Tesoro in Buenlag, Calasiao; April 11 at Holy Family Parish, Tandoc, San Carlos City; April 16 at the Lay Formation Center, Bonuan Gueset, Dagupan City; and May 2 at the San Lorenzo Ruiz Parish, Wawa, Bayambang.

Our friends from Pangasinan, Edsa Shrine, Order of Malta, Makati Medical Center and the Saint Paul de Chartres Sisters will extend their help for the project.

Let us explore an alternative way of celebrating Holy Week. As we keep our pious practices like the stations of the cross, confessions, visita iglesia and penitensiya, let us also consider making acts of charity to the poor as the way to share in the spirit of the Lenten season.

Our Catholic faithful can consider visiting fourteen patients in our government hospitals and meditate, as you visit them, on the sufferings of Christ. As we console them or bring them some food or drink, we can see how the sufferings of Christ continue in the midst of us.

In honor of the passion of the Lord who was treated as a criminal although he was sinless, we can visit the jails in our towns and cities and share the mercy of God to those behind bars. We can bring them our prayers and greetings and volunteer to be couriers of their letters that they want to send to their loved ones who are unable to visit them.

We can bring food to the children in the Mother Teresa Home of Charity in Dagupan City or clear our clothes cabinets and send our used clothes and footwear to the poor in honor of the stripping of the Lord and his humiliation at Calvary.

In 1981, when Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines for the first time, he expressed his wish to visit the lepers in Tala leprosarium in Novaliches. Because of the restrictions of security, he was unable to visit but the lepers were brought to Radio Veritas in Fairview so the Pope could at least bless them. As soon as the Pope saw the lepers lined up behind stage in the auditorium, even before the lepers could kneel to kiss the hands of the Pope, Pope John Paul II knelt down in front of the leper, kissed his leprous hands and exclaimed before the leper “My Lord!”

Give love this Lenten season. Pour love into your prayers. Let your penance overflow into charity.

From the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Dagupan City, April 1, 2011

+SOCRATES B. VILLEGASArchbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan

‘Proposing Vocations in the Local Church’Message of the Holy Father for the 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 15 May

2011, Fourth Sunday of Easter

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B6 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP MonitorRef lections

Fugitive / B7

I DON’T recall where I once heard it said or asked: “Is this all there is in our faith: to avoid falling into sin?” The answer is: NO! Surely God did not create us for some sort of personal amusement on His part when He’s bored like us. Of course God is never bored. In fact, He’s very much dynamically in love because He is Love Himself. Mysteriously, He wants us to participate –yes, despite our frail human condition– in His love.

It is not therefore surprising to read one of the most quoted questions in the Catholic Catechism: “Why did God create us?” The answer definitely isn’t: “So that we wouldn’t sin.” The real and beautiful reply is: “…so that man may know, love and serve God.” I don’t read the word ‘sin’ here anywhere, do you?

I have repeated this idea to help both the young and not-so-young to have a positive outlook in their struggle. It also invites them to raise the standard and broaden the horizons of their spiritual life. It is, in other words, helping them to go beyond the fall.

Going beyond the fall is my way of expressing that one cannot be satisfied with simply not sinning. Otherwise one could easily take a mediocre stance in the struggle and naively think that as long as he doesn’t sin, then he’s good or okay.

Beginners are unaware that such a half-baked approach in their struggle is a chink in their spiritual armor. It is there that the devil will always stealthily aim his deathblow. It is this lukewarm status, the lack of vigilance or a comfortable state of affairs that will eventually

Fr. Francis Ongkingco

Going beyond the fallbring about the ruin of one’s spiritual edifice.

Here are a few ideas that I believe has helped more than a few to acquire a richer and more fruitful tactic in the spiritual combat:

a) Don’t wait for a fall to happen. It is a poor and losing tactic to simply wait for something bad to happen, or worse when we wade into not-so-serious occasions of sin because we believe we could easily pull back. No plan means ‘bad plan’! Anyone who wants to win must have a concrete strategy. The spiritual battle is no exception. A battle without a plan is already a battle lost. Plan your day ahead, concretize your goal or goals and always remember to do them out of love for God and others.

b) Don’t take your fall or falls sitting down. But falls do happen. Here applies what the Japanese, I think it was, have a proverb that says: ‘Fall six times, stand up seven.’ To simply stare at one’s sins or vices without any desire to address them is a battle already lost. Let us not only be humble enough to admit our faults, let us also courageously put the means to avoid them, to lessen them, to do penance for them, to go to confession, etc. To linger in our sinful state will only develop greater proclivity or attraction to sin.

c) Don’t just feel bad, act on your feelings. Say you broke the living room’s large window pane because you wanted to try your hand at golf. Are you going to wait for the helper to clear the broken glass? Are you going to wait for mom or dad to come home to tell you what you must do? Or will you get the broom and dustpan to clean

the mess (not to hide the evidence, I hope) but to avoid further accidents? Are you going to tell your parents that they could take it from your allowance to have the glass repaired? Likewise, when we fall, let us already be determined to act, by making amends for our sins (i.e. pray, offer a specific sacrifice, additional chores or hours of study, etc.)

d) There are more good things to do in a day than bad ones. In any given day one could actually count more good things to do over the bad ones. It’s good to always start the day asking ourselves what good we could offer to God and others. A struggle that starts off thinking where we might fall or make a mistake is already a sign of defeat.

e) Ask for help to go beyond our falls. To ask for help and guidance is not only a sign of humility and sincerity to begin anew. It is also prudence to seek advice so that the experience, prayers and encouragement of another will effectively and swiftly put us back on the right track. In fact, constantly seeking advice from a knowledgeable director will help one’s struggle to be not only ‘avoiding one’s falls’, but is broadened to engage the higher and richer invitation of God to love and personal apostolate.

These points summed up tell us to show our love for God –our desire for conversion– through deeds. It isn’t enough to desire or long to be good. We must be ready to express in clear acts, virtues, and convictions our commitment to what is true, good and beautiful within our soul: the ever-growing presence of God.

Bishop Pat Alo

The Fugitive—abandoned by men and God

Justified by God before men, Jesus sends the Church

in missionTHE Bible tells us that there is an ongoing battle between Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, Mary and her Son and those who follow them, versus followers of Satan, Truth and Error, Light and Darkness, a culture of life vs. a culture of death, (remember the lessons of Sodom and Gomorrah, after considering the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah because of violating God’s design in legitimate and normal sexual relationships or concerning the legitimate and normal use of sex), conflicts between good and evil, love and hate, greed and generosity. In the first book of the Bible is written: “I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heal” (Gen. 3:15). Naturally since ideas enter into minds and hearts, this battle implies also the response in the very heart of creatures. When the followers of Jesus asked him regarding foods

By Msgr. Lope C. Robre-dillo, SThD

IT is worth recalling that during the presidency of Arroyo, “May Gloria ang bukas mo,” a one-and-a-half hour-long program of the former President, and a brainchild of her publicist, Dante Ang, aired on radio and television, was sacked on March 2, 2002 on its 19th episode, obviously because there was no ground for its continued airing. It did not rate well. As the President herself admitted, it lost even to children’s shows like Batibot. On the other hand, almost at the same time, former President Bush’s war against the Taliban and the al-Queda network continued because even Muslim countries felt that it was justified. Without the support of other countries, it would not have gone on. Understandably enough, Bush refurbished the US image. For example, in the face of the rising tide of anti-Americanism, he put up a new office to ensure that foreign correspondents in Washington as well as foreign leaders and opinion-makers overseas understand his ideas and policies. America cannot f ight terrorism unilaterally. Which is why, when Bush declared that he was expanding antiterrorist campaign to include the axis of evil—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the European nations warned the United States that it would be making a mistake to go it alone in its antiterrorism campaign. A project, in other words, cannot go on unless it is confirmed, accepted, and justified.

Must the cause of Jesus go on? Last Sunday, we noted that the cause of Jesus was the Kingdom of God. If there was anything that unified and gave meaning to all that he said and did, it was the Kingdom. Because it was the center of his teachings and activities, everything radiated from it. Take it away, and nothing about them will ever be really understood. If Jesus was born to a poor family, if he taught love of enemies, if

By Msgr. Lope C. Robredillo, SThD

PROBABLY few people are as fortunate as former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada. It may be recalled that during his Impeachment Trial, it was denied by the defense that he signed a PCI Bank document as Jose Velarde; but Clarissa Ocampo, former Equitable PCI Bank vice-president, testified in court that she was one foot away when Estrada did so in Malacañang on 4 February 2000. According to Prosecutors, an account of his with the Equitable PCI bank at one point contained P3.2 billion, when his declared net worth was only P35 million. But on 25 February 2002, he admitted on television that he had signed bank documents as Jose Velarde, bolstering credibility of the star witness Ocampo. Of course, by the looks of it, Estrada’s confession during an interview aired by ANC News Channel strengthened the plunder case, and that blunder in an ordinary mortal would have sent supporters away from him. But not so with Estrada. In fact, later, Jesus Remulla, spokesman of Partido ng Masang Filipino claimed, for example, that it was Ocampo who made Estrada sign documents using a false name. The Union of Masses for Democracy and Justice (UMDJ)

he dined with tax collectors and sinners to the scandal of the civil society of his time, it was because these well sprang from the demands of his proclamation of the Kingdom. His cause was so human, and it answered the longings of the poor, whose welfare the social institutions like the government and the state religion must look after. Ironically, however, the holders of the same social institutions rejected his cause. They judged him to be a rebel and a blasphemer. And so, to ensure the discontinuance of his cause, they tried him and found him guilty. They thought that by eliminating him, they could put an end to his cause. They would be able to stop the spread of what they thought was a brazen lie, a deception of the people, and the cause of the downfall of the nation. Thus, instead of confirming him, accepting him and justifying him, they rejected him. In the judgment seat of men, Jesus was clearly in the wrong.

