Vol 41, No 1 JANUARY 2007

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Quote in the Act

The right to life and to the free expression of personal faith in God is not subject to the power of man. Peace requires the establishment of a clear boundary between what is at mans disposal and what is not: in this way unacceptable intrusions into the patrimony of specifically human values will be avoided.
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, in his January 1, 2007 annual message for World Peace Day.

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IMPACT
REMITTING ADDRESSES

Copyright 1974 by Social Impact Foundation, Inc.

Why did the executive branch bother to intervene by filing pleadings at the appellate court in support of Smiths petition to be transferred if only they will later take the law into their own hands?
Philippine VFA (Visiting Forces Agreement) Commission executive director Zosimo Paredes, chiding Malacanangs pell-mell intervention in the Dec. 29 clandestine transfer of convicted US Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith from the Makati city jail to the US Embassy. Deviating from the Arroyo administrations official line, Paredes maintained that Smiths return to US custody should have been done after the appellate court ruling and without coercion and bullying.

There is 60% probability that 2007 will be as warm or warmer than the current warmest year, 1998, which itself was 0.52 degrees above the longterm average.
Britains Meteorological Offices forecast study, predicting 2007 to be the hottest on record worldwide due to global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon.

I dont dare guess why the [Comunist] party sacked me, because I fear that they will accuse me of leaking state secrets.
Huang Liangtian, editor of the Beijing-based Chinese publication Baixing, on indicating the method used in China to quiet local journalists. Liangtian was fired after reporting widely on corruption in the government.

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OSCAR V. CRUZ, D.D. ART T. NG JO IMBONG E DITORIAL B OARD PEDRO C. QUITORIO III E DITOR - IN -CHIEF BALTAZAR R. ACEBEDO A SSOCIATE E DITOR DENNIS B. DAYAO M ANAGING E DITOR PINKY BARRIENTOS EULY BELIZAR ROY CIMAGALA MIAMI EBILANE ROY LAGARDE LOPE ROBREDILLO S TAFF WRITERS ROWENA DALANON S ALES & A DVERTISING HERNANI RAMOS C IRCULATION
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What is wrong with that? If that upsets the feelings of some of the Arab nations and Arab rulers, I think: The best of luck to them.
Iraqs national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, who attended Saddam Husseins December 30 execution, on rejecting accusations that the ousted dictator was humiliated before his death. At Saddams execution, members of the execution party shouted the name of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, a bitter opponent of Saddam, and likewise danced around Saddams body after the hanging, which triggered angry outbursts from some Arab countries and international leaders.

I kept thinking how life is cheap, how so many innocent people are killed.
Hadi Faris, of Baghdad (Iraq), whose son Hamza, 11, was one of the 34 boys killed in the July 13, 2005 suicide bombing in Baghdad.

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IMPACT January 2007

I MPACT

January 2007 / Vol 41 No 1

CONTENTS
SOOTHSAYERS, psychics and fortune-tellers always conquer the horizons as if by natural flow of things at the onset of every year, like political analysts whenever elections are drawing near. Each to his own authority, the forebodings would either be this or that and everybody would take it as a matter of course; but mostly the superstitious who is almost everybody despite 400 years or so of Christianity in this country. The traditional message of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict the XVI, for the World Day of Peace 2007, which is what the Church yearns every New Year, strongly asserts that the human person is the heart of peace. I am convinced, says the Pontiff, that the respect for the person promotes peace and that, in building peace, the foundations are laid for an authentic integral humanism. True, indeed, for ultimately it is not for the sake of law or ideology per se that governance should proceed, but for sake of men without prejudice, of course, to the philosophical maxim first posted by Aristotle. With the local elections just around the corner, it should not be hard to foretell even without the crystal ball that the first two quarters of 2007 will be utterly violent and noisy. Politics being still the dirtiest and most destructive endeavor in this country, one thinks that even the rule law, the conviction of ideological principles and philosophyand even religionare becoming inutile and toothless in bringing this country back on tract. Nobody is hopeless. Or desperate, because that is not even the issue. But many of the living are likely to expire without ever seeing the dawn. Chairman and President of the International Right to Life Federation, Dr. John C. Willke, writes From Contraception and Abortion to Euthanasia: A Global Perspective. Citing concrete experiences and incidence of serious import, he delivered this piece at the recent International Conference on Bioethics and Family held in Manila this January. Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, SJ of Cagayan de Oro posts an open letter to the bishops and family life apostolate coordinators of Mindanao. The Standard Days Method (SDM) has been much disdained by many pro-family advocates as a lousy option of natural planning method. A staunch advocate of SDM, the archbishop defends his post. Our cover story is written by no less than Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, OMI. The Secretary General of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, he has been particularly concerned with the multifaceted issues on the family in Asia. The Future of the Asian Family, reveals chilling realities that the Asian family is being dragged into. Read on.
EDITORIAL

Big Fat Lies ....................................................................... 25

COVER STORY

The Future of the Asian Family .................................. 16

ARTICLES

From Contraception and Abortion to Euthanasia: A Global Review ............................................................... 4 Church and Government In All-NFP Promotion ... 8 The Wielgus Case: The Reasons for His Resignation .............................. 12 Greening the New Year ................................................ 14 Meeting at Vatican on the Church in China .......... 15
STATEMENTS

A Conference Statement of the CBCP 2007 International Conference on Bioethics and the Family ............................................................................... 26 Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for the Fifteenth World Day of the Sick ................................. 27
DEPARTMENTS

Quote in the Act .............................................................. 2 From the Blogs ............................................................... 24 From the Inbox .............................................................. 28 Book Reviews ................................................................. 29 CINEMA Review ......................................................... 30 News Briefs ...................................................................... 31
Volume 41 Number 1

ARTICLE S
By John C. Willke, M. D.

he Catholic Church, but also the Protestant churches, had always condemned contraception. A little known example of this is that laws in the eastern United States forbidding the sale or use of contraception were placed there by a heavily Protestant legislature. I might look to the Anglican Church internationally, at a Lambeth Conference in 1923. In that conference, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was denounced and was called a she-devil. The first break came in the next Lambeth conference in 1930, in which, the world-wide Anglican Episcopal Church, for the first time, allowed contraception. By a vote of 193 to 67, those delegates stated that in extreme cases, within marriage, a contraceptive could be used to responsibly plan the size of your family. This move was progressively followed by Protestant denominations. It was answered by the Catholic Church, by the encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Pope Paul in this encyclical detailed several effects that would occur if contraception was legalized. Let me quote these, he said, There would be a wide and easy road opened up toward conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Okay, that has happened. He said, It is also to be feared that the man may lose respect for the women and may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer his respected, beloved companion. Well, a great deal of this has happened, as divorce rates in many countries are now fifty per cent. And finally he said, This would also be a dangerous weapon placed in the hands of the government. Who would stop it from imposing upon the people the method it prefers? We are talking about population control. We only have to look across the China Sea to see the brutal imposition of this by the Chinese government and in much more subtle ways in many other countries. For instance, Singapore and Korea, for many years would only pay for schooling for the first two children. If you had more, you were on your own. Interestingly, in the birth dearth that we are now finding ourselves in, those countries have changed these laws and are paying bonuses for women having a third or more child. Thirty years after the Lambeth Conference, all of the barriers had fallen, and at the annual meeting of the Council of

From Contraception and Abortion to Euthanasia:

