Category: Documents

The Church People – Workers Solidarity (CWS) joins the international community in celebrating International Human Rights Day. We stand in solidarity with human rights defenders as we commemorate this day when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR sets out a broad range of fundamental rights and freedoms to which all of us are entitled. It guarantees the rights of every individual everywhere, without distinction based on nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or any other status. The Declaration is ever more relevant today as Filipinos face relentless and increasing attacks on their fundamental rights by State forces.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already devastated the economic life of millions of Filipinos with recent data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showing an 8.7% unemployment rate in October—or around 3.8 million people jobless. Reports of hunger incidence also reached a record-high in September as Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported 30.7% or an estimated 7.6 million families reported involuntary hunger amid the pandemic. President Duterte’s militarist approach to the pandemic only worsened the human rights situation in the country as thousands of ordinary Filipinos were arrested due to alleged quarantine violations.

The Philippines, under the present administration has become a dangerous country especially for human rights defenders. Attacks against human rights advocates continue. Zara Alvarez, a CWS volunteer and a long-time human rights defender in Negros was killed on August 17, 2020. She was previously red-tagged as terrorist by State forces in 2018. The Commission on Human Rights pointed out that human rights defenders live a “grim reality” in the Philippines as they face systemic and widespread attacks for their work. In 2018, the United Nations listed the Philippines as one of 38 countries where governments subject human rights defenders and activists to “an alarming and shameful level of harsh reprisals and intimidation.”

CWS express strong concern over the recent waves of “red-tagging” among church people and labor leaders. Red-tagging vilifies individuals and organizations as enemies of the State, communists, and terrorists. We firmly believe that red tagging along with the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 will only intensify attacks and widespread repression against activists, lawyers, human rights and environmental defenders, indigenous peoples, workers, farmers, and peace advocates. Last December 4, labor leader and transport union organizer Jose Bernardino was arrested at Sitio Maisac, Mexico town, Pampanga on charges of rebellion. Red tagging is essentially against freedom of speech because it is aimed at stopping speech, expression, beliefs, and association it does not agree with. These “acts of intolerance, discrimination, and violence”, as Pope Francis pointed out in his 2018 Human Rights Day message are nourished by “reductive anthropological visions… that does not hesitate to exploit, discard, and even kill man.” Pope Francis reiterated his call to give special attention to “more vulnerable members of our communities” whose “dignity is ignored, despised or trampled on and their most basic rights ignored or violated.”

As we welcome the coming of the Messiah through the Season of Advent, may we be reminded that praying and loving is what it means to be watchful. As the Pope reminded us during his Advent homily: “when the Church worships God and serves our neighbor, it does not live in the night. However weak and weary, she journeys towards the Lord.” May we continue to defend the defenseless and be the voice of the voiceless. May the Savior’s light “rouse us from our slumber and mediocrity; awaken us from the darkness of indifference and awaken in us the desire to pray and the need to love.” In these times of darkness where evil and tyranny persist and rampant human rights violations escalate, may we become beacons of hope and love by upholding and defending the fundamental rights of those who are most vulnerable. May we continue to show courage in the midst of persecution as we link arms with the broad masses in building a more just and humane society.

Stop Red Tagging!
Scrap Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020!
Activism in not a crime!
Defend human rights!

Signed:

Becoming Jesus’ Missionary Disciples

Dearly Beloved People of God,

The Philippine Church rejoices as it enters a national celebration of the 500 Years of Christianity in our treasured homeland.  Five centuries ago we received the marvelous gift of the Christian faith; our hearts overflow with joy and gratitude.  Why of all the nations and peoples in Asia was the Philippines chosen by God to be among the first to receive this precious gift?  The clear answer is simply this: God’s magnanimous, overflowing love.

We recall what God told his people Israel regarding his choice: “It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations.  It was because the Lord loved you and because of his fidelity…” (Dt 7:7-8).  Only God’s freely given love can illuminate the choice of the Filipino people to receive this valuable gift of faith!

The Christian faith arrived and prospered in our land through the dedication and heroic sacrifices of thousands of men and women missionaries from various parts of the world.  They treasured the gift of faith they had received and desired to share this gift with others.  As the theme chosen by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for this fifth centennial notes: all Christians are “gifted to give.”  This “giftedness” motivated generous missionaries over the centuries; it must also enflame the hearts of all of us today to engage in mission here at home and in other countries (missio ad gentes).  Indeed, this is part of Jesus’ mission mandate to his disciples: “What you have received as a gift, give as a gift” (Mt 10:8).  We pray for a missionary renewal of our Church—both at home (ad intra) and beyond our borders (ad extra) during our celebration of the 500 years—and into the future!