But was he? Today, we commemorate

the resurrection of the Lord, which is the greatest feast in the Christian liturgy. But that Jesus came to life again—what does that mean? It is interesting to note that in the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus admits of various meanings. In fact, each New Testament writer has his own distinctive way of interpreting the event. In John, for example, if Jesus’ death was his glorification (john 13:31-32), his resurrection was his exaltation (John 12:32). In Hebrew’s, it is Jesus’ installation to the function of a heavenly high priest (cf Ps 110:4), in Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians, it signals the imminent arrival of the parousia (1 Thess 1:10). Mathew, however, gives various meanings to it, which are far different from what we have just said. And one meaning that he stresses in the early tradition is this—Jesus may have suffered a lot in the hands of men, but that does not mean that he was in the wrong. Rather, he was in

spoke against the Impeachment Trial, calling it the “kangaroo trial of the century.” When finally, he ran again for President, a good number, even millions, of Filipinos supported his candidacy, and the election results placed him not far removed from President Aquino.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is clearly not as fortunate as Estrada, even though, unlike him, he did not commit any blunder. Like other synoptic writers, Matthew portrays Jesus as the bringer of the Kingdom of God. By Kingdom of God he does not mean a religio-political theocracy in which God is represented by the high priest, or a community in which only the good and perfect people form part. By Kingdom he means God’s rule in a community in which the poor are not discriminated against, sinners are accepted, and the humble, the suffering and the oppressed come into their own. It is a community in which people experience acceptance, forgiveness, reconciliation, unity and love. In other words, it is the fulfillment of God’s promise to the prophets that he will live among his people. As a bringer of the Kingdom, he actualized it in his dealings with the people, especially the poor and the disadvantaged. In particular, his parables and miracles were meant to indicate God’s forgiving and healing word and action are

Life’s constant battle

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year A (Matt 26:14-27:66) April 17, 2011

Easter Sunday, Year A (Matthew 28:1-10) April 24, 2011

now touching the very lives of his people. His fellowship with sinners was a living parable of

salvation and forgiveness. In Jesus God was sharing his very life with Israel.

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Justified / B7

This was not the way Jesus’ contemporaries saw him, however. The Jewish leaders

refused to see him as God’s eschatological messenger. Judging him on the basis of

their understanding of the Law, the Jewish leaders, according to the Gospels, regarded him as one who claimed authority that was more than human. For example, he set his interpretation of the Law against the prevailing one in the community; he is portrayed as violating the Sabbath, and he even challenged the tradition of the Jewish Elders.

In the Jewish perspective of the Law, Jesus was seen as a false prophet, and in cahoots with the prince of demons. And when he said something about the Temple that was unacceptable to the leaders of the nation, they viewed his action not as something linked with the Kingdom of God, which it was, but as an assault on their authority. But those who were against him were not only the Jewish leaders and their cronies. The leaders themselves found allies among the political leaders. In particular, they had the Governor on their side, and considering that they themselves had no power to put someone to death, they found in Pilate a perfect partner.

Since the Jewish leaders could not accuse Jesus of being a false prophet before Pilate, since this would not make sense to him, they denounced him as a pretender to the throne. Which explains the charge that was written on the cross and the capital punishment. The charge, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the

Jews,” was something a Roman governor could understand, and the fact that Jesus was crucified clearly indicates that Pilate considered him a rebel, crucifixion being a Roman punishment for insurgents. One can see, therefore, that the religious and the political leaders saw him as dangerous, and therefore had to be eliminated. It is not surprising that in some gospel passages, it can be noticed that Jesus recognized how precarious his life was.

Clearly, he had no one powerful enough either in the government or in the state religion to support him. He could not even walk openly. And one could just imagine the psychological effect these had on Jesus. To bring home the point, one may just make a mental picture of himself being hunted down not only by the executive department with the military, but also by the judiciary and the institutional religion—where could one go to? He could only live the life of a fugitive, and that is not easy. Of course, a fugitive from the law can still hide, if he has supporters to shelter him. But even this was denied him. On the contrary, one from his own group betrayed him. And even those who promised to die for him eventually ran when the authorities caught up with him. Jesus, in other words, was

that can make a man unclean, He answered thus: “Do even you not understand? Can you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged into the sewer? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is these that make a man unclean. For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander. These are the things that make a man unclean. But to eat with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean” (Mt. 15:16-20).

Jesus talks often about the enemy within as pride, for example, “anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt. 23:12). That’s a constant tone in the Bible. “A man’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Mt. 10:36). A Spanish saying is quite descriptive when it intones: “Tu enemigo peor eres tu” (You are your own worst enemy).

Biblical lore keeps warning: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). Precisely the seven capital sins destroy man from within, namely, pride covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. (see St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:16-26). Better check and think it over. We always tend to blame others. But the enemy is within. So God’s word ever warns us: “Judge not and you shall not be judged. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? ...Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye” (Mt. 7:2-5).

There are temptations from the Devil and evil men, but man is free in his consent to this or that. We need to pray because we need God’s grace in this fight versus evil. Hence it is rightly said: “Prayer will make us leave off sinning or sinning will make

us leave off prayer.” It’s always either one or the other to rule our lives.

In the last book of the Bible is described the Devil’s anger: “Then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, that is, all who obey God’s commandments and bear witness for Jesus” (Rev. 12:17). “War broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven” (Rev. 12:7). In the first book of the Bible the Devil tempted our first parents Adam and Eve to violate God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, a word in the Bible which means that God is the supreme arbiter of what is good and what is evil, and finite and created man is not to usurp such a divine privilege. (see Gen. 3, or the Fall of man.)

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B7Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

its values. This is why the birth of the Church is often associated with the resurrection of Jesus, for it is the Church, as a community, that lives the Kingdom. Jesus did not say that it lives anywhere else. This means that the resurrection implies a giving of the mission to the Church. Its mission is to embody the Kingdom in her community life. Now we understand the mission given by Jesus to his disciples at the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light for the whole world… Your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:14a.16). The Church evangelizes not only by preaching the Kingdom to those who have not heard about it, but also—and this is important—by simply living its values in her very life.

That is why the Church must fulfill its mission, even if the world does not accept it. She cannot sack it. The Kingdom of God must be preached and lived even in situations that reject her mission. That it is not accepted does not prove that it is wrong. The Church has God’s assurance that her mission is not a lie, for he resurrected Jesus from the dead. On the contrary, she has to preach even if people do not listen to her. She may even have to undergo various forms of dying and martyrdom. This meaning of the resurrection is well captured by a disciple of Paul: “I solemnly urge you to preach the message, to insist upon proclaiming it (whether the time is right or not), to convince, reproach and encourage, as you teach with all patience. The time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but will follow their own desires and will collect for themselves more and more teachers who will teach them what they are itching to hear. They will turn away from listening to the truth and gave their attention to legends. But you must keep control of yourself in all circumstances, endure suffering, do the work of a preacher of the Good News, and perform your whole duty as a servant of God” (2 Tim 4:3-5).

the right all along, even though he was like other righteous men who were persecuted and killed by wicked people. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone the messengers God has sent to you” (Matt 23:34). (It may be noted that Luke even places Jesus in the line of Abel and the prophets who were persecuted: “The people of this time will be punished for the murder of all the prophets killed since the creation of the world, from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the holy place [Luke 11:50-51].) To show, therefore, that the prophet was not in the wrong, the Father resurrected him.

For Matthew, in other words, the resurrection was a vindication of the messenger of the Kingdom. Though people perceived him to be a liar, God had a different way of looking at him—he was obviously in the right. Which is why, in Matthew, Jesus was not only exalted by God; on the contrary, he was even given a commissioning role that is usually ascribed to God in the Jewish tradition. Thus, the Gospel today describes Jesus as giving the great commission: “When they saw him, they worshipped him, even though some of them doubted. Jesus drew near and said to them, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples; baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always to the end of the age” (Matt 28:17-30). In other words, the rising of Jesus from the dead signifies the continuation of his cause: The Kingdom of God, which summarizes everything that Jesus taught, must be preached to all the nations.

But not only that. Just as Jesus embodied the Kingdom, so those who received the message must live it. A people that embodies it must be born. This is the reason why the command to baptize is appended to it is that baptism initiates one to a community that lives the Kingdom and

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Zero Waste Management of the Archdiocese of ManilaBy Romulo S. Arsenio, Ph.D.

THE present natural catastrophes triggered by human greed, indifference, shortsightedness have caused and cost the loss of so much lives, livelihood and habitat. Consumerism and industrial development driven economic growth are offering the reverse and have put in danger the future of the next generations.

There is today too much helplessness, unemployment, restlessness, hunger and sickness around the world. These concerns and problems cannot be resolved by governments alone. Everybody must help and perform their duties as responsible stewards and members of this world /global community.

Meanwhile, “may pera sa basura” is a reality for the street dwellers and scavengers who survived the difficulties of living in the cities without home and employment by picking up trash along the streets and scavenging in the trash bins of stores and food chains eating “pagpag” or left-over food found in the trash/garbage bins at the same time.

The Catholic Church continually shares in the responsibility of resolving the above problems and crisis. It will forever

abandoned not only by those who represented his own people, but even by those who were supposed to protect him. No life could be more painful than this. Men abandoned him.

Of course, the abandonment of him by his own men and the institutions of the country, not to say the scourging, the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion, could still be borne if he had someone to cling to. After all,

we are often told that when one knows someone understands him, loves him, clings to him and accepts him for what he is and without condition, he can bear almost any kind of pain. That this is true—this is easily verified when we hear the stories of people who have been imprisoned, or tortured, or who are separated from their wives either as sailors or as contract workers abroad. The certainty,

take an active role especially when the dignity, morality and sustainability of every creature of God are at stake.