A Global Review

IMPACT January 2007

From Contraception and Abortion to Euthanasia: A Global Review

It wasnt until 1800 that a fairly safe method was devised. At that time, abortionists began to insert instruments through the vagina, the cervix, (the mouth of the womb), and into the womb. The purpose of these was to disrupt and rupture the developing baby and cause the loss of the pregnancy. Pasteur had not yet invented germs, and so sterile technique was unknown. There were a certain number of infections, some of them fatal, but by and large, compared to the earlier two methods, this was a far safer procedure. As a result of this, there were increasing numbers of abortions as the century proceeded. Then in 1827, for the first time in history, the accurate process of human fertilization was postulated. In 1843, this was proven. As a result of this, earlier theories of when human life began were replaced by the scientific knowledge that human life began at the first cell stage and was continuous after that. Partly because of this, but to a large extent also because of the growth of centers to help pregnant women, the number of abortions fell sharply and by the beginning of the 20th century abortions were uncommon. Prior to the 1960s, almost all countries had laws protecting the unborn. The only exception to that was Bolshevik Russia, which revoked its permissive laws during World War II, only to reinstate them afterwards. England legalized abortion in 1969. Several of the states in the U.S. did likewise in the late 60s, but the big one was the decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1973, which legalized abortion on demand across our nation for any reason for the full nine months. After this, most of the western world followed. By the 1980s, almost all of the west had legalized abortion. The Muslim world did not, and with only a couple of exception, neither did Latin America or Africa. Japan legalized right after World War II, while China and India followed shortly thereafter. The Philippines were an exception to this movement. Euthanasia: The first modern nation to legalize direct euthanasia was the Netherlands. This was basically judge-made law for the first twenty years during the 1980s and 90s. Their Parliament then formalized this in law, a few years ago, to be followed by Belgium and more recently Switzerland. A series of restrictions and qualifications hem in the wording of these laws. However, in actual practice there are essentially no restrictions on a licensed physicians liberty to kill a patient in those countries today. The general acceptance of contraception in most of the West has created a specific mind set which had not existed before. This mind set is that the person is in charge of their own fertility and that they have the right and the means to prevent births or to achieve one. But the bottom line was that she is in charge. She then takes precautions, i.e., uses a contraceptive. However, these fail and she becomes pregnant. This mindset then is very clear. She says, I was responsible. I took precautions. But I had an accident and I became pregnant anyway. I did not intend to, and therefore, I have the right to get unpregnant. Here we have the curious use of the words pregnant by accident. That is rather strange, because the action that this couple involved themselves in, sexual intercourse, by its very purpose leads to fertilization. Pregnancy is not an accident: It is the normal result that God and nature placed in this embrace. But no, she calls it an accident, and therefore, she is justified in terminating that pregnancy. She, of course, would never use the phrase killing a baby. There basically are two physical results of having sex. The one of course is conceiving a baby and we all know of this. The other is a dynamic that we have learned about and professionally examined in more recent years. And that is, a chemical, hormonal response in those two bodies, particularly in the woman, that results in bonding between these two people. Nature has arranged this bonding for the integrity and maintenance of a marriage, which, of course provides the shelter, the education and training for the new child. But contraception defies nature on both of these levels, denying a pregnancy, but also frustrating the bonding between the two. Contraception quickly moved beyond the bounds of regulating birth within a marriage. For it then allowed adultery, and it allowed fornication and then it came to be used for homosexual activity. All of these were perfectly logical, as contraception made these sinful activities far more possible and at least in the minds of many, far safer. In the early part of the 20th century, condoms were improved, and with the vulcanization of rubber, they became widely distributed. The contraceptive pill was researched in the 1950s, and by the middle of the 1960s, was widely distributed. In its earliest form, it almost totally prevented ovulation. But it also caused

Churches, the array of speakers included pro-contraceptive and pro-abortion radicals, such as Pameroy, Calderone, and Guttmacher. Abortion had been rare in earlier times. One of the major reasons was that there were no safe methods of abortions. Basically there were two; a woman could swallow various herbs, potions, and poisons, the idea being to kill the baby before it killed the mother. Some times it was successful, but often you had two deaths. As a result of this, this really never became very popular. The only other method of abortion was external trauma to the lower abdomen of the pregnant woman, such as severe massaging or blows, such as stamping on her. The purpose here was to dislodge the baby from the inside of the uterus and cause a miscarriage. Sometimes, however, it ruptured the uterus, which was fatal. This method never really caught on either.

Jin Renyang/epa/Corbis

Volume 41 Number 1

From Contraception and Abortion to Euthanasia:

A Global Review

many women to die from blood clots and strokes. To meet these negatives, the drug companies continued to change the chemical makeup of the pill, dropping the estrogen portion to a lower and lower dose. On these low dose pills, which are now used, there are fewer blood clots, although some still occur. The blockage of ovulation however has become weaker and weaker, so that now perhaps 20% or more of the times these pills are used the womens body still ovulates. Some of those eggs are fertilized, but not many turn into babies. This is because the other effect of the pill is to harden the lining of the womb (the uterus), and prevent the one-week old human embryo from implanting. Without implantation, the womens body does not get the message that fertilization did occur, and she will menstruate on schedule, carrying with it the remains of that now, dead embryo. This was not spoken of much in the 1960s, but is very obvious now and has produced a rather interesting dynamic in the evangelical world. I had a five-minute daily radio commentary for over twenty years during the 1980s and 1990s, across the United States on over three hundred stations. Ninetyfive or more percent of those listening were Evangelical Christians. When I first began my programs, I had been very aware of the fact that almost every one listening was permissive of contraception. But as these years went on, I was able to speak

more and more to the abortive action of the pills. Others did the same. Now even though I am not on the air anymore, and the people dont know that I am Catholic, good Christian evangelicals will call me. They have been using the pill, but they understand that it might cause that early abortion. Is this true? Yes, it is, and I explain. Their response then is that, Well then we have to quit using them. What else can we do? And I would say, Well, you cant use a chemical contraceptive. Im sure you know about a barrier method like a condom, but these often fail. Have you ever thought of natural family planning? And so I introduce them to it. Most mainline Protestants around the world still embrace contraception without too many questions, but the burgeoning millions of evangelical Christians are coming closer and closer to us. If I were to sit down and talk to one of the major televangelists in the U. S. or abroad, they would agree with me that you should not use contraceptives for premarital sex, for adultery, for homosexual activity. Also, we should not use them if they have an abortive action. Best we smile and say, what is left? What is left would be for them to use some type of a non-abortive contraceptive within a marriage to responsibly plan a family. That is where it started and it is going back to that. But in going back, it has brought those people much closer to Catholics than was true two decades or

more ago. I wont spend too much time on abortion, except to note what seems to be now, the natural history of this problem. Lets sum it up by saying that abortion contains within itself, the seeds of its own destruction. Back when it was first introduced, particularly across the western world, as one commentator said, it was the greatest thing invented since sliced bread. No more. We now have answered most of the arguments that were effective in legalizing it. It was needed for over population. Well now we know that at least across the west and certainly including Russia, but also now increasingly in the Third World, birthrates are down so far that the problem isnt over but rather looming under population. You folks here in the Philippines are blessed. For you are one of the exceptions to this. And God willing you will stay that way. They said it would result in fewer unwanted children and child abuse. But unwanted children and child abuse have both sky rocketed. They said there would be fewer pregnancies, but there are plenty more, it is just that they arent carried to term. They said this really wasnt a baby, but now, you cant say that without people looking at you and wondering what stone you crawled out from under. For it is almost totally accepted now in any type of intellectual circle that human life really does begin at the first cell stage and that abortion really does kill a living human. They said we needed it for rape pregnancy, but depending upon the nation, we find at least in the West, that these are tiny fraction of one percent of the pregnancies. They said they wanted to have abortion so they could get rid of babies who were handicapped. But here a real paradox has occurred. Grant some exceptions in some underdeveloped countries. Nevertheless, the trend worldwide is to provide help for handicapped people. If possible, we give them wheelchairs, and do many other things to help them. And we do this because they are handicapped. But when you kill an unborn child in the womb, you kill them because they are handicapped. I see this as rather schizophrenic. They say that if you forbid abortions, there will be huge numbers of illegal abortions and large numbers of women will die. But the nation of Poland, some forty million people, after having abortion on demand for forty years, passed a law to forbid it. Instead of over a hundred and fifty thousand abortions, they now only have a few hundred each year. And what of

IMPACT January 2007

Images.com/Corbis

ARTICLES
women dying? There are fewer women of child bearing age dying today in Poland, than there were when abortion was legal and common. So most of the arguments for abortion have been answered, and they are back to the only one left. The woman has the right to choose to kill her own baby. As I have said, Abortion contains within itself, the seeds of its own destruction. And so people use contraception and when it fails, they resort to abortion. But how does abortion relate to euthanasia, for it most certainly does. Well, let us look at a few reasons why people have abortions. They abort because the baby is going to be a burden. But my, your grandmother in a wheelchair is a burden. They abort because the baby is unwanted. Do you know of any handicapped or older people who are unwanted? They abort because of the degree of perfection. They are told that the baby in the womb will be handicapped. Do you know of any handicapped people? Age, the developing baby was only three months, was too young. But if we use age as criteria, then how about your uncle, Joseph, who is really much too old. We abort on the basis of intelligence. Oh, the baby in the womb is not yet conscious, not intelligent yet. What of a patient after a stroke who is not really conscious any more? We abort because of place of residence. The baby still lives in the womb, but if we use place of residence, we can kill those in a hospital, nursing home, or home for the aged. The Supreme Court of the United States justified abortion because the fetus does not yet have meaningful life. That was one of their reasons. Do you know of anybody with Alzheimers disease? They no longer have meaningful life. We abort because of the cost. She is too poor to have another child. But if we use that, then we are too poor to keep Uncle Joseph. We just cant afford to take care of him anymore. We use numbers. They have too many children already. They should abort this one. Hey, we have too many old people. Best, we get some of them out of the way. And finally, we use marital status. She is not married. Therefore she should have the abortion. But that old lady is a widow. She is no longer married. Would that make euthanasia more justified? You see, the common denominator is that human life is no longer an absolute value. It is no longer sacred. And so it no longer has to be protected in law. When we devalue human life at its beginning, then we find it easy to justify eliminating human life nearer its end. For after all, those at the beginning have an unlimited horizon ahead of them. Who knows, they may be the next Beethoven, but those at the end of life, have made most of their journey. By that evaluation, we might say there is no future ahead for them. If we can kill the little ones, certainly we can also kill the old ones. And so finally, where does euthanasia lead? We had a test market in the Netherlands. I have an office there, and I have written a book which discusses in detail the Dutch situation. Let me finish by telling you a few true stories from there. A professional colleague of mine, a physician, had been taking care of an elderly couple. They were both limited in their activities, but lived together quite adequately in their own home. My friend went away for a weekend holiday and another doctor took his calls. The old man became ill and the new doctor went to visit him. He said that he had pneumonia, gave him an injection, and he was dead in two hours. On Monday morning, the very distraught widow called my friend, begging him to come over. He did. She met him at the door, weeping. Why did that doctor kill John? John didnt want to die. That was perfectly legal in Holland. Here is another one. A patient with a cancer was in a great deal of pain, and they had not been able to control the pain. And so, the doctor decided his time was up. He filled his syringe with a dose of morphine many times the lethal dose, many times what they were using as a painkiller and injected it. The doctor went off to see several other patients, and came back to pronounce this one dead, to find him sitting up in bed, dangling his legs, smiling. Doc, he said, you finally got the right dose. Thank you so much. I am pain free. Heres another case told to me by my friends: There was of a rather wealthy and apparently a rather stingy landowner. The sequence of events was that his wife called the priest who visited at 8:00 in the morning. At 9:00, the doctor visited, gave him a shot and killed him. At 10:00 the coroner came to pronounce him dead, and that was that. He had not been ill. He had rheumatics and walked with a cane, but other than that, no problems. The wife said he asked to be killed. The only other witness was the doctor who obliged and was paid for the job. The peoples suspicions were confirmed, when the estate was quickly settled, all of the land sold, and the new widow went to the Riviera to live in style. Friends, these things happen in Holland every day. It is estimated by those there that at least fifty percent of the patients who are killed by doctors did not ask to be killed. This has dropped down to teenagers now who, if they are depressed enough, may ask for termination, and some doctors oblige. And so the floodgates there have opened. Most recently, Belgium has also passed a similar law and we are seeing the same slow erosion of protection of human life there that we saw in its northern neighbor. And so, where are we? The beginning of this mischief was contraception. It allowed unlimited sex activity under the assumption that people had total control of their own fertility and that they were free to have sex with anybody, anyway. Anytime. The result has been a drastic drop in birthrates throughout much of the world as well as a flood of new sexual transmitted diseases. And now as a result, human life has been cheapened and this has logically led to abortion, which is leading to euthanasia. You folks here live in a privileged nation. Your Catholic faith has so far protected you. By all means, treasure it. For you, I do believe are the hope of the Pacific Rim area. The nations around you are increasingly mimicking the degenerate West, as those around you are slowly committing demographic suicide. God bless you good folks, and keep the faith. I
(This piece was delivered at the CBCP 2007 International Conference on Bioethics and the Family, held at EDSA Shangri-Las Hotel, Ortigas Center, Manila on January 9-10, 2007. John C. Willke, M. D., is Chairman and President of International Right to Life Federation.)