Missionary Transformation. Our beloved Pope Francis, who visited us in 2015, is committed to the missionary renewal of the entire Church; we can take inspiration from his document Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel).  He asserts that we need an “evangelizing Church that comes out of herself,” not a Church that is “self-referential” and “lives within herself, of herself, for herself” (cf. EG 20-24).  Francis says: “I dream of a ‘missionary option,’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation….  All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion” (EG 27).  We seek to renew our mission enthusiasm here at home as well as missio ad gentes, mission to other nations and peoples.

Pope Francis continues: “Missionary outreach is paradigmatic for all the Church’s activity….  We need to move ‘from a pastoral ministry of mere conservation to a decidedly missionary pastoral ministry’” (EG 15).  “I want to emphasize that what I am trying to express here has programmatic significance and important consequences….  Throughout the world, let us be ‘permanently in a state of mission’” (EG 25).  We must seek to “put all things in a missionary key” (EG 34).  We recall the challenge of Pope John Paul II during his 1981 visit to our Church: “I wish to tell you of my special desire: that the Filipinos will become the foremost missionaries of the Church in Asia.”  This is a clear invitation to engage in missio ad gentes!

Pope Francis’ insights about Church missionary renewal come from his deep personal relationship with Christ.  He writes: “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ….  I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day” (EG 3).  A pivotal insight of Pope Francis is that “we are all missionary disciples” (EG 119); through baptism, “all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples” (EG 120).  All Christians are “agents of evangelization.”  Missionary evangelization “calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized….  Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples’ and ‘missionaries,’ but rather that we are always ‘missionary disciples’” (EG 120).

Joy: A Convincing Sign.  For Pope Francis, salvation history is a “great stream of joy” (EG 5) which we must also enter.  Let the joy of faith be revived, because God’s mercies never end (cf. EG 6).  Unfortunately, “there are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter” (EG 6).  “An evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral” (EG 10).  We must not become “querulous and disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses’” (EG 85).  “May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ (EG 10; cf. EN 75).  We all must not “end up stifling the joy of mission” (EG 79), both here at home and in other lands!

Mercy: Today’s Pathway in Mission.  Pope Francis continually insists that mercy is the very essence of God.  In his Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy) Francis expresses it this way: mercy is God’s identity card.  He says: “We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy.  It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace…. Mercy [is] the bridge that connects God and man” (MV 2).  Francis quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas, who asserts that “mercy is the greatest of all virtues; … all the others revolve around it … it is proper to God to have mercy” (EG 37).  “Mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life.  All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers; nothing in her preaching and in her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy.  The Church’s very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love” (MV 10).

“The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person….  As the Church is charged with the task of the new evangelization, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action….  In our parishes, communities, associations and movements, in a word, wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy” (MV 12).

Conclusion. Pope Francis’ profound thoughts on missionary renewal, joy, and mercy provide a solid compass to guide us as individuals and communities during our 500-years celebration and in the year 2021 which is dedicated to missio ad gentes (mission to all peoples).  With Pope Francis we ask two graces of the Lord: “Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary vigor” (EG 109).  “Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary enthusiasm” (EG 80).  We remain constant in prayer, asking our two canonized “foreign” missionary saints, Lorenzo Ruiz and Pedro Calungsod, to intercede for us so that our loving God will always abundantly bless our Church in the Philippines and all her many missionary endeavors!

For the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines,

Typhoon Rolly left thousands of families bereft of hope, security and stability.

We saw how super typhoon toppled down not only houses but dreams. We witnessed how not only it took lives – to some, it actually claimed an entire community.

On November 1, 2020, NASSA/Caritas Philippines launched a global appeal for help in anticipation of the vast devastation brought by #RollyPH in Bicol region and other parts of Luzon.

“While we urge everyone to continue praying for safety, we also launch today our global appeal for help. The typhoon will surely bring greater poverty to our communities severely affected by the typhoon, as they have also been battling against the effects of COVID-19. So with humility, we appeal for everyone’s sincere acts of kindness, generosity and compassion.”

“In these most trying time, we lift up everything to our God. We also know that everyone around the world will be able to listen to our prayers and send help.”

“Thus, we enjoin all the dioceses in the country to reach out and assist our affected dioceses. Let us do #AlayKapwa together.”

To donate:

Alay Kapwa Account
Account Name: CBCP Caritas Filipinas Foundation, Inc. – NASSA
Account No.: 4951 0071 08
Bank: BPI

Angelus: Pope Continues Catechesis on Prayer (Full Text)

November 11, 2020 | Jim Fair

It seems that someone told Pope Francis that he talks too much about prayer, that is isn’t necessary. And as expected, he rejected that advice.