For almost six years now, the Archdiocese of Manila Ministry on Ecology had been quietly performing its tasks of educating the young and old in the responsible care of God’s creation through various programs and activities. It has empowered and actively involved the urban poor especially the homeless, unemployed and impoverished to gain their dignity as humans by becoming eco aides – improved their skills, provided them with shelter, food and livelihood.

It wants to prove that Zero waste management is achievable today as it was time immemorial. Enprotech Mobile Waste Treatment machine helps them to achieve it. Zero waste simply means, none of our trash-municipal trash is wasted. Everything is processed and made into valuable and useful materials. NO NEED OF DUMPSITES or LANDFILLS and NO WAY FOR INCINERATION.

This approach of the Archdiocese of Manila Ministry on Ecology in partnership with the wastepickers, the itinerant local migrants – simply called “the Luneta men and women” were able to patiently convert the trash of their partner catholic institutions especially

the three campuses of the College of St. Benilde, Don Bosco Technical Institute, Makati, St. Anthony School of Singalong, Paco Catholic School, the main compound of the Archdiocese of Manila and other institutions for years now into useful construction materials. Therefore the said institutions have not contributed in anyway the dumping of trash in the landfills or dumpsites. Tons of soil enhancers for farmers were produced, tons of recyclable materials returned to the factories and which sale have fed not less than 30 families, sent children to school and even provided back to them their human dignity, stopped them from eating “pagpag or batchoy”.

Residual wastes were mixed with sand and cement and made into construction blocks to build the Ministry’s Ecology Office at the Caritas Manila Compound, the ongoing improvement of the recycling facility, construction of a chapel and kiosks in San Carlos Seminary.

The realization and culmination of the program will be on April 13, 2011 at 4:00 in the afternoon during a concelebrated Eucharistic Celebration and blessing by His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, DD at the RCAM RESOURCE RECOVERY FACILITY, Velasquez St., Tondo, Manila.

the assurance that someone loves us is sufficient ground to survive and bear all the difficulties.

In the life of Jesus, one easily identifies his ground of existence with his Father. People may not have understood him, but he was certain that his Father did. After all, in the gospels he claims that no one knows the Father except the Son and no one knows the Son except the Father, and those he has chosen to reveal him.

In the end, however, he was unsupported in his sufferings, the Father never freed him from it. This is probably the meaning of his scream at death, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). That kind of suffering is obviously unspeakable. At any rate, that is how Matthew’s passion narrative portrays the death of Jesus—he dies as an abandoned Son of God, the Crucified Messiah.

Father Benedict XVI gave his blessing to the Program. The upcoming golden anniversary of the Diocese of Maasin in 2018, Bishop Cantillas said, “is another reason to strongly resolve to renew our life of faith.”

Hundreds of Eucharistic Lay Ministers from all the parishes of the diocese renewed their vows, witnessed by the faithful many of whom came in droves by boat from the mainland. Limasawa’s high school students staged a reenactment of the first Mass on the island, reliving history in color and dance as the rest of the island’s citizenry watched in the shade of the trees on the fringes of the field.

The program following the Mass honored the coming of Christianity to Limasawa’s shores and “the country’s acceptance of a life of faith” and provided an opportunity

for Church and government officials alike to reiterate their united pro-life stand against the RH Bill. Bishop Cantillas recalled the fervor of the 7,000 people who in an early-March rally had braved a tsunami alert and the rains to proclaim their opposition to the bill.

Southern Leyte Congressman Roger Mercado animatedly spoke against the RH Bill for the other government officials present—Gov. Damian Mercado, Vice-Gov. Miguel Maamo, Limasawa Mayor Melchor Petracorta, other Mayors of the province, and other provincial and municipal officials. He also disclosed to the audience that he has pushed House Bill 4065 in the Lower House in Congress which seeks to declare March 31 every year as national non-working holiday.

This bill, he added, is to highlight the

significance of the coming of Christianity to the Philippines and in Asia.

Abp. Palma lauded the congenial collaboration among the clergy, government officials, military and civilians as demonstrated by the enthusiastic yet orderly celebration of the momentous event. With renewed evangelization as the thrust of the diocese’s decade preparation for the 500th jubilee of the First Mass, Abp. Palma said, “the faithful can expect meaningful changes.”

The historic first Mass in the Philippines (and in Asia) was held on March 31, 1521, on the island of Limasawa. At present, 35 percent of the island’s 6,000 population are Catholics; the rest are divided into 11 protestant sects. Those who participated in the Eucharistic celebration last March 31 gained plenary indulgence granted to the Diocese.

takes on the form of listening to the Word of God offered in abundance through the liturgical readings. God speaks to our hearts and entreats us not to disregard His voice, for the words that He utters are guideposts in our itinerary of faith. “If only you would listen to him today, ‘Do not harden your hearts’” (Ps 95:8). It is a sad commentary to the history of our salvation that we are found ever stubborn to the Will of God, stiffed neck people. We think that we know better than God; that our plans are better than His. And so, like our first parents in the garden of Eden we go our separate way, listen more to the tantalizing whispers of the snake in abject disregard to the persistent invitation of God, ever declaring ourselves autonomous, godlike. No, it is not true that God is jealous of our nature and our innate power. On the contrary, He wants us to participate in His life. We are after all His

children. But we mistrust Him, we defy His plans. We insist on our own designs of achieving this power (cf. Gn 3: 1-19).

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

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

with the Church herself. And §3 of the same article correctly indicates that “the temporary deputat ion for l i turgical purposes─mentioned in c.230, §2─does not confer any special or permanent title on the non ordained faithful”. The following sentence states that it is unlawful for the non ordained faithful to assume titles such as pastor, chaplain, coordinator or moderator. What applies to temporary deputation applies with all the more reason to permanent deputation for liturgical or pastoral tasks (cf. CIC, c.230, §1, 517, §2,).

2 . Lay co l l abora t i on i s supplementary─i.e., only in cases of necessity. By their ecclesiological nature all of these particular functions belong to the realm of the ordained ministry, in which a lay person, however, can collaborate in cases of necessity, if he has been lawfully deputed to do so. But it must be noted here: “in case of necessity”!

For example, it could never

be the Church’s objective to replace the Eucharistic celebration by promoting Sunday celebrations without a priest. Nevertheless, wherever there are no other possibilities, the Church is grateful to that lay person who, being well disposed and following the instructions of the Bishop who appointed him, conducts a Liturgy of the Word for and with the faithful who have no other opportunity to celebrate the Lord’s Day. It is clear that the lay person here is truly a supplementary aid. Thus, for the good of the faithful he will be glad when a priest is available to celebrate the Eucharist. The Instruction enables us to indicate many other analogous situations.

3. Responsibility for abuses. The practical provisions of the Instruction are not limited to listing possible or actual abuses, but they always seek to indicate the theological and canonical coordinates underlying the

respective fields of activity and thereby to draw the necessary consequences. As a well-known Canonist, Prof. Winfried Aymans, pointed out at the time, “the problems mentioned are caused, first of all, by the fact that they are found in a border area.”5 Abuses occur, according to Aymans, when exceptional solutions become alternatives, changing an extraordinary competence into an ordinary one, or, on the other, when the limits provided for collaboration are unlawfully extended and a competence is assumed that has not been given.

“In this regard─Aymans continues─it should be pointed out that the laity usually cannot be considered responsible for true and proper abuses. They in fact fulfill—normally with good intentions─that role which has been introduced in their particular Church and has been entrusted to them. On the other hand, it should be noted that the norms established by

the Bishops’ Conferences or by individual Bishops generally do not contradict the ordinances of universal law, but their clarity at times is not enough to prevent the spread of an abusive practice.”

It is for this reason that the Canon Law Society of the Philippines has chosen this topic for their study and discussion in this year’s CLSP National Convention.

NOTES:1Joseph Ratzinger, “Unity of the church’s mission involves diversity of ministries”, in L’Osservatore Romano, N. 17 (29.IV.1998), 18. Cf. Post-Synodal Exhora-tion, Christifideles laici, n.23, §6.2Joseph Ratzinger, loc. cit. Emphasis added.3Ibid.4John Paul II, “Address to a Sympo-sium on Collaboration Lay Faithful in the Priestly Ministry” (22.IV.1994), in L’Osservatore Romano (11.V.1994).5Cf. Prof. Winfried Aymans, “Instruction calls for necessary change in attitude and practice”, in L’Osservatore Romano, N.7 (18.II.1998), 10.

B8 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

B8 CBCP Monitor

CRIMINAL Lawyer Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is the defense counsel of Louis Roulet (Ryan Philippe), a son of a rich family in Los Angeles who is charged of assaulting a woman prostitute. Haller asks his friend, a private invetigator Frank Levin (William Macy) to help him in the investigation for the merit of the case. As a lawyer, Haller expects Louis to cooperate primarily by confessing the whole truth to enable him to better prepare for his defense argument. Whilst Louis admits he was at the scene with the woman, he consistently denies doing the crime. The problem is Louis cannot tell everything because his narration includes that he passed out when

scenes) encourages the viewers to look through the details and gets closer to the characters of the film. Other than the use of close-up camera angle, there is not much to say about the cinematography. The settings are also limited. Somehow, the viewers may wonder why discussion over sensitive matters of the case is done at public places like park. And why a lawyer like Haller seems to be holding “office” inside his car. But the lights and sounds are good compliments of the film.

E v e r y p r o f e s s i o n h a s corresponding ethics to observe and doing so gives dignity to the work. In the case of law profession especially when at the side of defense it is the duty of a lawyer to prove the innocence of the client. The film “Lincoln Lawyer” shows how a lawyer struggles to succeed in defending a guilty person. But he also makes sure that he is not off the hook and chain of future similar crimes by the same persion should stop. At the end of the day crime should pay and justice must be served. For the most part, the film speaks about dignity at work, concerns for friends, and respect and caring for love ones. But the film also has the tendency to be insensitive on woman prostitutes and the media person who received money out of bribery.

