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JUBILEE FOR THE EARTH

September 3,2020

MOST. REV. BRODERICK S. PABILLO, DD
Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas

Dear Your Excellency,

Season of Creation special greetings of peace and wellbeing from the Heart of Creation and from the Heart of our Loving Creator!

First of all, our gratitude to all of you who have joined and shared the kick-off webinars for the first week of the Season of Creation 2020. You are invited to join and at the same time promote/share the webinars for this season. We are providing here the list of Zoom Links to all our webinars and other online activities.

May I call on you Dear Partners, particularly the members of the Committees, please help facilitate and coordinate the registration of Speakers, Moderators, Reactors, Artists and Prayer Leaders who are part of our programs. Please REGISTER and SHARE the Zoom Links below: (MS Word file attached)

Observed September 6-12

September 03, 2020

Each year the Catholic Bishops of Aotearoa New Zealand set aside a week in September for Social Justice Week, inviting the faithful to reflect and take action on a current social justice issue. Caritas prepares the resources for this week, which this year takes place from September 6-12.

This year the Social Justice Week theme is Catholic Social Teaching, which provides a moral framework to guide our decisions and actions.

The bishops have written a statement for Social Justice Week.  In it, they say Catholic Social Teaching has never been more relevant than now: “From navigating through a world still responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, to an increased awareness of racism and historic injustice, and the ever-increasing socio-economic disparities, the Church’s social teaching helps us focus our concerns about the world. It provides a lens through which we can try to make sense of how our society is being changed, particularly by COVID-19 at this time.”

Social Justice Week
2020 6-12 September

New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference Statement on Catholic Social Teaching

Never has Catholic social teaching been more relevant in New Zealand and in our world than now. From navigating through a world still responding to the COVID- 19 pandemic, to an increased awareness of racism and historic injustice, and the ever-increasing socio-economic disparities, the Church’s social teaching helps us focus our concerns about the world. It provides a lens through which we can try to make sense of how our society is being changed, particularly by COVID-19 at this time.

Catholic social teaching is a body of thought on social issues that has been developed by the Church over the past one hundred and thirty years. Its foundations are rooted within Scripture and can be found in writings by a succession of Popes and other Catholic leaders. Catholic social teaching helps us to apply Gospel values such as love, peace, justice, compassion and community to modern social problems such as poverty – including homelessness and hunger, conflict, migration, access to goods and the environment.

Statement of GOMBURZA

Corruption in the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is not only colosStatement of GOMBURZA sal thievery, robbing Filipino workers and taxpayers of their contributions to the fund.  It also violates the right of Filipinos to universal health care, bleeding billions of pesos away from state resources intended for this purpose.  In a pandemic that has caused thousands of deaths in our country, it violates the right to life.

PhilHealth corruption has taken many forms: diverted premium payments of up to P114 million in 2012, unnecessary or sham cataract removals worth PHP2 billion in 2014, fraudulent dialysis claims, the “upcasing” of mild respiratory infections to pneumonia, membership rosters with 500,000 people aged 100 to 121, and recently, a bid to procure overpriced and obsolete information technology equipment.

Sadly, the pandemic that is devastating our people and our economy has opened more opportunities for corruption: inordinately expensive COVID-19 test kits; an Interim Reimbursement Mechanism that expedites COVID-19 related advances to hospitals in regions with low infection rates, while hospitals in high infection areas, including government facilities, still await reimbursement.

Yet even as the Duterte administration coddles its appointee, PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo Morales—requesting him to resign for the sake of his health—its supporters have viciously used the issue of corruption in PhilHealth against those it perceives as its enemies. 

Circular 20-001

24 August 2020
Feast of St. Bartholomew

Dear Eminences, Excellencies and Reverend Administrators,

Greetings of good health and peace in Our Lord.

Pope Francis, in his Preface to a book on hope during this CoViD-19 pandemic, reflects that “Like a sudden breaking storm, the coronavirus crisis has caught us all by surprise, abruptly changing on a global level our personal, public, family and working lives.”