Perhaps to protect the reputation of his critic, he didn’t mention the name or place of the incident but during his General Audience today continued teaching on the necessity of prayer. The audience was livestreamed from the Apostolic Library of the Apostolic Palace, with in-person audiences restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Yes, it is necessary,” the Holy Father said of prayer. “Because if we do not pray, we will not have the strength to go forward in life.

“Prayer is like the oxygen of life. Prayer draws down on us the Holy Spirit’s presence who always leads us forward. For this reason, I speak a lot about prayer.”

Pope Francis cited the Catechism and three parables to demonstrate that prayer must be “tenacious” and must continue even if everything seems in vain. Prayer is never done alone.

“Jesus, in fact, is not only a witness and teacher of prayer; He is more.,” Francis said. “He welcomes us in His prayer so that we might pray in Him and through Him. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the Gospel invites us to pray to the Father in Jesus’s name.”

Following is the Holy Father’s full address, provided by the Vatican:

5 November 2020

Protect Tampakan… Defend Mindanao: SMI Tampakan, Leave MindaNOW

We are one with the peoples of Mindanao and as the Filipino people, united in faith that calls for ecological justice and integrity. 

We vigorously oppose, vehemently denounce and verily object to this Tampakan Mining Project of the Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI), whose key player is the Alcantara Group of Companies.

KNOW THE FACTS:   The Tampakan Mining Project is a mammoth project and leviathan in its impact.   SMI Tampakan covers 4 provincial boundaries(1), the headwaters of six (6) catchments and 2 major river systems, where:

• Nearly 10,000 hectares of forestland will be razed, 50% of which are closed and open canopy forests. The open pit is 800 meters deep, 2.5 km wide and 3 km long.
• 1000 families will be ejected from their community, relocating 5000 persons, including women and children
• AT LEAST 5000 farmers/irrigators depend on the headwaters in the FMA for their cultivation of prime agricultural lands.
• 500 hectares will be covered by waste rock high in arsenic and ripe for acid mine drainage
  The area sits on geological faultlines and a cluster of dormant volcanoes within 12 km of Mt. Matutum, an active volcano (2).

SMI Tampakan will leave irreversible impacts on food security, peoples and biodiversity, and is a serious threat to peace and security including Mindanao’s resilience to climate change.

Mindanao is being primed as the food basket of the country with 1/3 of its land devoted to agriculture, even as it ranks high in poverty incidence and heightened conflict areas.  It is also home to the critically endangered Philippine Eagle as well as rich flora and fauna species with high endemicity.(4)  Globally threatened species are also found in Mindanao. 

Protecting Tampakan is defending Mindanao and its key role in the Philippine economy and environment and the rest of the world.

LEARN FROM THE PAST

We do not want another Marcopper disaster: dead rivers, a heavily silted and toxic Calancan Bay, heavy metals flowing in the bloodstream of children, tailings-laced ricefields, from nearly 25 years ago until today.

• When the mine tailings are dumped, or the open pit operates, which river systems will die? Can Sarangani Bay survive a power station and a filter plant that will dewater the mine concentrate?
• When water to be used in the mining operations is 300 million liters per second(5)  which rivers will dry up and how many hectares of farmland will become wasteland(6)? 
• When the forests are cleared where will the people go? How will they live when their lifeblood is the forests and rivers? How many threatened flora and fauna species will go extinct?
• How will Mindanaoans brace for the impact of natural disasters and remain resilient when the region’s vulnerable ecosystem has become more fragile? Mining accounts for the highest number of human-induced earthquakes worldwide(7).

CHAIN OF IRREGULARITIES

In 2016, SMI’s permit was cancelled by then Secretary Gina Lopez of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).  She had said that the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) should not have been issued at all due to serious irregularities.

In 2019, the Office of the President restored this ECC. How can a cancelled ECC be “restored”? And have the issues surrounding the illegitimate issuance of the ECC been resolved?

In 2020, we learned that the contract of the Tampakan Mining Project was extended for 12 years. The Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement/FTAA expired last March 2020. Apparently, in 2016, the previous administration’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau Director of the DENR Leon L. Jasareno, “approved” the 12 year extension.

But isn’t this being done behind the back of President Rodrigo Duterte who has declared repeatedly that the protection of the Filipino people and the environment is NON-NEGOTIABLE in his term?