TITLE: The Lincoln LawyerCAST: Matthew McConaughey,

Marisa Tomei, John Leguizamo,Ryan Phillippe, Michaela Conlin, William H. Macy, Margarita Levieva, Katherine Moennig, Michael Paré, Michael Peña

DIRECTOR: Brad FurmanWRITER: Michael Connelly,

John RomanoGENRE: DramaRUNNING TIME: 119 min.TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT: ½

MORAL ASSESSMENT: CINEMA Rating: For viewers

age 18 and above

someone attacked him from behind disabling him to recall what happened next. As the case progresses, Haller starts to doubt the credibility of his client because of more discoveries in the investigation of Levin. Unfortunately, even before Haller arrives at the conclusion, circumstances already claim the life of his friend Levin. Haller is convinced that Louis is the real culprit but as a lawyer his job is to defend his client. Realizing the deceiving attributes of Louis, Haller knows his former wife Maggie Mcpherson (Marissa Tomel) and 7-year old daughter can be the next target after his friend Frank.

“Lincoln Lawyer” offers the usual investigative story. However, it unusually focuses on the struggles of a lawyer about the truth, ethics of law profession and personal concerns instead of the crime. The director does a good job in the treatment of unconventional theme of a simple investigative crime story. It builds up interest as film progresses towards climax and conclusion. The acting particularly that of Mclonaughney and Philippe are commendable. The lines are well-delivered and so are the facial expressions. The frequent close-up shots of faces and items (i.e crime evidences, car plate number, hand gestures, sex

Entertainment

SI Roan (Sarah Geronimo) ay nagmula sa isang simple ngunit masayahing pamilya. Nagtatrabaho siya sa isang NGO (Non-Government Organization) na tumutulong sa mga mahihirap na pamilya sa probinsiya. Si Erick (Gerard Anderson) naman ay ang nag-iisang anak ng presidente ng Pilipinas (Christopher de Leon) na kababalik lamang mula Amerika kung saan siya ay nagtapos ng isang kurso. Palibhasa’y lumaki sa luho at may hinanakit sa ama, kakikitaan ng kawalang-direksiyon sa buhay si Erick ng kanyang ama. Sa isang kakatwang insidente ng pagtatagpo nina Roan at Erick ay makakaisip ang ama ni Erick ng paraan kung paanong maturuan si Erick na magkaron ng direksyon sa buhay. Papupuntahin si Erick ng kanyang ama sa probinsiya upang makihalubilo sa mga uring magsasaka. At dito ay papasamahin siya kay Roan. Hindi magiging magkasundo ang dalawa sa umpisa. Ngunit kalaunan di’y magkakahulugan ng loob ang dalawa. Ngunit hindi pala magiging madali para kay Roan ang maging kasintahan ng anak ng may pinakamataas na tungkulin sa bansa.

Kung tema ang pag-uusapan ay medyo luma at gasgas na ang kuwento ng Catch Me I’m in Love. Bago sanang maituturing na makasilip ang manonood ng kathang-isip na kuwento patungkol sa Unang Pamilya ng Pilipinas ngunit sa kabuuan ay pawang wala namang bagong nasabi ukol dito. Hindi rin ramdam ang laki ng konsepto ng pelikula. Pawang pinilit at pinababa nilang lalo ang opisina ng Pangulo ng Pilipinas. Pawang hindi tugma ang maraming bagay sa pelikula at nangunguna na rito ang kakulangang ng “chemistry” ng dalawang tauhan. Ang papel na ginampanan ni Gernonimo ay tila kaparehas na lang mga nauna pa niyang pelikula. Sa maraming pagkakataon ay lumalaylay ang mga eksena sa pelikula at tumatamlay ang interes ng mga manonood dito. Maayos naman ang pagganap ng mga tauhan ngunit sadyang walang maramdaman sa kabuuang daloy ng kuwento. Masyadong naging mababaw ang dating ng materyal na dapat sana ay mayabong at malalim kung napagtuuan lamang ng pansin.

Marami namang aral na inihain ang pelikula. Nariyan ang patungkol sa pagmamalasakit sa kapwa at pag-iisip ng kapakanan ng iba bago ang sarili. Kita ang mahalagang papel na ginagampanan ng pamilya at magulang sa pelikula. Pinatunayan lamang nito na ang pamilya pa rin ang humuhubog ng pundasyon ng isang pagkatao. Ang dalawang pangunahing tauhan, bagama’t magkaiba ng estado sa buhay ay parehas napalaki sa maayos na pamilya kung kaya’t maituturing silang magandang halimbawa. Mahalaga ring tingnan kung anong buti ang maidudulot ng pagmamahal sa pelikula. Sa pagmamahal sa kapwa ay sumusunod na rin ang pagmamahal sa Diyos at bayan. Ang tunay na pagmamahal ay nakakapagpayabong sa isang pagkatao at nagagawa nitong possible ang mga bagay na inaakala nang imposible katulad ng pagbabago ni Erick sa pelikula na tumubo lamang dahil siya’y pinagmalasakitan ni Roan. Ang tunay na pagmamahal ay ang pag-iisip sa kapakanan ng minamahal bago ang sarili. Ito ang maliwanag na ipinakita ni Roan kay Erick lalo na sa mga panahong nahihirapan siyang makisabay sa uri ng pamilya at mga kaibigan ni Erick. Sa kabuuan ay hitik sa magagandang aral ang pelikula at sinasabi nitong ang pagmamahal ang pinakahigit sa anu pa man na nais nating magkaroon sa buhay na ito- yaman, kasikatan, kapangyarihan.

Entertainment

TITLE: Catch Me… I’m in LoveCAST: Sarah Geronimo, Gerarld Anderson, Matteo Guidecelli, Ketchup

Eusebio, Arlene Muhlach, Joey Marquez, Christopher de Leon, Dawn Zulueta

DIRECTOR: Mae Czarina CruzSCREENPLAY: Mel Mendoza del Rosario PRODUCER/ DISTRIBUTORr: Star Cinema LOCATION: ManilaGENRE: Romantic ComedyRUNNING TIME: 105 minutesTechnical Assessment: Moral Assessment: CINEMA Rating: For viewers

ages 13 and below with parental guidance

Technical Assessment

PoorBelow averageAverageAbove averageExcellent

Moral Assessment

Abhorrent Disturbing AcceptableWholesomeExemplary

Look for the images of Easter eggs, Jesus

on the Cross, Last supper. (Illustration by

Bladimer Usi)

MAC en COLET Ni Bladimer Usi

Buhay Parokya

C1Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

along with their spouse are expected to attend the biennal convention Retired Archbishop and Ricardo Cardinal (Emeri-tus) Vidal will be the keynote speaker. Other speakers are Hon. Hilario G. Davide Jr., Chairman of the Knights of Co-lumbus Fraternal Association of the Pilippines, Inc. , Alonso L. Tan, KCFAPI President, Luzon Deputy and Supreme Director, and Eduardo G. Laczi, Director for Philippine Affairs.

Bishop Crispin B. Varques will speak during the luncheon hour while Bishop Esteban S. Binghay will preside the Marian Hour. Father Carmelo Diola of Dilaab Movement on the other hand will speak during the Conven-tion Dinner.

The three regional direc-

fraternal bond among members, added Bro. Jordan.

Various activities have been aligned such as Joint Investiture, Cat-echism Quiz, Free Throw, and Essay Contest, among others. The one day activities will culminate with the celebration of Holy Eucharist at 4:00 p.m., with the Auxiliary Bishop of Davao Bishop George B. Rimando, DD as celebrant and homilist.

Bro. Jordan further said that the theme “ I am My Brother’s Keeper” reminds all of us of the noble cause of our Founder, the Venerable Servant of God, Rev. Fr. Michael J. McGivney to help our needy brothers and sis-ters in the name of our faith.

The jurisdiction’s performance is due to the undaunted effort and dedication to the Order of its Mindanao Deputy Bro. Sofronio R. Cruz, along with his State Officers and members. (KC News)

Bishop Jorge Barlin Assembly Bldg. in Naga City, Camarines Sur last March 12, 2011.

Through lectures, open discussion and workshop, the counselors were expected to know their responsibili-ties, the principles of a good leader as well as to identify and employ the approaches, and management techniques in handling youth groups and organizing and operating a Circle.

The role of the counselors as models in the context of the Church was stressed.

The Knights of Columbus

A Supplement Publication of KCFAPI and the Order of the Knights of Columbus

The Cross

During the “Walk for Life”, members of the Knights of Columbus reiterated their firm stand in support of life with the slogan: WE VALUE LIFE, NO TO RH BILL.

Observing the theme I Am My Brother’s Keeper, the Knights of Columbus, Visayas will hold its 8th National Convention on April 30, 2011.

The gathering will assess the achievements of the various councils in the entire Visayas comprised of Regions 6,7 and 8. Delegates will also meet to plan and implement the various thrusts for the coming Colum-bian Year.

This will be held at the Cebu International Convention Cen-ter, Mandaue City. The opening sessions will be marked with an Opening Mass to be presided by Bishop Jose Palma, Archbishop of Cebu and Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus along with several priests who will be concelebrants.

A thousand brother knights

THE Knights of Columbus-Mind-anao will hold its 14th State Jurisdic-tion Convention at the Waterfront Davao Insular Hotel, Lanang, Davao City on April 30, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. to May 1, 2011 at 12:00 noon.

State Secretary Bro. Hernando J. Jordan said that a pre-convention activity will be the 3rd State Colum-bian Squire Convention on April 29, 2011 at the Holy Cross Academy of Sasa, Davao City, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. “I am My Brother’s Keeper” is the theme chosen for both conventions.

The gathering of different Colum-bian Squires Circles in Mindanao Jurisdiction will keep the zeal of Columbianism burning in the hearts of our Brother Knights and Squires.