Volume 41 Number 1

Dennis Dayao / IMPACT

Church and Government In All-NFP Promotion

n mid-December, I received a copy of a letter addressed to His Eminence Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo as Chairman of the Pontifical Commission on Family. The letter has four signatures and purportedly represents the Family and Life Apostolate diocesan representatives in Mindanao. It questions my advocacy for: (1) the Standard Days Method (SDM), and (2) collaboration of the Church with the Commission on Population (POPCOM) and the Department of Health (DOH). We have indeed discussed a number of these points during our bishops recollection meeting in Davao on November 7. Despite the various questions raised, mostly on the scientific reliability of SDM, I was glad to see the openness of most of the bishops with regard to the All-Natural Family Planning program that we had started in Ipil Prelature over the past four years. Let me then make these clarifications as a response to the letter and a continuation of our dialogue for promoting responsible parenthood and natural family planning in Mindanao. I. On the Standard Days Method

based NFP methods today, and not only SDM. Indeed not all women are qualified to adopt SDM. In this sense, SDM is offered only as an added option. There are two general approaches of family planning that we differentiatethe natural vis-vis the artificial. We also point out that it is not a question between modern contraceptives and traditional NFP methods, but rather that there are modern, scientifically-based NFP methods as well which are equally if not even more effective than contraceptives. We address the three felt needs of many young couples todaynamely, (1) they want to plan their families; (2) they prefer natural family planning; and (3) they want to choose among available NFP methods. In the process we have articulated

"Whether or not we wish to work with government on NFP promotion, it is imperative that the local church activate its own NFP program to address the felt needs of many couples today."
four pastoral guidelinesnamely, (1) we are pro-life as our first principle; (2) we are for responsible parenthood as our goal; (3) we are for natural family planning as our means; and (4) we are for enabling couples to make an informed and responsible choice, based on the formation of a right conscience. We are following a five-step approach in order to systematize and decentralize the program to reach every kapilya community or barangay. The first step is a parish-level orientation for all leaders. This is followed in step two by a providers training. Step three is a kapilya-level orientation followed by individual counseling at the household level (step four). The fifth step is quarterly monitoring at the parish and prelature levels. Finally, we provide information on six modern NFP methods, which include SDM and the TwoDay Method (TDM), another simplified method based on cervical mucus observation. In general, we are heartened by the positive response of almost 1,500 coupleusers of NFP in the prelature so far. Twothirds of these are SDM-users while a

1) In July 2003, at the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, all the bishops present, with Archbishop O. Quevedo presiding, had a lengthy discussion on SDM. We passed an affirmative consensus vote, with no objection, recognizing SDM as a method that could be used by a diocese in its program of Natural Family Planning, provided it was not combined with contraceptives and it was not seen as part of the governments cafeteria approach of promoting contraceptives. This guideline takes into consideration the words of caution expressed in Cardinal Trujillos communication of May 2003. This then is the standing guideline adopted by CBCP, which should be respected by our FLA workers in Mindanao. 2) It was with this guideline in mind that the Prelature of Ipil continued and expanded its program for natural family planning which included not only SDM but all modern, scientific NFP methods. We have one comprehensive All-NFP program to promote Responsible Parenthood through Natural Family Planning. This includes all recognized scientifically-

fourth are practitioners of the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM). We find that making available information on all NFP methods is a win-win solution: we have gotten more BOM users today than in the past when BOM was presented alone. Indeed, couples learn to combine NFP methods or shift from one method to another depending on their preference. Our FLA workers also report that three-fourths of NFP users in our tally have actually shifted from contraceptive use. Among the reasons often cited are: avoidance of side-effects to health; costfree considerations; adherence to the Churchs moral guideline; and their preference for what to them is indeed natural. 3) Is SDM then reliable as an NFP method? When this was discussed at the CBCP assembly three years ago, SDM was still being piloted by some NGOs in limited settings. At this point, however, after extending our All-NFP program as a church ministry to the entire prelature and meeting couple-users of more than one to three years, I can attest that NFP, particularly SDM, is indeed a valid, viable, and vital option for a growing number of couples. Along with almost 1,000 SDM users, our 250 NFP volunteer providers in Ipil Prelature would agree with this conclusion. They have made the following general observations: Despite initial difficulties, couples learn to handle the 12day period of abstinence in SDM. They do not combine SDM with any contraceptive method (and our church workers have never counseled them to do so). Many prefer SDM because it is much simpler and easy to follow. Many say that the beads have helped them to communicate better with their spouses. Not a few couples have also remarked that for them the choice was not between SDM and BOM, but rather between SDM and contraceptives, or between SDM and no method at all. In Cagayan de Oro Archdiocese, where I am now based, we have started the AllNFP program in five pilot parishes, after a series of orientation talks to our clergy, religious sisters, and family life workers. Another seven parishes have scheduled the step one orientation talk before they begin their providers training. I am particularly glad to see the active involvement of the Catholic Womens League in the All-NFP program, in coordination with

IMPACT January 2007

ARTICLES
our Christian Family and Life Apostolate (CFLA). 4) The scientific bases for SDM are summarized in the briefing paper furnished by the Institute for Reproductive HealthPhilippines (IRHP). Biological factors relative to a womans fertile period, variations within the average womans cycle defined as 26 days varying up to 32 days, and computer simulations of over 7,600 actual cycles provided the theoretical bases for standardizing the length of the fertile window. This was followed by pilot studies and clinical trials in three countries, including the Philippines. In short, the science of statistical probability was used to determine a standardized fertile period that could be applicable to a large segment of the target populationin this case, women whose menstrual cycles range from 26 to 32 days. It is estimated that three-fourths of all women are within this cycle range. From the clinical trials, SDM has scored a high effectiveness rate of 95.25%. In this sense, the standardized days of SDM are quite different from the customized days of the calendar rhythm method which requires the individual woman to make repeated calculations based on her six previous cycle lengths. Even the allegation that SDM users may use condoms during the fertile period is an oblique admission that the calculation itself is accurate. The scientific study of SDM has been accepted by the World Health Organization; it is now recognized as a modern fertility awareness based (FAB) method of family planning. In Ipil Prelature we have only 3-5 verified cases of method failure. Other cases of failure or drop-outs were attributable to the users not following strictly the rules for SDM adoption. II. On Collaboration with Government Last December 6 at the National Population Congress in Manila, the Commission on Population launched its Responsible Parenting Movement and new policy directions to promote only natural family planning. This was in response to a directive of President Gloria M. Arroyo who had made known her preference for NFP since the start of her administration. Prior to this launching on October 24, upon invitation of CBCP President Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III and POPCOM Executive Director Tomas Osias came over to the CBCP office. They explained this new

An Open Letter to Bishops of Mindanao and Family Life Apostolate Coordinators

Church and Government In AllNFP Promotion

By Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J., D.D.