Or did President Rodrigo Duterte himself consent to this 12-year extension by his silence? Did he actually consent to a project that endangers the whole of Mindanao, its old-growth forests, its rivers, its flourishing rice fields, the rights of the B’laans and the livelihood of 200,000 farmers in the interests of foreigners, or worse, in the private interest of political allies in business with foreigners? If not, as we suspect, are there not odious signs of malpractice in government in the resurgence of the Tampakan mines?

This October, Indigenous Peoples’ Month, the public learned that tribal rights were “granted” to the SMI Tampakan by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) (NCIP) in a CP (Certification Precondition) issued last September 19. NCIP is charged to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples. News of this NCIP move came after the Koronadal City Regional Trial Court upheld the constitutionality of the open-pit mining ban of South Cotabato last October 12.

How can the actions of government be justified and reconciled?

DEAFENING SILENCE

The silence of DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu is deafening with consent.

The silence of President Rodrigo Duterte fails to protect his Mindanao and its peoples.

Silence means YES.  Yes to the destruction fomenting in the horizon:

• The brewing disintegration of cultures and peoples especially the B’laans;
• The backlash of losing the remaining forest cover of Mindanao in the face of climate change;
• The worsening water crisis in Mindanao
• The continuing suffering of peoples, especially farmers, women and children in Mindanao

In a documentary film entitled FRANCESCO that premiered in Italy last week, an old interview with Pope Francis conducted in Spanish appeared where he said the following:

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it…What we have to create is a civil union law (emphasis added). That way they are legally covered,” the pope said. “I stood up for that.”

Many interpreted this statement on creating “ley convivencia civil” i.e., “a civil union law” as a Papal endorsement on same sex marriage.

Many countered that this is merely call for “civil co-existence” with people with same sex attraction, i.e., that there should be laws created to assure that same-sex attracted peoples and couples are not unjustly discriminated against.

We offer several points for reflection over the matter:

1. Did Pope Francis just change Church teaching on Same Sex Unions?

The answer is No.

Pope Francis has been consistent in defending natural marriage as a divinely willed institution between a man and woman, committed to live together for life, for the purpose of conception and rearing and education of children, for the good of society. Even as a Cardinal in Buenos Aires, he has spoken boldly in favor of natural marriage:

In an article that came out on L’Osservatore Romano, the then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina, has said that if a proposed bill giving same-sex couples the opportunity to marry and adopt children should be approved, it will “seriously damage the family.”

He made the statement in a letter addressed to each of the four monasteries in Argentina, asking the contemplatives to pray “fervently” that legislators be strengthened to do the right thing.

He added: “In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family…At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts.”

Cardinal Bergoglio concluded: “Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

2. Does the Church care for same sex attracted persons? A big yes.

As a good pastor and leader of the Catholic Church, we see Pope Francis calling for legal protection of “civil unions” between same sex attracted persons which we cannot deny exist. While their union is in no way being endorsed as a marriage and a sacrament, the Pope is calling that rights that accrue to them as legal persons and children of God be given them and be covered by law. To make an imperfect analogy, even offenders of the law have rights and those rights have to be covered and protected by law. Such protection in is no way an endorsement of criminal activity but simply an assurance that EVERYBODY have rights before the law.

3. What is the proper forum where we can know official Church teaching?

The statement on a call for a “law on civil union” was made in a context of a casual interview. Pope Francis was not speaking in a position of teaching as the supreme teacher of the faith. A Pope’s personal views on things and formal proclamations can have differences in nuances and interpretations. Personal interviews and casual conversations do not have the power to effect changes in doctrinal and pastoral programs of the Church. Neither do they have the doctrinal, canonical and pastoral weight of a formal encyclical or apostolic exhortation.

4. What has Pope Francis officially taught about same sex unions?

If we want to know what the Pope formally teaches and endorses as the leader of the Catholic Church, we turn to official documents like Encyclicals, Apostolic Exhortations and Letters. And speaking of official Magisterial Pronouncements, this is what Pope Francis has laid down as the official position of the Magisterium of the Church:

From Amoris Laetitia n. 250:

“The Church makes her own the attitude of the Lord Jesus, who offers his boundless love to each person without exception. During the Synod, we discussed the situation of families whose members include persons who experience same-sex attraction, a situation not easy either for parents or for children. We would like before all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided (emphasis added), particularly any form of aggression and violence. Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”

Again from Amoris Laetitia n. 251 on the character of Same Sex Unions:

“In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, ‘as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family’” (emphasis added). It is unacceptable ‘that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex’”.

Let us continue to pray for the Holy Father and his solemn duty to sail the bark of Peter safely afloat amidst the confusion and challenges of the modern times.