We look forward to a memorable gathering of fellowship, recreation, reflection, and renewal for our Squires, thus strengthening the

THE Knights of Columbus Lu-zon Jurisdiction State Squires Committee conducted a Youth Leadership Training for coun-selors in the Archdiocese of Caceres and Dioceses of Legazpi and Daet.

The Squires Committee strongly believes that the abilities of the counselors, who are considered youth ministers, should be devel-oped “for them to become more effective, expedient and competent in carrying out and in conducting their own Circle activities and projects.”

Twenty-four counselors attended the training held at

Visayas to hold 8th State Convention

Walk / C2Bowling / C2

Luzon / C3

Squires / C3Visayas / C2

11th KC Luzon State Convention slated AprilTHE Knights of Columbus Luzon Juris-diction will hold its State Convention on April 30, 2011 from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 pm at Le Pavillon in Metrobank Ave., Metropolitan Park, Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City.

In a circular letter from Arsenio Isidro G. Yap, State Secretary and State Convention Chairman noted by Alonso L. Tan, Knights of Columbus Luzon Deputy and Supreme Director and addressed to all district deputies and grand knights, the said schedule and the details of the preparation particularly on registration for the upcoming conven-

Supreme Director and LD Tan graces Inter-District bowling Tournament

SuPREME Director and Luzon Deputy Alonso L. Tan graced the 2011 “One-Day, One-Team Inter-District Duckpin Bowling Tour-nament” held at the DJ Paradise Bowling Lanes in Malolos City, Bulacan last March 12, 2011.

The tournament was organized by the Knights of Columbus Lu-zon Jurisdiction Round Table of District Deputies (RTDD), Group 24 of Diocese of Malolos.

Sir Knight Ireneo A. Romano, District Deputy, M-24 and RTDD Advocate led the prayer for the beatification of Fr. George J. Will-mann, S.J. after the registration of the participants.The welcome

Thousands of members of the Knights of Columbus in Luzon jurisdiction manifested their protest in a “Walk for Life” against the contentious Reproductive health Bill by marching from Gen. Luna st. in Intramuros, Manila to Rajah sulayman Park in Malate, Manila last March 26, 2011.

Guest speakers who gave their talks on the issues of the Reproductive Health Bill and related topics on pro-life are Dr. Ligaya A. Acosta, Executive Director of Human Life International – Asia, Sir Knight Hilario G. Davide, Jr, KCFAPI Chairman and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, Alfredo S. Lim, Mayor of Manila and Matthew Harvey T. Peralta, a Colum-bian Squire who represented the youth sector.

There were around seven thousand members from the Dioceses of Anti-polo, Cubao, Imus, Caloocan, Malolos,

KC Luzon ‘Walk for Life’ against RH Bill

As they strike: Photo taken during duckpin bowling tournament held at Malolos Bulacan last March 12, 2011 with LD Alonso L. Tan.

KC Luzon Squires Committee holds leadership training for counselors

Mindanao to hold 14th State Convention

The CrossC2 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

FCs Chairman of the Board Awardees reveal secrets of successTHE fraternal counselors Chairman of the Board Award -- Annual Family Service Awardees of 2010 exhibited exemplary performance in sales because of common secrets of success.

These awardees are fraternal counselors who have achieved the minimum require-ments for the following awards: Chairman’s Circle, Fr. Willmann Knights of the Round Table and Fraternal Counselor of the Year 2010.

Faith in God and constantly seeking God’s guidance and intervention is the topmost of their secrets of success. Most of them dis-play attitude such as hard work, diligence, perseverance, dedication, humility, commit-ment to the Association, and loyalty. The determination to achieve, to dream big are some of the key factors in achieving their respective awards.

Other factors such as integrity, self-confidence, aggressiveness, and friendliness influence their positive performance.

Regular attendance in council meetings, sacrifice in participating in all council activities and close relationship with brother knights facilitated the realization of their goal.

The awardees are fraternal counselors who have achieved highest production in insurance contribution.

They have excelled in providing fraternal benefits and insurance to Knights of Colum-bus members and immediate families.

Visayas / C1

Chancellors, Juan G. Castillo, Jr., Bonifacio Martinez, and Reynaldo Ogania of Metro Manila Dragons; Danilo Carungay and Jaime Dagos of Metro Manila Excellence, Lerio Cagampang, Gabriel Chocyagan, Jose Do-mogdog, Rogelio Oriel, and Mauricio Pangda of Northeastern Luzon Cavaliers, Raymundo Alkuino, Venancio Capiral, Angel Casid-ing, Jr., Hugo Goce, Jr., Teodoro Rada, and Lauro Villamayor of Southern Luzon Lakers, Vicente Espiraz, Rodrigo Gorospe, Armando Ravina, and Arfelcris Tapalla of Southwesten Luzon Stars, Jose Rolando Sanoria of Metro Manila Achievers, Alfred Lallana of Northern Luzon Gold Miners, and Perlita Valencia of Northwestern Luzon Thunders.

Fraternal Counselors from Visayas who have achieved the said award are Jocelyn Nabong and Licarion Lim of Eastern Visayas Fighters, Renerio Ganzon and Joel Tanaid of Western Visayas Advocates, Joel Flordelis of Central Visayas Aces, Glyceria de Ramos of Western Visayas Bulls and Wildy Devela of Western Visayas Crusaders.

Mindanao Fraternal Counselors who have received the said award are Butch Ragoro and Alliondo Saromines of Eastern Mind-anao Eagles, Marteliano Alcontin, Emma Saclote, Rolando Sta. Teresa of Northern Mindanao Goldies, Lorenzo Almelia of Cen-tral Mindanao Cowboys, and Patrick Gorit, Sr. of North Central Mindanao Explorers. (Vanessa Puno)

The Fraternal Counselor (FC) of the Year is Lorenzo Dufale, Sr. who has achieved the highest first year contribution income and insured fifty creditable new paid lives dur-ing the incentive program period which was from the first working day of January 2010 until December 23, 2010.

The three Runner-FCs of the Year are Teofilo Samson, Reynaldo Segismundo and Danilo Tullao. These runners-up including the FC of the Year have attained at least two million first year contribution income and have insured a minimum of forty-eight creditable new paid lives in 2010.

The members of the Fr. Willmann Knights of the Round Table (WKRT) are Jose Larry Mendoza, Maria Teresa De La Mota, Jef-frey Rey Guillermo, Diego Marquez, Angel Rivada, Angelito Lat, Veronica Casupanan, Lauro Evangelista, Bonifacio Morales, Edu-ardo Cruz and Luis Ferrer.

The Chairman’s Circle Awards was con-ferred to fifty-two fraternal counselors.

Recipients of this award from Luzon are: Joselito Enriquez, Ariston Francisco, Alfredo Noriega, and Ronando Rodriguez of Central Luzon Believers; Francisco Ballesteros, Rex Blanco, Rene Cruz, Jose De Leon, and Nazario Timbresa of Central Luzon Conquerors. Also from Luzon are Amado Miranda and Melissa Lourdes Reyes of Central Luzon Diamonds; Rosa Hernandez, Virgilio Matias, Francisco Reyes, and Rodolfo Salcedo of Metro Manila

THE Knights of Columbus Luzon Jurisdiction of the Diocese of Baguio spearheaded the “Walk for life” on March 19, feast of St. Joseph from the municipal hall of La Trinidad to San Jose Parish Church, La Trinidad in Benguet.

Almost two thousand pro-life advocates joined the 6:30 a.m. rally in connection with the annual “Walk for Life” activity of the three jurisdictions of the Knights of Columbus which was held on March 26.

Participants include members of the Knights of Columbus, Columbian Squires, San Jose High School students, priests,

members of religious congrega-tions and lay associations such as Catholic Women’s League, Saranay Prayer Group, Children of Our Lady of Covadonga, and Holy Name Society from the Vicariate of San Jose and the Diocese of Baguio.

Participating KC Councils were San Jose Parish Trini-dad Council 6285 under Grand Knight Rey Villarey, Bishop Brigido A. Galasgas Council 12568 under Grand Knight Jo-ell Cervantes, Tublay Benguet Council 11367 under Grand Knight Willy Velasco, Benguet State university College Coun-

ers after the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Msgr. Cosalan, Jr. talked about the stance of the Church against the Reproductive Health Bill.

Bro. Edward Antonio of Dis-trict B21, La Trinidad, Benguet underlined the significance of the “Walk for Life” while Ben-guet Gov. Nestor Fongwan, also a member of the Knights of Columbus emphasized the role of the Order in supporting fam-ily and life values.

Meanwhile, Fr. Castañeda shared about St. Joseph whose feast the faithful celebrated on that day. (KC News)

Baguio Knights hold “Walk for Life” rally

St. Anne Circle No. 3738, Squires’ newly accredited investiture team

cil 13726 under Grand Knight Marcos Buliyat and Benguet Highlands Assembly.

Msgr. Andres Cosalan, Jr., Vicar General of the Diocese of Baguio and Vice President for Mountain Province Broad-casting Corporation led the concelebrated mass at San Jose Parish at 8 a.m. Concelebrat-ing with him were Fr. Benedict Castañeda, parish priest of San Jose, La Trinidad, Benguet, Fr. Abner Dalilis, assistant parish priest and Fr. German Domingo Ledesma, a guest priest.

The participants listened to the inputs given by several speak-

THE St. Anne Circle No. 3738 of Magarao in Camarines Sur is the newly accredited investiture team of the Knights of Columbus Luzon Jurisdiction Columbian Squires.

The investiture team invested 48 new members last March 13 at Bishop Jorge Barlin Assembly

“CHOOSING Life, Rejecting the RH Bill” is the chosen theme of this “Walk” Human Life is the most sacred physical gift with which God, the author of life, endows a human being. Placing artificial obstacles to prevent hu-man life from being formed and being born most certainly con-tradicts this fundamental truth of human life. In the light of the widespread influence of post-modern spirit in our world, we consider this position as nothing less than prophetic. As religious leaders we must proclaim this truth fearlessly in season and out of season.