Images.com/Corbis

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ARTICLES
instead of the archdiocese itself. (Three years ago, the Couples for Christ had entered into a similar agreement with the national DOH office to promote NFP.) This memo was signed by the CWL archdiocesan president and the regional heads of DOH and POPCOM on December 19, with myself as witness and consultant. In our collective discernment among NFP promoters in CWL and in pilot parishes, there were four major reasons for entering into this agreement with regional government agencies. (1) This is a new national policy that dovetails with the concerns of the Church with regard to responsible parenthood and natural family planning. It is articulated by the Chief Executive herself and translated into operational guidelines by the national and regional DOH and POPCOM offices. It also reflects a new sensitivity towards cultural and religious values among government officesi.e., that population management can be attained through responsible parenthood, and that responsible parenthood in turn is practiced through natural family planning. (Among the present Commissioners of POPCOM are Mrs. Geraldine Padilla, Chair, Committee on Women, Couples for Christ, and wife of the CFC founder; and Dr. Jose Sandejas, Presidential Adviser on Family Matters and a close adviser too of Archbishop Aniceto.) Despite strong objections from pro-contraceptive legislators, the executive branch of the national government is pursuing this NFP-only approachprobably the only one of its kind among developing countries today. Perhaps at no other time has the church and government agreed more fully on the goal of responsible parenthood and the means of natural family planning. The availability of modern simplified methods can also accelerate the promotion of NFP. If the church is serious in mainstreaming NFP as a pastoral program to reach many more couples beyond the less than one percent indicated in national surveys, the offer of working with the support of government resources should not be downplayed. This is similar to the situation of our Catholic schools availing themselves of public funds to carry on the mission of Christian education. (2) The MOA includes adequate safeguards for the Churchs concerns. It has explicit provisions that Natural Family Planning methods will not be combined in any way with artificial means of birth regulation; that the NFP program will be delivered as a distinct and separate program; and that there will be joint supervision and monitoring of the program. Moreover, as consultant, the bishop or his representative is given a significant role in the design of the Regional NFP Program Plan. The MOA may also be modified by the parties and is effective for one year, subject to review. (3) DOH and POPCOM have asked to use our training manuals and the services of some of our trainors. This is in line with the spirit of the MOA that provides for the sharing of resourcesfinancial, material, human and technical. In this sense, the government would like to replicate our ongoing All-NFP program. In the joint trainings that have already been conducted, we are glad to see that a more holistic view of NFP is being presented that is in consonance with Gospel values. The limited funding for this program does not come from foreign governments, but from the national budget. In this partnership, CWL and the church side are taking the lead role and are actually contributing more to the common effort of NFP promotion rather than becoming dependent on government funding. (4) A final consideration for us is the challenge of evangelization in the market placei.e., engaging government agencies in the common objective of promoting responsible parenthood and NFP to address the felt needs of couples. Without an MOA, government agencies will continue to pursue NFP as its declared program at any ratebut without the guidance and value formation that only churchbased groups could provide. Indeed in initial discussions and joint trainings with government members, we find much good will and openness for the involvement of church groups in NFP promotion. Many government workers are Catholics and mothers who prefer NFP to other methods. In the spirit of Vatican II, this would be a concrete way for the church to dialogue with the world. For religious lay organizations like CWL, signing the MOA would be seen as a form of principled collaborationwhere moral principles are highlighted as a frame of reference. Vis--vis the offer of collaboration with government in NFP promotion, the local church can focus on any of these three directions: (1) to continue to criticize and remain suspicious of government because of its earlier pro-contraceptive stance; (2) to work separately from gov-

program and solicited the support of CBCP from the three bishops present, namely Archbishop Lagdameo, Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, Chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, and myself as CBCP Vice-President. At a follow-up meeting on November 10, members of the Permanent Council were also present. All the bishops expressed their appreciation for this new policy direction. However they deferred any decision and suggested that the proposal for churchgovernment collaboration on NFP be discussed first at the next CBCP plenary assembly in January 2007. It was at this point that I suggested that we already try out in pilot dioceses the joint promotion of NFP by government agencies and the local church. This would give us a more realistic frame of reference for the discussions in the coming CBCP plenary assembly. In addition to Cagayan de Oro, it was suggested that Jaro and San Fernando, Pampanga, could also be suitable sites for piloting. Back in Cagayan de Oro, we then prepared a draft memorandum of agreement with the Region X DOH and POPCOM offices. This draft memo was discussed extensively with the clergy and familyoriented organizations. However, in deference to the precautions expressed from various quarters, I encouraged the Catholic Womens League as a religious lay organization to be a signatory to the MOA

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IMPACT January 2007

Church and Government In All-NFP Promotion

ernment on NFP promotion; or (3) to critically collaborate with government in promoting NFP. We have actually tried the first two approacheswith minimal results as far as figures of actual NFP users are concerned. Trying out the third approach may incur some risk of failure and misuse; but perhaps the greater risk is not to try at all. In addressing the felt needs of couples today, are we driven more by the fear of government or by the love of NFP? Natural family planning, I would submit, is the positive alternative and the most effective answer the Church can give to the stark realities of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and use of contraceptives in Philippine society today. A more inclusive approachthat includes simplified NFP methods and critical collaboration with governmentcan spell the difference between focusing on only one saved sheep or reaching out to the other 99% that are still lost. III. An Invitation Even as we enter into dialogue with government regarding NFP promotion, it would also be good to continue the dialogue among ourselves within church circles. Before making sweeping statements about the efficacy or mis-use of simplified NFP methods without much evidence on the ground, may I extend an invitation to other dioceses to send observers to Ipil Prelature to examine its ongoing All-NFP program. Interviewing actual NFP users and providers can give us a more realistic picture of the situation. When I mentioned the Ipil experience in NFP promotion during my talk to the DOPIM bishops and clergy last November, there were inquiries and general interest about the program. Last May, a group of FLA workers from Digos did visit Ipil Prelature; now they have started a similar All-NFP program in five pilot parishes. Earlier this year, the archdioceses of Capiz and Jaro have had trainings on All-NFP and are starting their own programs. Likewise, the local churches in Basilan and Jolo have had their own trainings as well as some parishes in Malaybalay. Several other bishops in the Visayas and Luzon have also signified to me their intention to review their FLA-NFP programs and include modern simplified NFP methods. Whether or not we wish to work with government on NFP promotion, it is imperative that the local church activate its own NFP program to address the felt needs of many couples today. Otherwise, we may reach the awkward situation where it is the government alone that strives to promote NFP while the church stays on the sidelines. There is no need for acrimonious debate or ascribing arcane designs on the efforts of other dioceses to promote All-NFP. As a local ordinary, I am mindful of my responsibilities towards the Christian community, particularly with regard to family life issues. There is indeed need for pastoral prudence, but also some pastoral innovation (Duc in altum!) if we wish to be relevant and responsive to the needs of many couples today. Some may look at the risks involved; but I would rather look at the hopeof personalizing responsible parenthood by means of promoting a culture of natural family planning throughout the country. For your ministry in the new year, may I invoke the threefold Christmas blessings of Light, Love, and Lifewhich also encapsulate the spirit of All-NFP promotion in Filipino homes today. I

e! eas Rel New

ovc.blogspot.com

For Orders Contact:

National Matrimonial Tribunal Office Tel. No. (632) 5274160 CBCPWorld Office Telefax (632) 4041612
Other books by
Abp. Oscar V. Cruz, JCD, DD

1. Marriage Tribunal Ministry 2. Guide Documents on Parish, Vicariate and Diocesan Administrative/Pastoral Concerns 3. Canon 290 CIC in the Service of Truth, Justice and Charity 4. Annotations on Rotal Jurisprudence on Canon 1097, 1098, 1102 5. Annotations on Rotal Jurisprudence on Canon 1103 6. Annotations on Rotal Jurisprudence on Canon 1095 7. Annotations on Rotal Jurisprudence on Canon 1101 8. Evidence in Marriage Nullity Cases 9. Impediments to Canonical Marriage 10. Markers 11. Penal Process for Dismissal from the Clerical State 12. Provincial Council, Diocesan Synod, Pastoral Assembly 13. CBCP Guidelines on Sexual Abuse and Misconduct: A Critique 14. Board of Conciliation and Arbitration 15. Viewpoints at the Onset of the New Millennium 16. Media in our Midst 17. Administration of the Temporal Goods of the Church 18. Curia Management 19. Clergy Compensation 20. Gambling in the Republic 21. Call of the Laity 22. Primer on Gambling 23. The Bihop's Staff

Volume 41 Number 1

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ARTICLES

The Wielgus Case:

The Reasons for His Resignation

TOMASZ GZELL/epa/Corbis

He was the new archbishop of Warsaw, and Benedict XVI had supported him almost until the last moment. But then he ordered him to resign. There are many who have disappointed the pope and some even in the Vatican by Sandro Magister

he rezygnacja, the tearful resignation that Stanislaw Wielgus announced on Sunday, January 7, in the cathedral of Warsaw where he was supposed to be installed as the new archbishop, did not put an end to the storm that is shaking the Catholic Church in Poland and Rome, all the way to its supreme pastor. Last May 25, on the first day of his trip to Poland, Benedict XVI entered that very same cathedral. He knelt before the tomb of the heroic cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, pointing him out as a model for all. And among the things he asked of the bishops, priests, and faithful of Poland were: humble sincerity in admitting the errors of the past; magnanimity in judging the faults committed in other times and other circumstances; pride for all the many good achievements of those years, in resisting a form of totalitarianism that generated hypocrisy. But none of these requests was respected during the tumultuous weeks between the appointment of Wielgus and his

resignation. *** The external enemy is playing a role in the current wave of attacks against the Catholic Church in Poland, as Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi lamented on January 7: that enemy that works as a a strange alliance between those who once persecuted the Church there and its other adversaries. But there are also enmities within the Church that are contributing to the carnage. There are the fiery campaigns of Polands Radio Maryja (unconnected to the broadcaster of the same name in Italy), which has engaged in mudslinging to the point of accusing Lech Walesa, the icon of the peaceful overthrow of the communist regime, of collaborating with that regime, but then defended to the end archbishop Wielgus, a great protector of the radio network, against the same accusations. There are the wars among Catholic factions, intransigents and liberals, using the documents of the Sluba Bezpieczenstwa, the secret police of the defunct regime: there are kilometers of

these documents in the no-longer-secret archives of the Institute of National Memory, some of them perhaps copies of copies of copies that are easily turned against innocent persons as well, as the outgoing archbishop of Warsaw, Jzef Glemp, thundered in the farewell homily on January 7 for himself and for Wielgus, his would-be successor. There are expert accusers like Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, himself under suspicion of collaboration several months ago, who has become the tireless hunter of the guilty, with the approvalaccording to himof the archbishop of Krakow and former secretary of John Paul II, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. Paradoxically, it is Dziwisz himself and his entourage who are now at the center of the latest wave of accusations. One of these is already gone: Janusz Bielanski, pastor of the cathedral of Krakow, who resigned on the evening of January 8. There are other clouds of suspicion surrounding the intellectuals of Tygodnik Powszechny, the historical Krakow weekly paper for which Karol Wojtyla wrote. Last spring one of its most illustrious authors, Fr. Michal Czajkowski, who heads the commission for Christian-Jew-

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IMPACT January 2007

The Wielgus Case: The Reasons for His Resignation

ish dialogue, was accused of having spied on none other than the martyred priest Jerzy Popieluszko, before the secret police abducted and killed Popieluszko in 1984. *** But theres more. The current director of Tygodnik, Fr. Adam Boniecki, once a personal friend of Wojtylas and head of the Polish edition of LOsservatore Romano, has said: I dont know who, but someone has misled pope Joseph Ratzinger. This is a serious matter, and someone must pay for it, in Poland or in the Vatican. These words, given in an interview with the Italian newspaper la Repubblica on the day of Wielgus resignation, were reprinted with great emphasis in Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, which has a direct link to the Vatican secretary of state, cardinal Tarcisio Bertone: this is a sign of strong displeasure and irritation on the part of Church leadership over how that matter came to a conclusion. In effect, the final curtain of this dramathe resignation of Wielgus just 40 hours after he had formally taken his post as archbishop of Warsawcan be explained only by an authoritative decision by Benedict XVI himself. If by ordering his resignation the pope finally decided to reverse his position of constant support for Wielgus as head of the most important diocese in Poland, it must be because he was convinced by very serious facts. *** Wielgus wasnt always on the short list of the candidates to succeed Glemp. The three candidates whom the Vatican congregation for bishops, headed by cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, examined before the summer were the archbishop of Lublin, Jzef Miroslaw Zycinski, a leading liberal exponent; the archbishop of Przemysl and president of the bishops conference, Jzef Michalik; and the bishop of Tarnw, Wiktor Skworc. There were other contenders with their respective parties, including the bishop of Gdansk, Tadeusz Goclowski, another liberal; Stanislaw Rylko, president of the pontifical council for the laity; and the Vatican nuncio to Warsaw, Jzef Kowalczyc, whose responsibilities include that of preparing the dossiers on candidates for bishop and sending these to Rome. Too many contenders, none a winner. The stalemate favored the emergence of a compromise candidate after the summer this was Wielgus, who until 1999 was professor and rector at the Catholic University of Lublin, then bishop of the little diocese of Plock. He is a learned specialist in medieval philosophy, but is equally at home at the populist Radio Maryja. *** In public, Wielgus continued to deny the charges. But on January 3 and 4, the Polish newspapers printed the copies of the documents he had signed for the secret police. On January 5, Wielgus nevertheless took up his post as archbishop of Warsaw, and said he had informed the pope about his past before his appointment. On the 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, he had read in all the churches in Poland a message in which he finally admitted that he had harmed the Church both by collaborating with the police and by publicly denying his collaboration. But he repeated that he had confessed all of this to the pope beforehand. The message on Epiphany was in no way a prelude to his resignation. Wielgus asked the faithful of Warsaw to welcome him as their new archbishop: I will be among you as a brother who wants to unite, not to divide. He added only that he would submit [himself] to whatever decision the pope makes. The order arrived that same day, before the evening: he was to resign. There had finally arrived at the Vatican, translated into German, the documents of the secret police. The majority of the Polish bishops, each of whom was asked individually, were against Wielgus. But the greatest disappointment for the pope was the message Wielgus had had read in the churches that morning. Benedict XVI had never heard these things before from the man in whom he had placed such trust for the Catholic Poland of the great Wyszynski and Wojtyla. I

In 1978, Wielgus spent several months at the University of Munich, the German city where Ratzinger was archbishop at the time. The two met there. If he had obeyed the secret police, who had given him his passport for Germany, on returning to Poland the young professor would have had to have given the police a report on the future pope. But in the profile the nuncio sent to Rome there was nothing about Wielgus past as a collaborator with the Sluba Bezpieczenstwa. Yet in Poland, news was already circulating of documents that could have nailed him to the wall. The Vatican took a few weeks for consideration. But it neither requested nor received any further information. On December 6 came the official announcement of the appointment. A month later, the prefect of the congregation for bishops, Cardinal Re, would confess: When archbishop Wielgus was appointed, we knew nothing about his collaboration with the secret services. He might have said: We didnt want to know anything. Because it was only on January 2 that the Vatican nunciature asked the Institute of National Memory for the documents on Wielgus. But meanwhile, on December 21, the pope again personally defended the designated new archbishop of Warsaw, reconfirming his complete trust in him after having examined all the cir- Polish police stand guard in front of the Warsaw Primate's residence. Hundreds cumstances of his of supporters marched to the Warsaw Primate's residence in Warsaw Sunday, last-minute move shocking Polish life, and also, as be- following a mass at the Warsaw cathedral. In aWielgus stepped down on Sunday church-goers, Warsaw archbishop Stanislaw came known later, amid the ongoing controversy over his alleged communist-era collaboration. His just one-half hour before he was to be installed as the new after having spoken resignation camepontifical mass at the Warsaw cathedral, with his remarks archbishop in a triggering an uproar by church-goers both inside and outside the building. (Corbis) with him again.

Volume 41 Number 1

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ANDRZEJ RYBCZYNSKI/epa/Corbis

ARTICLES

f we were to give a colour to 2006, what cleansing, cooling and life sustaining wawill it be? With the deaths from the ters end. Let animals be more and more natural disasters and calamities, the allowed to freely roam and graze the mounpolitical killings and the unabated harass- tains, forests, plains, oceans, seas, rivers ment, murder and disappearance of jour- and skies. Let women and men cease to be mere nalists and activists, I am tempted to colour it black, as black as the sleet that spilled out consumers and become more and more of a tanker off the coast of Guimaras Island. preservers and revellers in a primordial Add the quality and nature of Philippine friendship and communion among all bepolitics, it even gets blacker. Beyond our ings created by a deeply compassionate shores it is not less ominous with the and caring God. Let all bow down and touch recent siege of Southern Lebanon and the the earth once more and behold the life that profound and extensive deterioration of comes forth and grows from this earth on Iraq brought on by a war fomented by the which we daily trod and shamefully ignore. Let us all learn once more to be humble, to delusions of empire. With Christmas just a few weeks be- kiss humus, to kiss earth as farmers for eons hind us, it cant be that black. There must be some light and life-giving colour left from a feast so stubbornly sanguine and infectiously loving. Imagine the art of it. Imagine the kaleidoscope of colour from the brown and white of cows and sheeps fur, rainbow coloured tattered shepherds cloaks, and the humble but dignified colours of a By Fr. Robert Reyes young couples cloaks shielding their newborn infant wrapped in cheap have done with glee and sacred delight. A fatal forgetfulness and arrogance swaddling clothes. Together, the colours vibrate and shimmer with life. And so do has befallen most of us. We have entered mangers in churches continue to invite the cave of our own recklessness and chose contemplation on the colour of life and to walk further into the darkness of our hope notwithstanding the nagging threat greed only to wallow deeper in black denial. The ozone layer is badly depleted and of deathly black. If we were then to give a colour to the damaged, world temperatures are growing New Year, let it then be green, the colour of warmer, the ice caps are rapidly melting, lifeof hope. If we were to choose how best water levels are rising, global climate is to show our gratitude to this life-sustaining changingglobal warming is reaching critiworld and its creator, let it then be a life cal levels, approaching the point of irregreener and less black. Let wars whether versible cataclysm. These are the broad fought with guns and bombs, economic outlines of a bleak future that faces the earth sanctions or propaganda end. Let the burn- and its inhabitants which will be the content ing stop and let the air be what it is meant to of a telephone book size report of the UN belife-giving spirit. Let the wastage and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the dumping stop and allow the few remain- or IPCC to be released sometime early 2007. On December 26, 2004, just a day after ing unclogged pores of the earth breathe. Let the cutting of trees, the quarrying of Christmas, giant waves called tsunamis hit mountains, the moving of land, the reclaim- parts of Asia taking lives, destroying crops, ing of seas be replaced by planting, renew- livestock and property. Hardest hit was ing and protecting the earth instead. Let Thailands tourist beach resort. Today, obscene industrial and domestic vomits while survivors get together and remember, slow but sure desecration and murder of business has returned to the tragedy

