Now
it’s definite. On his flight back to
Rome, after a grueling Holy Land trip, Pope Francis confirmed he
plans to visit the Philippines, come January 2015
“With regard to Asia, two
trips are planned,” Francis said, according to the Vatican Information Service.
One will be to South Korea where he’ll meet young Asians. The other will be “a
two-day trip to Sri Lanka, then on to the Philippines, to the area affected by
the typhoon.”
Manila Archbishop Luis
Antonio Cardinal Tagle said the Pope—who stresses the need to reach out to the
world's “peripheries”—wants to visit areas hit by disasters such as Super
Typhoon Yolanda and the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in the Visayas.
Francis seeks to “come close
to the people who suffered from the recent typhoon and the earthquake,” Tagle
added in an interview at a stopover at Catholic University of America in
Washington, DC. “He’d want that to be a defining character of
his trip
Francis’ visit ought to be a
barn-burner of a trip,” John Allen of Boston Globe wrote.” When (now Saint)
John Paul visited Manila for World Youth Day in 1995, he drew a crowd estimated
at around 4 million plus. That made it among the largest Christian
gatherings of all time. “And there’s no reason to assume the turnout would be
any less massive now.
The Philippines remains one
of the most profoundly Catholic nations Street signs in downtown Manila, for
instance, read “Caution: Masses and Prayers Always in Progress.” And even
commercial shopping malls have chapels with several daily services.
Some basic figures on the
country that Francis will find waiting. As of 2014, population here was estimated
to crest at 100,617,630. That’s quintuple that of the 1940 census. The
next census is due 2015. Bracketed between Mexico and Ethiopia, that
makes the Philippines the 12th most populated country in the world.
Its people send two billion text messages a day—a world record.
Islam and
Christianity were introduced upon an indigenous religious base
here, an Asia Society paper notes. Beginning in 1350, Islam spread from
Indonesia into the Philippines. Magellan in 1521 brought Catholicism first into
Cebu. People later were resettled from dispersed hamlets and brought “debajo
de las companas” (under the bells), into Spanish organized pueblos. This set a
pattern that is still evident in today’s towns.
“The results of 400 years of
Catholicism were mixed—ranging from a deep theological understanding by the
educated elite to a more superficial understanding by the rural and urban
masses. The latter is commonly referred to as Filipino folk Christianity,
combining a surface veneer of Christian monotheism and dogma with indigenous
animism.”
Here is breakdown of religions: Roman Catholic—80.9
percent; Muslim—5 percent; Evangelical—2.8 percent; Iglesia ni Cristo—2.3
percent; Aglipayan—2 percent; other Christian—4.5%,
Francis’
predecessor, Pope Paul VI, visited the Philippines in November 1970. At
the Manila International Airport a Peruvian psychopath Benjamin Mendoza, garbed
in a priest’s cassock, tried to stab him. He was foiled by the prelate’s
personal secretary Pasquale Macchi.
The then martial law censored
press tried to peddle the story that it was President Ferdinand Marcos who
grabbed the knife. No one bought the claim. Mendoza was sentenced to 38 months
in prison for attempted murder and deported to Bolivia in 1974.
The Vatican will beatify
Pope Paul VI on October 19, after recognizing 'miracle' that he cured an
unborn baby, Italian news agency ANSA reported. This leaves him one step from
sainthood. The apparent miracle was identified by the Vatican's Congregation
for the Causes of Saints.
Paul VI was praised for his
efforts to seek closer ties with other Christian denominations but his 1968
encyclical Humanae Vitae was controversial for spelling out a ban on all forms
of artificial contraception. The application for beatification was begun in
1993.
Pope Francis will find his
flock welcoming—and also troubled. On Sundays, churches are packed to the
seams. But more do not attend mass. Only six percent of young Filipinos
today received “significant religious instruction.” A Catholic Bishops
Conference of the Philippines study showed. “Filipino youth are not
turning away from their faith, Filipino theologian Catalino
Arevalo wrote earlier. “They are simply not being reached,”
An estimated 560
thousand illicit abortions occur every year, given lack of access to family
planning information and services, the Catholic sociologist Mary Racelis
notes. Of all married women, 63 percent do not want to get pregnant
anymore; for those who already have three children, the rate jumps to 81
percent.
The overwhelming number of
maternal deaths—far higher than the rest of Southeast Asia—thus challenges the
credibility of church leaders arguing against the RH law.
There is new leadership
emerging in the Philippine church seen in Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and the
new Catholic Bishops Conference president Socrates Villegas. And reforms are
taking root in churches that, for example, shun threats of excommunication.
Instead of allowing rich parishes to dominate, a uniform pattern of compensation
for priests is emerging.
“Don’t get tired of bringing
the mercy of the Father to the poor, the sick, the abandoned, the young people,
and the family,” Francis said in his video message for the Philippine
Conference on New Evangelization at the University of Santo Tomas. Wait
until Francis repeats that here at home.
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