Would that such changes serve us all for the better! This is the challenge we face: that this present crisis bring out the best in all of us. And yet, the fear and suffering, the anxiety and uncertainty we experience today is brought about not just by this new Corona Virus, but also by the old social virus of selfishness and corruption. The harm these do to our people and our country is immeasurable. We cannot allow this current health crisis to encourage the worse in us, Filipinos. Rather we stand with those who, understanding that “health” is not just about physical well-being, spend their best efforts for the wholistic betterment of our communities, our country and ourselves. For this reason, in order to help propagate a culture characterized by mutual respect, accountability, patience, and hope, let us be encouraged through inter-faith prayer and this inspirational video. This is a product of collaboration among some Episcopal Commissions; it can be shared to all.

The CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Health Care in collaboration with the Episcopal Commission on Youth and Episcopal Commission on Social Communications would like to invite everyone in the launching of the “Yakapin ang Bagong Bukas” Advocacy on 31 August 2020 (National Heroes Day) at 4:30PM through online (CBCP News, Catholic Media Network, and other platforms)

Furthermore, we would also like to request for a simultaneous ringing of church bells, on 31 August 2020 at 6:00PM, to signal our unity and call for a collective effort in these trying times.

Sincerely yours,

Endorsed by:

Your Eminence, Beatitude, Grace and Excellency,
Esteemed Heads of religious Congregations,
Esteemed Priests,
Esteemed Teachers and those responsible for Educational institutions

Greetings of peace, solidarity and hope!

These are trying times and we yearn for remission.The COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting Asia and the rest of the world: joint efforts suggest that it will be overcome in a few years. But in the long term, the greatest challenge facing humankind in the 21st century is human-made climate change and the associated ecological crisis. The well- being of many future generations in Asia and worldwide depends on coping with them.

This year, the Catholic Church fully participates in the ecumenical Season of Creation, following the invitation by Pope Francis. This special season, which the Holy Father describes as a “season of increased prayer and effort on behalf of our common home”, begins on 1st September, the Word Day of Prayer for the Care for Creation and ends on 4th October, the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi. The theme for 2020 is Jubilee for the Earth: New Rhythms, New Hope. We in Asia hope to witness the Spirit renewing the face of earth as we consider the integral relationship between rest for the earth and our ways of living – ecological, economic, social and political. Through action in our families, parishes, schools, youth organisations, dioceses that is rooted in prayer, we seek to heal and renew our relationship with our common home.

We find inspiration in the Laudato Si’ encyclical’s call to undergo an “ecological conversion” and in the Word of God – Leviticus 25: 10-12 tells us that the Jubilee Year is a time of reprieve; its more familiar aspects being the setting free of slaves, the settling of debts and the restoration of property and ownership rights. Of note however, is that the Jubilee Year stipulated a time of rest for the land i.e. the earth, during which no sowing or reaping would take place. The land would have to lie fallow every fiftieth year, in addition to the Sabbath Year that took place every seventh year. The proclamation of the Jubilee Year by Yahweh highlights the intimate connection between the earth and its inhabitants, an intertwining that has been present since the time of creation.

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has celebrated Jubilee Years as a time of conversion and finding new ways for personal and social lifestylesand for the receipt of graces. The former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, The Very Reverend Adolfo Nicolás SJ, aptly explained that the Jubilee is a blessed time to be grateful for – and since not everyone is blessed in the same measure, this blessing ought to be passed on to the earth, the poor, and to others. We may have overlooked our connection with our common home over the last decades. Certainly, the on-going COVID-19 pandemic has us focused, and rightly so, on the cry of the poor. Yet, in harkening to the marginalised and the less fortunate, we cannot neglect that this very cry of the poor is the cry of the earth too, as Pope Francis has made explicit in Laudato Si’ (49).

‘May the Lord “restore our sight” so as to rediscover what it means to be members of the human family’

August 12, 2020 09:41  ZENIT STAFF GENERAL AUDIENCE

This morning’s general audience took place at 9.25 in the Library of the Vatican Apostolic Palace. The Holy Father began a new catechesis series on healing the world. After summarising his catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father addressed special greetings to the faithful. The general audience concluded with the recitation of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic Blessing. Here is the Vatican-provided unofficial translation:

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

The pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected everyone is. If we do not take care of one another, starting with the least, with those who are most impacted, including creation, we cannot heal the world.