Greening the New Year

stricken areas. Life seems to go on as usual. Human ways of living and doing have returned to their robotic routine. At the same time two years later, an earthquake hits Taiwan, destroying properties and taking several lives. This time however, a natural disaster produces a more globally felt impact by breaking submarine fibre optic cables which carried the weight of electronic communication worldwide. On December 27, 2006, millions by force of habit woke up, turn on their computers, access the internet and are exasperated by a curious message on their computer screen: this page cannot be displayed With the recent Taiwan earthquaketriggered interruption of internet services anger, furor, even rage descend on the internet-dependent millions, myself included. Many must have seen black that day. People were angry at a technological inconvenience which really had a natural cause. Here we can clearly see the connection between black and green. The black plagues of disease, poverty, death, wars, etc. all ooze out of the Pandoras box of environmental neglect, outright abuse and destruction combined with natures unexpected and unpredictable outbursts. There was nothing people can do but wait for the repair work to finish. Newspapers initially announced three weeks of repairs. It went down to ten. In any case, there was nothing more that can be done but wait. And what do we do while waiting? I suggest we start seeing green instead of black. I suggest we start talking green more and more and discover how and why greening the New Year is sensible and most of all, vital for the happiness and survival of all. Although we just concluded Advent and celebrated Christmas, it is clear how the world is going through a longer advent which more than anything requires a more pro-active waiting. Unless we take real concrete steps to green this New Year, we can do no more than dread a blacker, bleaker New Year. Why not a green New Year? I

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private and sub secreto meeting has been called by the Vatican and will commence on January 19, 2007. On the eve of this date, participants will gather for a dinner at the Santa Marta College inside the Vatican City. The meetings topic will be the situation of the Church in China and relations between the Holy See and the Chinese government. Taking part in the meeting are top figures from the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, as well as various figures involved in mission towards China: Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop of Hong Kong; Cardinal Paul Shan, Bishop emeritus of Kaohsiung (Taiwan); Monsignor Jos Lai Hung-seng, Bishop of Macao. Also taking part from the Hong Kong diocese are Auxiliary Bishop John Tong and Dr Anthony Lam, an expert of the Holy Spirit Study Centre, the dioceses institute of theology and for documentation on China. The ambiguity of the Chinese government AsiaNews sources say that the problem is not so much the long-time impasse on diplomatic relations, but the situation created with the 3 illicit episcopal ordinations which took place during 2006. These took place in a moment of dtente, which had been preceded by a series of positive signals from a Chinese government willing to rebuild diplomatic relations. Not to be forgotten is also the fact that, until then, episcopal ordinations were being carried out on the basis of an unwritten agreement between the government and the Holy See, as had been the case of ordinations in Suzhou, Shanghai, Xian, Wanxian and Shenyang. The illicit ordinations in Kunming (April 30), Anhui (May 3) and Xuzhou (November 30) instead took place with the heavy-handed involvement of the Patriotic Association (PA) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. At the latest ordination attended by, according to some sources, Liu Bainian, Vice President of the Patriotic Association, and Ye Xiaowen, Director of the Religious Affairs Bureau, who traveled there from Beijingthe Patriotic Association abducted two bishops to have them preside over the rite, threatened to reduce the candidate and concelebrating bishops to poverty and to take measures against their families if they did not submit to the ceremony; it ensured the participation of the faithful by promising money. Pressure, threats, blackmail and lies in some cases, the PA publicly proclaimed to be in agreement with the Holy Seewere

Meeting at Vatican on the Church in China

by Bernardo Cervellera involved also in the other ordinations, to the point that the Holy See spoke out against these operations as a serious violation of religious freedom. After all these ordinations, the Chinese Ambassador in Rome went as far as to apologize with the Vatican, but the Holy Sees problem now is to figure out whether it can trust a government that, on one hand, promises dtente, and on the other allows if not approvesserious violations against human and religious rights. The burden of excommunication Within the Church, the problem is how to treat the bishops ordained illicitly and those who took part in the ceremony. The Vaticans declarations against the ordinations (May 4, 2006, and December 2, 2006) cite latae sententiae excommunication, but leave open the possibility that they took place under duress and against the interested parties full free will, thus sparing to some extent the (good) faith of the new pastors. The Vaticans statements also say that these ordinations create division in the diocesan community and cause distress to the conscience of many ecclesiastics and members of the faithful. So far, the Holy See has excused everyone, but among the members of the faithful, priests, and bishops in China, there are many who are wondering whether the time has not come to respond to the PAs pressure with greater resolve. And, without abandoning the implicated bishops, to suggest and demand that they refrain from exercising their ministry for several years. The problem is even more acute in the underground Church: its bishops, in order to remain faithful to the Holy See, have suffered imprisonment, torture, abduction, minute controls and isolation for decades. Various members of the underground Church, writing to AsiaNews, said Is it not time that the priests of the official Church too call up the courage to suffer for faithfulness to the Holy See, as is the tradition of many martyrs of the Church in China?
Meeting / p. 19

Volume 41 Number 1

15

Liu Liqun/CORBIS

The Future of the Asian Family

By Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I. rejection is very much alive. Moreover, the hospitality of the Asian family is proverbial, no matter how poor the family may be. A story is told of a priest and the altar boy who were politely invited after a Mass in the village. The poor farmer did not think that the priest would accept. But to his surprise and dismaythe priest accepted. Hastily the poor family prepared the only meal available, a lunch of rice and fish. Peeking through the spaces of the bamboo wall, the children saw the priest and altar boy relishing the food. Then, alas, they saw the priest turn the fish over to begin the other side. One of the children began to exclaim in the local Cebuano dialect, Oh, he turned over the fish. We will have no more food! Well thats the Asian family traithospitality despite great poverty. Finally, wE can readily observe that stability, resilience in the midst of difficulties, and deep yet simple religiosity characterize the Asian family. The question is: how long would this ideal form of family last in the face of secularizing and modernizing forces? What is its future? are a very small minority, there is a very great number of inter-religious families and inter-cultural families. Very interesting for the Philippine setting would be to know what percentage fathers of multiple families there is to the number of families in the country. Multiple families for one father seem to be a widespread practice. There is no doubt that the Asian family is in a period of transition. A very difficult period, indeed, filled with anxiety and insecurity for the future. I am told that among the Chinese people, to wish a person to live in a period of transition is to wish a terrible curse on that person. At least three major factors are impacting the Asian family to a significant degree. The Impact Globalization of Economic

or the past 50 years the situation of the family in the world has preoccu pied the thinking of social scientists, philosophers, theologians, moralists and ethicists. The question regarding the future of the Asian Family is likewise a burning issue. But a word of caution about the futureone wit has famously remarked, It is always difficult to make any prediction, especially when it is about the future. The best that could be done about predicting the future of the family in Asia is to discern what are presently impacting the Family in Asia for good or for ill. In this way one could hazard an educated guess about what future awaits the family. The Asian Family in a Period of Transition The family in Asia is undoubtedly in a period of transition. This assertion might seem startling when one travels through some picturesque and idyllic rural villages in any of the countries of Asia. The slow, simple and serene pace of ordinary life among farming families is in stark contrast to the fluid and frenetic pace of urban life. But whether it is in a remote village in Bangladesh or Nepal or in the sprawling megalopolis of Manila or Jakarta, or in the high tech societies of Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Tokyo, the Asian family is without doubt in a state of ferment. Despite social ferment, there is good news for the Asian family. Asians continue to value marriage as a sacred covenant between man and woman. Children are lovingly treasured as gifts of God. The nuclear family is still very close knit. Such closeness extends to the extended family. There is great respect for the elderly who are deeply cared for and honored within the family setting. Indeed, in this context the term that some observers have used is happily apt; in the Asian family a culture of belonging and not a culture of

"The future of the family in Asia lies in the hands of the family itself, cooperating with the Lords grace to respond effectively to the forces of a culture of death that are besieging it. These forces are formidable. "
The answer is bad news for the Asian family! For even now new forms of family are becoming more frequent: families of single parents, families of separated or divorced parents, step families, families of parents at least one of whom is absent for a prolonged period of time, families of unwed parents, husbands and wives with no children by deliberate planning and unions of persons of the same sex, even though these unions are still morally, legally and socially condemned. Finally, in Asia because of the multi-religious and multi-cultural context where Christians