Advocates contend that the RH bill promotes reproductive health. The RH Bill certainly does not. It does not protect the health of the sacred human life that is being formed or born. The very name “contraceptive” already reveals the anti-life na-ture of the mean that the RH Bill promotes. These artificial means are fatal to human life, either preventing it from fruition or actually destroying it. Moreover,

Hon. Hilario G. Davide, Jr.

Alonso L. Tan

Chairman’s MessagePresident’s Message

scientist have known for a long time that contraceptive may cause cancer.

Contraceptives are hazardous to woman’s health.

1. We are deeply concerned about the plight of the many poor, especially of suffering women, who are struggling for a better life and who must seek it outside of the country, or have recourse from a livelihood less than decent.

2. We are Pro-life. We must defend human life from the mo-ment of conception or fertiliza-tion up to its natural end.

3. We believe in the respon-sible and natural regulation of births through “Natural Family Planning” for which character building is necessary which involves sacrifice, discipline and respect for the dignity of the spouse.

4. We believe that we are only stewards of our own bodies. Re-sponsibility over our own bodies must follow the will of God who speaks to us through conscience.

5. We hold on the choices relat-ed to the RH bill, conscience must

That in union and in solidarity with our Bishops, we fully and unqualifiedly support the salient objections of the Catholic Bish-ops Conference of the Philip-pines (CBCP) to the consolidated RH bill or RP Bill.

The Catholic Bishops’ Confer-ence of the Philippines (CBCP) is calling on all Filipinos especially we Catholics, to use the power of vote, as citizens of the Republic, to elect leaders who will uphold that value of the Family and of Life.

We believe that all of us with our strong conviction to defend life, we would be sending a strong message to the Halls of Congress so strong that it would reverberate in their ears long after the session has ended, even long after their terms in Congress is over. AND THAT MESSAGE is NO TO RH BILL

We are now the voice of the weak and the oppressed and the defender of the helpless and the innocents. May God Bless us all, in this wothy undertaking. Maraming Salamat po!

Vivat Jesus!

THE themes of our publication THE CROSS for this month of April 2011 are Lenten Season and State Con-ventions. Combining and conjoin-ing the two speak eloquently of their paramount significance in order.

Once more I stress that our KC does not only mean Knights of Co-lumbus, but, more importantly, as Knights of Christ. Without Christ we are nothing. And without His Lent, His Birth will not be complete. The Christmas message of faith, hope and love finds fulfillment in Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection and the cross of Lent is the symbol of our salvation and redemption, of the eternal life that Easter brings. Lent provides us the opportunity for spiritual renewal and transformation. As Knights of Christ, we must journey with Christ all throughout the sorrowful mysteries, for there can be no Easter in our lives without such journey.

The journey will be more welcome to Jesus if we bring with us, spirituality, our neighbors-our brothers. In this way, we become our brother’s keepers. Jesus himself commands: Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). This means that to our neighbor or brother we should share our blessings, and of his sufferings and pain we must bear part. True joy comes from an act of Love and compassion for a brother.

“I am my Brother’s Keeper” is the convention theme of the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao Jurisdictions of the KC Philip-pines. I hope my brother Knights in these jurisdictions with their families, shall spread the message of the Lenten Season to a world now in crises and bring, through love, true joy to their brothers.

VIVAT JESuS!

BMI (Body Mass Index)WEIGHT can affect a person’s self-esteem. Excess weight can evoke some unfair reactions. The amount of weight loss needed to improve your health may be much less than what you wish to lose. Research has shown that your health can be greatly improved by a loss of 5–10 percent of your starting weight and that doesn’t mean you have to stop there.

Changing the way you approach weight loss can help you be more successful at weight management. Most people who are trying to lose weight focus on just the goal of weight loss. However, setting the right goals and focusing on lifestyle changes such as following a healthy eating plan, watching portion sizes, being physically active, and reducing sedentary time are much more effective.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a useful measure of overweight and obesity. It is also used as a measure of underweight. BMI incorporates both height and weight, and provides a single number to assess a person’s degree of fat and a valid measure of health risks. It is calculated by dividing the person’s weight in kilograms by the height in meters square.

BMI = weight (kg) Height (m)2 BMI Categories: underweight = <18.5 Normal weight = 18.5–22.9 Overweight = equal or greater than 23 * At risk= 23 -24.9l;kObese 1 = 25 – 29.9Obese 2 = equal or greater than 30

The higher the value, the higher the risk for certain diseases such as heart ailments, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

Jaime M. Talag, M.D.

Health and Life

not only be informed but most of all rightly guided through the teachings of one’s faith.

6. We believe in the freedom of religion and the right of con-scientious objection in matters that are contrary to one’s faith. The sanctions and penalties embodied in the proposed RH bill are another reason for us to denounce it.

Last February 2, 2011 (Feast of the Presentation of the Lord) the 270,000 active members of the or-der of the Knights of Columbus and our families from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao Jurisdic-tions issued a Declaration of Support for Church’s stand on Family and Life.

That being a Catholic organi-zation, we live by the teachings of the Catholic Church and fol-low her guidance as one would a teacher and mother.

That being a Catholic organi-zation, we uphold and support the magisterial teachings of the Church on family and life as we renew our fealty to the Holy Father, Pope Bendict XVI.

Walk / C1 Bowling / C1

Novaliches, Parañaque, Pasig and the Archdiocese of Manila who participated with their families and friends.

The participants gathered at San Agustin Church in In-tramuros, Manila at 5:30 in the morning. A concelebrated mass followed at 6:00AM. This was presided over by Bishop Honesto F. Ongtioco, Knights of Columbus State Chaplain and Bishop of Cubao.

Ricarte S. Sabio, State Pro-Life Director will delivered his take off message to the participants after the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.The march started at

7:15 a.m. from Gen. Luna St. in Intramuros, Manila to Rajah Su-layman Park in Malate, Manila.

After more than an hour of pro-life march with a theme “We Value Life,” the participants ar-rived at Rajah Sulayman Park at around 8:30 in the morning.

This was followed by an in-vocation and singing of the national anthem led by Vicente V. Ortega, State Church Direc-tor and Pascual C. Carbero, respectively.

The welcome remarks was delivered by Alonso L. Tan, Knights of Columbus Luzon Deputy and Supreme Director. A

message of the Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson for the said pro-life activity was also shared to the participants followed by talks of guest speakers on their respective topics.

Bonifacio B. Martinez, State Program Director expressed his appreciation to the guests in be-half of the KC Luzon. This was followed by a closing remark delivered by Arsenio Isidro G. Yap, State Secretary.

The program ended with is the singing of “Habang May Buhay” and the release of balloons with background music by the Banda ng Maynila. (Vanessa Puno)

remark was delivered by Sir Knight Nestor C. Santiago of Barasoain Council #3817.

The rules and regulations of the said 2011 bowling tourna-ment were presented by Sir Knights and Sports Coordina-tors Rodolfo N. Alongalay, District Deputy, M-28 and Gaudencio V. Sanchez.

Guest of honor and speaker Tan was introduced by Sir Knight Edgardo M. Mitiam, District Deputy, M-30 and RTDD Vice Chairman.The highlight of the event was the message of Sir Knight Tan to the participants from districts

M-21 to M-35.Sir Knight Angelito u. Sacro,

District Deputy, M-31 and RTDD Treasurer led the pledge of sportsmanship.The 2011 RTDD Inter-District Duckpin Bowling Tournament was formally declared open by Sir Knight Rodolfo Y. Manumbas, District Deputy, M-22 and RTDD Chairman.

The ceremonial throwing of bowling duckpin was led by Sir Knight Tan and all the present district deputies.After which, the game rolled and carefully facilitated by the RTDD Bowling Tourna-

ment Committee headed by Sir Knights Alongalay and Sanchez.

The announcement of win-ners and awarding of prizes were carried out on the same day by the RTDD officers namely, Sir Knights Manum-bas, Mitiam, Carlito G. Fer-nando, Secretary and Jaime E. Oliveros, Chairman of Awards or Recognition.

The tournament concluded with a prayer for the can-onization of Fr. Michael J. McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus. (Van-essa Puno)

tors Dalmacio Grafill of Region 6, Lino Aguilar, Region 7, and Pete Guyos, Region 8 will render their report to the delegates.

A first degree exemplification is also sched-uled on April 29, 2011. for new members to be held at the State Office, Archbishop Reyes Ave., Cebu City. A Sports festival featuring

billiards, bowling, chess, and darts will be held at at the Gaisano Bowling Complex, Banilad Cebu City.

The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic fraternal, family service organization with 1.8 million members in the uS, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guam and Philippines. It is widely known for its charitable contribu-

tions to various causes especially calamities and other unfortunate events.

In the Visayas, there are 58,000 members under 587 councils.

Visayas Deputy Dionisio R. Esteban, Jr. is enjoining all brother knights to participate. For additional details, please call up tel. 231-1183. (Emm R. Espino)

Building, J. Miranda Ave. in Naga City, Camarines Sur.

The Squires Investiture, which is a ceremonial activity for accepting new Squires, was sponsored by the Archdiocese of Caceres’ Our Lady of Remedios Council 13057, Pili, Camarines Sur. (KC News)

Message of Luzon Deputy and KCFAPI President Alonso L. Tan during the “Walk for Life”, held on March 26, 2011

C3The CrossCBCP MonitorVol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

By Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson

THE beatification of Pope John Paul II will be a time for reflection upon the accomplishments of his pontificate and the holiness of his life. But it will not be enough for the Knights of Columbus to simply look back and remember history. If we are to keep faith with our great friend and beloved spiritual leader, we must also look to the future.