Commendable is the effort of so many people who have been offering evidence of human and Christian love for neighbour, dedicating themselves to the sick even at the risk of their own health. They are heroes! However, the coronavirus is not the only disease to be fought, but rather, the pandemic has shed light on broader social ills. One of these is a distorted view of the person, a perspective that ignores the dignity and relational of the person. (la sua refers to person, not his or her) At times we look at others as objects, to be used and discarded. In reality this type of perspective blinds and fosters an individualistic and aggressive throw-away culture, which transforms the human being into a consumer good (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 53; Encyclical Laudato Si’, [LS], 22).

In the light of faith we know, instead, that God looks at a man and a woman in another manner. He created us not as objects but as people loved and capable of loving; He has created us in His image and likeness (see Gen 1:27). In this way He has given us a unique dignity, calling us to live in communion with Him, in communion with our sisters and our brothers, with respect for all creation. In communion, in harmony, we might say. Creation is the harmony in which we are called to live. And in this communion, in this harmony that is communion, God gives us the ability to procreate and safeguard life (see Gen 1:28-29), to till and keep the land (see Gen 2:15; LS, 67). It is clear that one cannot procreate and safeguard life without harmony; it will be destroyed.

We have an example of that individualistic perspective, that which is not harmony, in the Gospels, in the request made to Jesus by the mother of the disciples James and John (cf. Mt 20:20-38). She wanted her sons to sit at the right and the left of the new king. But Jesus proposes another type of vision: that of service and of giving one’s life for others, and He confirms it by immediately restoring sight to two blind men and making them His disciples (see Mt 20:29-34). Seeking to climb in life, to be superior to others, destroys harmony. It is the logic of dominion, of dominating others. Harmony is something else: it is service.

Therefore, let us ask the Lord to give us eyes attentive to our brothers and sisters, especially those who are suffering. As Jesus’s disciples we do not want to be indifferent or individualistic. These are the two unpleasant attitudes that run counter to harmony. Indifferent: I look the other way. Individualist: looking out only for one’s own interest. The harmony created by God asks that we look at others, the needs of others, the problems of others, in communion. We want to recognise the human dignity in every person, whatever his or her race, language or condition might be. Harmony leads you to recognise human dignity, that harmony created by God, with humanity at the centre.

The Second Vatican Council emphasises that this dignity is inalienable, because it “was created ‘to the image of God’” (Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 12). It lies at the foundation of all social life and determines its operative principles. In modern culture, the closest reference to the principle of the inalienable dignity of the person is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Saint John Paul II defined as a “milestone on the long and difficult path of the human race”, 1 and as “one of the highest expressions of the human conscience”. 2 Rights are not only individual, but also social; they are of peoples, nations. 3 The human being, indeed, in his or her personal dignity, is a social being, created in the image of God, One and Triune. We are social beings; we need to live in this social harmony, but when there is selfishness, our outlook does not reach others, the community, but focuses on ourselves, and this makes us ugly, nasty and selfish, destroying harmony.

This renewed awareness of the dignity of every human being has serious social, economic and political implications. Looking at our brother and sister and the whole of creation as a gift received from the love of the Father inspires attentive behaviour, care and wonder. In this way the believer, contemplating his or her neighbour as a brother or sister, and not as a stranger, looks at him or her compassionately and empathetically, not contemptuously or with hostility. Contemplating the world in the light of faith, with the help of grace, we strive to develop our creativity and enthusiasm in order to resolve the ordeals of the past. We understand and develop our abilities as responsibilities that arise from this faith,4 as gifts from God to be placed at the service of humanity and of creation.

While we all work for a cure for a virus that strikes everyone without distinction, faith exhorts us to commit ourselves seriously and actively to combat indifference in the face of violations of human dignity.

This culture of indifference that accompanies the throwaway culture: things that do not affect me, do not interest me. Faith always requires that we let ourselves be healed and converted from our individualism, whether personal or collective; party individualism, for example.

May the Lord “restore our sight” so as to rediscover what it means to be members of the human family. And may this sight be translated into concrete actions of compassion and respect for every person and of care and safeguarding of our common home.

________________

1 Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations (2 October 1979).
2 Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations (5 October 1995).
3 Cf.