It is well known that one of the tragic realities in Asia is the massive poverty of Asian families. The process of economic globalization has aggravated the poverty situation. Admittedly, a great number of Asian families has reaped great benefits from the process of economic globalization. Liberalization and deregulationthe twin economic tools of economic globalizationhave freed world markets from many checks and balances. Access to economic goods has been greatly liberalized in many parts of the world. What used to be rare luxury goods imported from other countries have become common place in small town markets. But the late Pope John Paul II has perceptively observed that the process of globalization has so far been detrimental to poor countries and especially to the poor in poor countries. This is so simply because the poor cannot compete with the rich and powerful in the neo-liberal free market. The economic playing field is far from being even for all participants. The increasing number of migrating families from rural to urban areas is a sign of a worsening poverty situation. Poor families are continually in search of jobs. Their children are unable to have access

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C O V E R S T O R Y
Roy Lagarde / IMPACT

The Future of the Asian Family

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C O V E R S T O R Y to good education. On the positive side economic globalization has made it possible for increasing numbers of Asian family members to go abroad as overseas workers. Yet this is both good and bad. Poor families have a better economic future because of better paying jobs abroad. But the downside is that the phenomenon of thousands of migrant workers in Asia and in Europe carries the clear danger of families breaking up because of prolonged separation of parents or of children growing up without the guidance of both parents. Moreover, poor families that cannot afford to send family members abroad for work are threatened by the specter of greater poverty. But this brings up another downside of the poverty situation of families. To improve both the quality of human life and ensure sufficient food production for the population, the conventional solution all over Asia has been an aggressive population control program that not only plays havoc on cherished family moral values but also victimizes the poor families themselves who are the main targets of population control. The Impact Globalization of Cultural

Accompanying economic globalization are the revolutionary advances of science and technology. The great leap of scientific and technological knowledge in the twentieth century has created a relatively new field of bio-ethics dealing with moral questions arising from scientific explorations regarding the biological origins and processes of life. It would seem that these bioethical issues are not yet the concern of most families in developing Asian countries. Nonetheless what is now happening in laboratories in the West or in Korea and Japan will in the future surely make Asian families willing or unwilling recipients of scientific advances, such as pre-natal gender selection, cloning, designer-babies, and many morally reprehensible concepts and practices in so-called reproductive health. This is not to mention the vexing problem of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) technology now spreading so quickly among Asian farmers. The farmers are often unaware of the health and environmental risks of GMO plants. Despite these developments in the field, biotechnological and ethical issues

are some of the still largely submerged parts of an iceberg threatening the Asian family. What is more overt is the terrible negative impact of social communications, cyberspace and the ongoing digital revolution on Asian family values. That many positive human values are disseminated by mass media cannot be dismissed. Great advances in scientific and technological knowledge are easily available in cyberspace. Sympathy and kindness, love and compassion are shared within a very short time with victims of human and natural disasters in far distant parts of the globe. The information highway has made the world truly a global village. But with this process also comes cultural globalizationthe entry of values into the Asian subconscious, values that are secular, materialist, and without religious underpinnings. Subtly and insidiously disseminated through mass media, secular values are undermining the sacred values related to birth and life, marriage and family, children and women, the young and the old, even death itself. A new morality based on majority opinion has emerged in the West and is slowly but definitely creeping into the Asian psyche. We see this in the changing opinions regarding the sacred nature of marriage as an enduring bond between man and woman, of the sacredness of every human life, born or unborn, of the

child as a gift of God, of the seamlessness of life, of the God-given value of motherhood, and of human stewardship over all these. Indeed, the Asian sense of the sacred is weakening in the face of this new morality, disseminated almost inexorably by the process of cultural globalization originating from the dominant culture of the West. In addition to the emergence of a new family morality, we see the transformation of once treasured cultural traditions and values. Admittedly some of these changes are commendable, as in the gradual weakening of patriarchy in many Asian societies. Womens liberation in the West has rightly questioned culturally based customs that involve discrimination against women, their oppression, and subordination by reason of gender. We see negative cultural traditions in the oppressive dowry system and the destruction of thousands of female fetuses in some Asian societies. But many Asian cultural values are authentic values of the Kingdom of God such as motherhood, the sacredness of every human life, the limitations of human freedom, or the irreplaceable centrality of the sacred in Asian life. These could gradually disappear in the face of the constant barrage of secular cultural forces in mass media. Reflecting on abundant and undisputed research data regarding the posi-

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The Future of the Asian Family

tive correlation between religion and family, one could very well exclaim: How tragic it would be were Asians to lose their deep religious sense, their sense of the sacred and of the Transcendent! The Impact of Social Conflict on the Asian Family A third major force that impacts the family in Asia to a significant degree is social conflict. All over Asia are various forms of conflict. Many are ethnic in nature, involving language and cultural differences, majority versus minority cultures or social groups. Some conflicts are ideological in nature. Tragically, many social conflicts in Asia are often colored by religious differences. And every largescale social conflict seems to have political and economic dimensions. Whatever be the case, the main victims of conflict are not governments but people and their families. Destruction may not always be in terms of human lives lost. Children growing up and the quality of life they grow up in are the victims. Especially is this observable in the spreading phenomenon of terrorism in many parts of Asia. Killings beget killings. Revenge and reprisal are easily justified. Hence, children, young men and women in families in the midst of ethnic and religious conflict grow up with fear and violence in their psychological makeup. The face of the enemy takes on a concrete form. It is the face of the other belonging to a different culture, or professing a different religious tradition. This is the process by which a culture of violence and death is woven into the Asian social fabric. How ironic this is, given the widely idealized belief in Asian harmony and peace! The Future of the Asian Family a Culture of Death? Serious reflection on three major realities impacting the Asian family: economic globalization, cultural globalization, and social conflict show how these are contributing to the erosion of family values and the breaking up of families as we traditionally know them. The question before Asians is: will these and other forces result in the total breakdown of the Asian family with its God-given values? Will the Asian family be dominated by a culture of death? The response to the questions does not lie in a defensive stance for the Church. The Church cannot just defend its family values and create around itself a fortress within which its traditions are unassailable from without. The answer lies in a credible, active, intensive, creative, and effective evangelization of the Asian family. The answer is a transformative insertion of the Gospel into every strata of society, an objective long ago presented by Pope Paul VI (see his Evangelii Nuntiandi) and more recently by Pope John Paul II (see his Evangelium Vitae). The Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences directly dealt with the subject of the Asian family in its most recent Plenary Assembly on the topic, The Asian Family towards a Culture of Integral Life (9th FABC Plenary Assembly, Korea, 2004). The vision of the FABC regarding the family and family ministry includes three general orientations: the family is the focal point of evangelization, to which all pastoral programs would be directed; family ministry in Asia has to empower families to participate actively in the struggle towards a culture of integral life, i.e., life in all its dimensions, including political, social, cultural, and religious hence to form families that participate fully toward the values of the Reign of God such as peace, justice, integral development, as well as truth and love; for this task to be accomplished, family ministry has to enable Asian families to actualize what all the Popes in the past thirty years have consistently said: Families, become what you are! Conclusion The future of the family in Asia lies in the hands of the family itself, cooperating with the Lords grace to respond effectively to the forces of a culture of death that are besieging it. These forces are formidable. In dialogue with cultures and other religious traditions, the Church in Asia has to assist the Asian family to give the necessary effective response. In the final analysis, it is by empowering the family through integral evangelization that the Church fulfills its ministry to the Asian family. It enables the Asian family to become what it should be, an initiator of a culture of integral life rather than a victim of a culture of death. Thus empowered the Asian family, by the grace of God, fashions its own future. I

Meeting / from p. 15

Eliminating Association

the

Patriotic

In any case, the Chinese government and the Holy See find themselves at a crossroads in terms of evaluating the Patriotic Associations function. Born as an organism to monitor religious activity, it has by now become the owner of the Churchs life, managing the ordination of bishops and priests, seminary teaching, the transfer of personnel, Church finances and property, with the result of distorting the spiritual experience itself of communities. Not to be forgotten is also the fact the Patriotic Associations statute foresees the creation of a national and independent Church, separate from Rome. The Vaticans declaration of December 2, 2006, states that the ordination (of Xuzhou) is the fruit and consequence of a vision of the Church that does not correspond with Catholic doctrine and subverts the fundamental principles of its hierarchical structure. But this can be applied to all the activities of the Patriotic Association. According to some Chinese Catholics, the time has come to reject entirely, on the part of everyone official and underground Catholics adherence to the Patriotic Association, notwithstanding the willingness to register communities with the government. On the part of the governmentand especially the Foreign Ministryit is understandable how the Patriotic Association has by now become obsolete and a burden. Not a day goes by that one foreign government or another accuses China of violating the religious rights of communities, and this is becoming bad publicity for a country that wants to show itself to be modern and open, and wants the 2008 Olympic Games to be a success. The Patriotic Association is becoming a source of tension in many regions of China, so much so as to betray the idea of a harmonious society so dear to President Hu Jintao. It is also true that the Patriotic Association is one of the most traditional structures of Maoism, the birth of which is part and parcel of the history of the Communist Party. For many members of the Party, attacking and sidelining the Patriotic Association equates to selfcriticism. It is likely that the meetings at the Vatican over the next few days will only give an initial handling to the problems listed here. What is certainas was confirmed by figures close to the meetingis the creation of a permanent Commission to deal with the China dossier. I

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Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis

Benedict XVIs speech at Regensburg received a lot of criticism but it in fact launched an effective model for IslamoChristian dialogue: refusal of violence, love of truth, interpretation, mission. The only way to go beyond the trivially tolerant appearance of dialogue promoted by many Muslims and by a good part of the Catholic Church.