In working toward this goal, we should ask ourselves, “What would Blessed John Paul II say to us today?” We are fortunate that we have thou-sands of pages of his writings that still speak to us clearly, and none is more relevant to the work of the Knights of Columbus than his 1999 apostolic ex-hortation Ecclesia in America. In read-ing this document, it seems as though John Paul II is speaking directly to us.

He wrote, “The renewal of the Church in America will not be possible without the active presence of the laity. There-fore, they are largely responsible for the future of the Church” (44).

Today, there is no lay organization in the countries where the Knights of Co-lumbus works that surpasses us in terms of charity, promotion of vocations and evangelization. Thus, the magnitude of

Blessed John Paul II entrusted us with the task of a new evangelization

NOWADAYS you would most likely encounter the term “Anti-Money Laundering”. In the area of insurance espe-cially with your benefit certificate this would have a direct effect. “Money laundering,” simply put refers to the process where a person conceals money gained from an unlawful means by making it appear that it come out of a legitimate transaction.

In September 29, 2001 the Anti-Money Laundering Act (Republic Act No.9160) was enacted to address the growing concern over money laundering and to protect the integrity of the Philippine banking system. The law was later amended by Republic Act No. 9194 to give the government a better leverage in suppressing money laundering.

There are some features in these laws worth noting. One feature is that a transaction with a covered institution involv-ing an amount exceeding P500,000.00 within one banking day is deemed a covered transaction (as amended by RA No. 9194). As a covered transaction the law requires that this be reported to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC). The covered institution is also required to keep records of such transaction. Failure to disclose the transaction with the AMLC or keep records of the transaction is deemed a money laundering offense and punishable under the law.

To further prevent money laundering, the law imposes a requirement for covered institutions to acquire certain information on its clients. This is known as the “Know Your Customer Rule”. under this rule the covered institution shall require individual customers to produce original documents of identity issued by an official authority. Examples of which are driver’s licenses and passports. Covered institutions are also required to obtain from customers information such as the date and place of birth, nationality, nature of work or business, employer, TIN, SSS/GSIS number, specimen sig-nature and names of beneficiaries in the case of insurance.

The Knights of Columbus Fraternal Association of the Philippines, Inc. is a covered institution as defined under Section 3 (par. a) of R.A. Nos. 9160 and 9194 and as such, it is bound to comply with the requirements of the Anti-Money Laundering Act and its implementing rules and regulations. KCFAPI is an entity that is supervised and regulated by the Insurance Commission and is bound to comply with the rules and regulation promulgated by said agency consistent with R.A. No. 9194.

our work on behalf of the Church can be measured in a certain degree only by the magnitude of our responsibility for the future of the Church.

Perhaps more than any other docu-ment, it was in Ecclesia in America that John Paul II proclaimed the need for a new evangelization. He wrote, “As the Church’s Supreme Pastor, I urgently desire to encourage all the members of God’s People, particularly those living in America … to take up this project and to cooperate in carrying it out” (66).

The pope understood that there was a common Christian foundation to the new civilization being built in the Western Hemisphere during the past five centuries. This common founda-tion offers the promise of an even greater solidarity, community and charity in the future, if only we have the determination to work for such a transformation.

For more than a century, the Knights of Columbus has been promoting this greater solidarity among Catholics in Canada, Mexico, the united States and the Philippines through our work of charity, unity, fraternity and patrio-tism.

Blessed John Paul II knew that the task before us was not simply a “re-evangelization” — a repetition of what had gone before — but an evangeliza-

tion “new in ardor, methods and expres-sion” (6).

This newness, in a significant way, depends upon the creativity and the dedication of the lay faithful who are willing to commit their personal lives, their families and their associations in witnessing to the good news of the Gospel.

“In accepting this mission,” John Paul II wrote, “everyone should keep in mind that the vital core of the new evangelization must be a clear and un-equivocal proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ” (66).

For the Knights of Columbus, the beatification of Pope John Paul II is a historic occasion to reflect on precisely the ways in which our dedication to our principles of charity, unity and frater-nity provide “a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ.”

And as we witness with confidence to this reality, both on a personal level and through the work of our thousands of active councils, we will not only take up a more vigorous role in the work of the new evangelization, but we will also realize more fully Father Michael McGivney’s vision of a dynamic orga-nization that is wholly at the service of the Church.

Vivat Jesus!

Luzon / C1

Squires / C1

DuRING the early days of KC-FAPI, the sales areas would adopt greek letters and military terms terms to identify them-selves from the others. The Cen-tral Luzon sales area composed of the provinces of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Pampanga was known as Central Luzon Beta. The two other areas in Central Luzon were named as Central Luzon Alpha and Central Luzon Charlie.

Sometie in the late 1999, sales areas suited names from NBA and other sports teams such as LAKERS, BuLLS and PATRI-OTS. Other took identities of their place such as GOLD, MIN-ERS, CATHCERS, COWBOYS and EAGLES.

Casupanan inspires believers

Joseph P. Teodoro

For Brother Knights by Brother Knights

In 2006, newly appointed Area Manager EFREN M. CASu-PANAN sought FBG’s approval to christen his sales team as BE-LIEVERS even without asking him the reason for his choice. Bro. Efren is a person with deep faith in the Lord and has a high sense of confidence.

Bro. Efren is a three time member of the Annual Chair-man of the Board Family Service Awards and a Branch Manager of Radiowealth Finance Compa-ny. Inc. based in San Fernando, Pampanga prior to his appoint-ment as Area Manager

He won the Area Manager of the year in 2008 and was a run-ner up finisher in 2009 and 2010. Although he just came in close

second place last year, he nev-ertheless earned for himself two distinctions for having bought in highest fist year contribution income and the area with the most number of awardees.

In 2010, the Central Luzon Beleivers was able to generate P11,488,282.21 FYCI and 10 An-nual Awardees. Trully Bro. Efren serves as a model and inspiration to all his fraternal counselors.

Amiable, unassuming, hard-working and generous are just some of the characteristics of Bro. Efren which perhaps led him to responsible positions in the Order and his parish. Bro Efren is past grand knight (char-ter grand knight), former district deputy, past faithful navigator

tion were stressed. Interested Knights of Colum-

bus members of active councils in Luzon are expected to con-vene for the said State Conven-tion with its theme “I am my Brother’s Keeper.” KC Luzon will hold a golf tournament dubbed the ‘Supreme Director’s Cup’ as a pre-convention activity on April 26, 2011.

Atty. Rizal V. Katalbas, Jr.

From the Legal StandpointAnti-Money Laundering

Law

Columbian Squires is an interna-tional organization for Catholic youth ages 10 to 18 which en-deavors to develop the members’ leadership qualities and provide holistic formation through a Co-lumbian Squires program aiming to produce good leaders of our community. (KC News)

Q. since insurance is based on the law of large numbers, why not accept all applica-tions and rely on the law of probability?

A. To blindly rely on the law of averages would be ineffective and unprofitable. Insur-ance applicants may come far and between but are not in any way random. In addition, applicants do not have the same risk profiles. Those with impaired health condition or exposed to more hazardous occupations or avocations should be charged more because of increased cost of mortality, while those with unimpaired risk must be assessed ac-cording to the standard rate classification. On extreme cases, if the risk can no longer be quantified, the application is declined. This manner of identifying, classifying and assessing risk is called underwriting.

underwriting helps maintain equity among all benefit certificate (BC) holders, otherwise, the insurer will have to collect higher contribu-tions from all BC holders to remain solvent. Higher rates will cause a loss of business to the insurer, forcing applicants/BC holders to competition especially those with ‘standard’ or normal risk characteristics. Only those ineligi-ble for coverage will apply to non-selective in-surer resulting in this insurer to charge higher rates. If the insurer will not select, buyers will.

Selection by buyers is called anti-selection. An individual’s demand for insurance is highly related to his risk of loss (those with higher risk demand higher insurance protection). If the insurer will not select or ask underwriting questions, information asymmetry will cause the distortion of this correlation of demand and risk of loss and the insurer will be left with the short end of the stick. underwriting counters adverse selection and makes sure that the applicant is assessed the proper rate for the contemplated risk.

Q. What are the factors that affect under-writing?

A. The basic factors that affect life insurance underwriting are: age, occupation and the physical condition of the applicant. Minor factors include financial condition, residence and family history.

Most insurance plans have stated maxi-mum insurance age. Not many insurers will write BCs beyond 70. Possible reasons are: the insurance cost may be prohibitive to the applicant, ability to pass medical examinations is unlikely, limited number of successful applicants for the law of averages to apply. Some insurers accept applications born at least two weeks from delivery. For

instance, a 10% to 20% overweight is not much of a concern for a per-son age 30 but is a cause for concern for older ages.

An occupation that exposes the applicant to hazardous work, detrimental to the health of the person like mining in caves, or per-forming/maintaining peace and order like soldiers or members of public safety have higher than average mortality risk. High risk jobs include high speed racers, motorcycle racers, deep sea divers and the underwrit-ing classifications will depend on the risk appetite of insurers.

If the applicant’s physical health condition is impaired, most likely the application is appraised with higher contribution or flatly rejected.

The insurer may limit the amount of coverage either due to moral or physical hazard even if the applicant is healthy. The amount of risk must be proportional to his capacity to pay. Moreover, the underwriter would like the BC to persist or stay long in the accounting books as the cost to procure a contract is costly. If oversold, the BC may lapse in a short time, depriving the insurer to recoup its expenses.

Angelito A. Bala

Frequently Asked Questions

The Cause for the Beatification Fr. George J. Willmann, SJEMuLATING the virtues that bespeak of sanctity of a person, like Fr. Geroge J. Willmann, is what we need today to draw us into a deeper living out of the fullest meaning of our Catholic Faith in the context of increasing secularism. Thus, we believe, is one of the most important objectives in initiat-ing the Cause o the good Father George.

As prescribed by the Congre-gation for Causes of Saints in Rome as person may be elevated to the honors of the altar if he has lived up to a “heroic” degree of

the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, as well as the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice and fortitude and tem-perance. We believe that Father Willmann practiced them all to an exceptional degree.

In order to establish and wid-en the fame of Sanctity of Father Willmann, may we call on all Brother Knights, their families and friends to respond to the following appeal:

1. Submission of testimonies on Fr. Willmann’s heroic vir-tues;

2. Recitation of Prayer for his

Beatification in private and dur-ing K of C meetings and affairs;

3. Invocation of his interces-sion in our prayers;

4. Submission of Reports on answered prayers through the intercession of father Will-mann;

5. Visitation of his tomb in the Sacred Heart Novitiate Ceme-tery, Novaliches, Quezon City.

6. Membership to Fr. George J. Willmann Fellows.

This is a challenge for all of us Knights of Columbus who dearly love father George J. Willmann, SJ.

and former Chairman of Dioc-esan Round Table of District Deputies in Malolos, Bulacan. He is also the Chairman of Par-ish Pastoral Council of he Holy Family (quasi) Parish in Catmon, Sta. Maria Bulacan.

Born on December 14, 1957, a uE graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce major in Accountancy is married to schoolmate Sis. Veronica and blessed with one daughter. Sis Veronica, a consistent awardee is a 2010 Fr. Willmann of the Round Table (WKRT) awardee. Their daughter Elyn Mae is tak-ing up physical theraphy course at the university of Santo Tomas and aiming to become a lady physician in the future.Bro. Efren Casupanan

The CrossC4 Vol. 15 No. 8April 11 - 24, 2011

CBCP Monitor

South City Homes Academy Squires holds charter presentation, installation of officers

FBG conducts Fraternal Service Training to FCs of LuzonTHE Fraternal Benefits Group of the Knights of Columbus Fraternal Association of the Philippines, Inc. (KCFAPI) held a service training for fraternal counselors at the KCFAPI Social hall in Intramuros, Manila last March 22 to 23, 2011.

The training was participated by twenty newly appointed fra-ternal counselors from Bulacan, Cabanatuan, Northeastern Lu-zon, Bicol, Northwestern Luzon, Northern Luzon, Cavite, and Metro Manila.

Also, some newly hired em-ployees of KCFAPI joined the service training.

The introduction of the Order of the Knights of Columbus was underlined by the speakers as they highlighted the KCFAPI plans, program, products and history during the two-day training.

Strategies on sales perfor-mance was shared by Joseph P. Teodoro, Fraternal Benefits Group (FBG) Vice-President. Gari San Sebastian, Fraternal Benefits Services Manager and Teodoro were the trainers and speakers of the said training. (KCFAPI News)

TO be a Fraternal Counselor of the Year is not easy as it may seem to be. One has to generate no less than P2Million pesos in First Year Contribution Income (FYCI), forty-eight (48) new paid lives while maintaining a retention rate of 85% up at the end of December 2010. All these challenges were hurdled by our 2010 FC of the Year, Bro. Lorenzo D. Dufale Sr. of North Western Luzon Thunders. Bro. Inzo, as he is fondly called in his hometown in Pilar, Abra, was able to produce P2.4 M in FYCI, 50 new paid lives and 96% retention rate in 2010.

H a v i n g s ta r ted h i s apostolate in the Knights of Columbus in 1997, Bro. D u f a l e b e -came an ac-tive member as a Trustee for four years. The experi-ences he had for more than a decade as a knight gave him a lot of opportunities for him to be exposed and be trained to deal with different people from all walks of life, from various sectors and interests. In 2004, he joined the Knights of Columbus Fraternal Association of the Phils., Inc. (KCFAPI) as a fraternal counselor.

As an FC, Bro. Inzo Dufale had to visit a brother knight and his family from sunrise to sunset, day in and out to ad-dress their family’s concern especially on financial security through KCFAPI,

the benefit system provider of the Or-der of the Knights of Columbus in the Philippines. He was able to persuade and encourage almost all of his council members to avail of their insurance ben-efits and is always guided by the four Cardinal principles of the Order namely Charity, unity, Fraternity and Patrio-tism while serving the membership and families of the Knights of Columbus. Be-ing a true and living example as knight

and gentleman, Bro. Inzo is re-garded by his fellow mem-bers as a role model and an adviser in both profess ional and personal matters.

Bro. Loren-z o ’ s m o t t o , “ A J o u r n e y of a thousand miles begins out of a single step” helped him to figure out not just his role but mis-sion in life. He worked with passion and dedication in everything he does, and now – he realized that his dream

has turned into reality. One thing the FC of the Year never forgets, to pray and thank the Lord for all the wonder-ful things He has done for him and his family.

Bro. Dufale is a Municipal Agricultur-ist by profession in Pilar, Abra where he served since 1973. Married to Sis. Elena, he has five children who are all professionals and proud Benefit Cer-tificate holders of KCFAPI. (Gari M. San Sebastian)

A journey of a thousand miles begins out of a single step

THE Knights of Columbus Co-lumbian Squires of South City Homes Academy Circle 5458 held its Charter presentation and installation of Circle of-ficers at the South City Homes Academy of San Vicente Ferrer Parish in San Vicente, Biñan City on March 22, 2011.

The Circle document from the Supreme Council was presented by Jose F. Cuaresma, Luzon Columbian Squires Chairman to Grand Knight Leonardo L. Manalo and District Deputy Felix Galang, Jr.

The said newly instituted Circle of the Columbian Squires, the K of C Catholic youth or-ganization was sponsored by Council 14957, District S-53 of

Luzon Squire stand ‘No’ to RH BillT H E C o l u m b i a n Squires of Luzon ju-risdiction, a Catholic youth organization of the Knights of Colum-bus have expressed their opposition to the Reproductive Health Bill now aggressively pushed in Congress.

During the “Walk for Life” organized by the Luzon jurisdiction last March 26, 2011 at the Rajah Sulayman Park in Malate, Manila, Matthew Harvey T. Peralta, Lu-zon State Deputy Chief Squire, delivered a strong message saying that it is a religious and moral ob-ligation of every Catholic to defend life.

The speech was ad-dressed to at least 7,000 KC members and their families who partici-pated in the protest

rally on Reproductive Health Bill that start-ed with a Eucharis-tic Celebration at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros and cul-minated with a pro-gram at the park after a 4-kilometer walk.

Peralta stated that as an organization of Catholic gentlemen and as people of God, they “approve this stand” to oppose the RH Bill.

“This stand is built on the importance of life given by the Lord that is clearly challenged by the bill as it seeks to legal-ize surgical procedures denounced as immoral by the Catholic Church and suggest having two children in a family as ideal family size without moral or scientific basis for the recommenda-

tion,” Peralta said.Peralta contended

the claim of the RH bill proponents that the country is overpopulat-ed and hence the need to reduce birth rate.

His realization of the mistaken idea about population in the RH bill was initially taken from Squires State Pri-or, Msgr. Pedro Quito-rio, during the Squires Forum on the RH Bill where he underlined that overcrowding in the country is caused by centralization of population in urban areas and poor popu-lation management.

“The real issue is population distribu-tion and use. The real solution is creating jobs that are not con-centrated on the major

cities to further devel-op other places in the country,” he said.

The Squires consid-er the misrepresented idea of “responsible parenthood” in the bill as “demoralizing the Filipino people as mere persons who can’t rely on their self-control, therefore needing me-chanical ways to do the job,” since it is said in the bill that responsible parenthood means de-ciding on the use of contraceptives or to undergo certain surgi-cal procedure funded by the government “to achieve a desirable number of offspring.”

“Responsible par-enthood is giving the knowledge and the skills to their children for them to become

better citizens. It is making better chil-dren to make a better world,” Peralta said.

The Squires believe that it is not true that sex education from Grade V to Fouth Year High School being proposed by the Bill would educate them to the dangers of sex and therefore prevent pros-titution and infidelity.

“This is self-contra-dicting because if the bill were to promote “safe” sex by providing the people with dif-ferent ways of contra-ception, wouldn’t that provoke more people to go through with pros-titution and adultery because they would have cheaper sources for “safe” sex?, Peralta said. (Vanessa Puno)

THE Knights of Columbus Christ the King Council 12342 of GSIS Village, San Pedro, Laguna conducted its Free Throw Champion-ship to young boys and girls last March 20, 2011 at Barangay GSIS basketball court. A total of 11 boys and 10 girls participated in the said activity. Winners received a trophy and cash prize.

This program is one of the projects of the Knights of Columbus aimed to give the youth a chance to participate in worthwhile activities and at the same time know the value of sports-manship and the spirit of camaraderie.

Likewise, the said event coincided with the 2011 Sangguniang Kabataan Basketball League, a project organized by GSIS Sports Club in coordination with the Barangay Chairman and Council, GSIS Homeowner’s Association and Knights of Columbus Christ the King Council 12342.

Grand Knight Basil B. Occeno tossed the ceremonial jump ball for the opening of bas-ketball league and awarded the trophy and cash prize to the winners of the free throw championship. GK Basil Occeno also received a plaque of appreciation from the GSIS Baran-gay Chairman Ronald Orlain for gracing the said event. (KC News)

KC holds Free Throw Championship

the Diocese of San Pablo.The installation of officers and

oath taking of officers were led by Mario Bautista and Cuares-ma after the charter presenta-tion. Speeches were delivered by Cuaresma, Galang, Manalo and Chief Squire of Circle 5458 John Zedrick D. Siaga.

The nineteen member Circle is under the spiritual guidance and direction of their Father Prior, Fr. Emil urriquia. Efren Mendoza, State Seminar Director, Enrico Nera, State Squires Director for Ceremonials, Raymund Gubat, State Squires Director for Train-ing, George Michael Tuyay, Diocesan Area Chairman for Parañaque also attended the event. (KC News)