Church-Islam Dialogue:
by Samir Khalil Samir, SJ

The Path Starts From Regensburgs Pope

and that violence is against the nature of God and of man. Unfortunately, being that this phrase was pronounced on September 12th, a day after the anniversary of the attack against the Twin Towers, people read it in a political key (helped by the manipulations of Al Jazeera and Western liberals). Now Muslims themselves are wondering: All in all, the Pope said that there is the risk of violence in Islam. And this is not true? It is not our history and our daily problem? Are we not running the risk of emptying faith by separating it from reason and from critical thought? Even if not in public, various Islamic scholars are saying: This separation between faith and reason

enedicts masterly lecture at Regensburg was seen by many Christians and Muslims as a false step by the Pope, a simple mistake, something to get over and forget, if we dont want to set off a war of religions. Instead, at Regensburg, this Pope traced, with his balanced, courageous and by no means trivial thinking, the basis for true dialogue between Christians and Muslims, giving voice to many reformist Muslims and suggesting to Islam and Christians the steps to be taken. Still today in the West and in the Islamic world, reactions to that speech are strong. But many Muslim scholars are beginning to ask themselves: After the

tumult of initial misunderstandings, what did Benedict XVI say to us after all? He told us that we Muslims run the great risk of eliminating reason from our faith. In this case, the Islamic faith becomes simply an act of submission to God, which can conceivably degenerate into violence, perhaps even in the name of God, or to defend God. Violence, reason and crisis in Islam The much-exploited and detested quotation of Manuel II Paleologus itself was important because it underlined that God does not love blood and violence,

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is more than ever todays danger in Islam! From the 9th to the 11th century Islam had integrated in its vision the Hellenistic dimension of Greek philosophy and, through this, the critical, logical and reasonable dimension. This happened thanks to the Christians that lived in the Muslim world. But, for almost a thousand years, Islam abandoned reason to continuously repropose a literal application of what was said in the past. The current crisis in the Muslim world is based on this very gap between faith and reason and, many Muslims, in various ways, are saying so. Speaking in parliament about a month ago, the Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, criticized the spread of the Islamic veil in Egypt saying that such a thing had never before been seen in our country. This path has taken us backwards by at least 30 years. Another member of parliament took up his argument: Not only have we gone back 30 years, but to the times of Mehmet Ali [i.e. to the early 19th century]. Unfortunately, the minister was accused of having gone against the Egyptian Constitution, which foresees the Koran and Sharia as sources of law. Thus, Farouk Hosni, who has been minister for 20 years and is a noted artist, risked being removed by fundamentalists. Plus, being 62 years old and unmarried, he was also attacked with accusations of being a homosexual. The crisis of Islam is there for everyone to see and is being pointed out by all the intellectuals. It is an attempt to take refuge in the past for fear of self-criticism, reason and modernity. When the Pope stresses to Muslims the importance of integrating reason and faith, he is actually suggesting the way for making great strides forward, as he also does with the secular world when he stresses the importance of integrating the spiritual dimension into the concept of reason. The courage to speak Another important element that emerged at Regensburg is the courage to speak: the time has come to be frank about Islam. Even a pope has the full right to say things simply and directly to our Muslim brothers, as also to the Jews, to non-believers and to his own Catholics. This Pope has claimed freedom of speech. The Pope, a master interpreter of the Koran Still today, there are Muslims who write to me thanking the Pope for what he said in Germany. Right after the speech, Abdelwahhab Meddeb of Tunisia thanked Benedict XVI because finally someone dared to speak and point a finger at violence Secondly, he said reasonable and unpleasant things, but he is convinced that such things must be said as this constitutes true dialogue. The aim of the Regensburg speechthis is said in the conclusionis precisely humanistic dialogue, which rejects nothing positive in Islam or in the Enlightenment, but criticizes what is extremist or anti-spiritual in one and the other. In such a way, Benedict XVI has set the basis for a universal dialogue, in making a proposal to the two opposite tendencies today: on one hand, Islam with it fideism that excludes reason (and it is worth specifying that this does not mean that all of Islam has always rejected reason, as some would have us believe he said); on the other hand, he has made a proposal to laicist, rationalist, Enlightenment thinking that relegates religion to the insignificant. Since Regensburg, he has also displayed this dialogue, by making concrete in Islam. For Meddeb the seed of violence in Islam is found in the Koran, as he entitled one of his articles. Such a statementon the part of a Muslimshines a light on the real, great problem of dialogue today: the lack of truth, the reluctance to accept discussion on critical points. On the question of violence, all Muslims know that its seeds are in the holy Book, but everyone also tries to hide this by saying that No, it is not true, Islam means peace, salm, respect, non-violence, thus denying the facts. Benedict XVIs speech did not deny the facts, but proposed that they be understood within a human context. That is, he suggested that Islam begin to undertake an interpretation of texts. When the Pope quoted verse 2,256 of the Koran, there is no violence in matters of faith, he added a phrase that scandalized many: this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammad was still powerless and under threat. These comments seem to me fundamental: he is stressing the need for exegetic work to be done on sacred texts. In this specific case, he gave an example of hermeneutic of the Koran, proposing that that verse be read within the human experience of Mohammad. He was criticized by many, both Muslims and Catholic scholars: He is ignorant, they said, that verse is not from the initial period (Mecca), but from the Medina period. In effect, according to the official edition of the Koran, it was the Medina period. But reading the comments in the bilingual Arabic-English and Arabic-French editions of the Koran, edited by Saudi Arabia, we can read This is the first surah revealed in Medina. In sociological terms, this means that is was revealed immediately after the Hijrathe flight from Meccawhen Mohammad left his tribe to unite with the opposing tribes of Aws and Khazraj. In that moment and for the next two years (until 624), he had no real power and was constantly under threat. He sought support in fact from the Jews, the richest and most powerful in Medina. When this failed, he began making raids, as was usual on the part of those who could not get by. If this surahas Muslim commentators sayis the first of Medina, that means that it is before the raiding period. It is true therefore that it was from the second period, but it is also true, as the Pope says, that it comes

"If a Church or a bishop is not interested in mission, it means that they are asleep or closed in upon themselves. So far, I have seen churches which are very well organized vis--vis Muslims from the point of view of charity: help to immigrant, hospitality, schools, etc."
gestures. It is worth recalling the Popes prayer in Istanbuls Blue Mosque, during his visit to Turkey. The Pope concretely underlined that we Christians recognize and respect the spiritual dimension present in Islam: he removed his shoes upon entering the sacred place (a tradition that is biblical and that we find among the Copts and the Ethiopians); invited to pray, he turned toward the mihrab, the niche which indicates Mecca. He prayed because he does not reduce Islam to politics; he prayed without creating ambiguity or confusion. These gestures gave the true meaning of the Regensburg speech for Muslims.

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at a moment in which Mohammad himself was powerless and under threat. With his small comment, Benedict XVI seems to suggest to Muslims: we must read the text in its context; and this is fundamental for beginning an Islamo-Christian dialogue. We must reread the sacred texts to see the circumstances of revelation (asbb al-tanzl, as is said in the Muslim tradition). In this, the Pope is resuming the healthy tradition of interpretation which was alive in the 9th century. Unfortunately, this no longer occurs in contemporary Islam. Instead, if we come across violent versesand they do existin the Koran, we must seek to understand them in the context in which they appeared. It is clear that Mohammad waged wars; it is also clear that he did not fight for the love of violence: in line with Old Testament tradition, he fought wars for God, in the zeal of God. All this, put in the perspective of the cultural and religious tradition of the Middle East, is natural and not surprising. But it should also be said that, today, the mentality has changed: does God truly need to be defended by man? It thus follows that the Koran needs to be reread and interpreted for today. For a century, all Muslim reformists have been saying that the solution for modernizing Islam lies in the interpretation of the Koran. For at least 30 or 40 years, we have been in a phase in which there is no longer any innovation in interpretation, but repetition ad nauseam of the same things and clichs. The same memorized things are repeated. A young Iranian Muslim, with a degree in Islamic studies, told me the other day: We can no longer think of the Koran as directly dictated by God to Mohammad through the angel Gabriel. It must be interpreted. Unfortunately, in todays Islam there is not much freedom: a few decades ago, one of our intellectuals, Abdolkarim Soroush was removed from university teaching for having taught such things. In the end, to be able to live and express himself, he had to emigrate to Europe. In todays Islam, ideas are available, especially among reformists and young intellectuals, but they are keeping quiet because freedom in the Islamic world is highly limited. The Pope had the courage to identify the key points: reason, violence, hermeneutics... And he touched on a sore point with the question of the interpretation of the Koran, without which there can be no dialogue. This urging of Islam toward interpretation is done out of love for Islam. Certain Christian and Muslim theologians criticized the Pope for having been too hard at Regensburg and they instead applauded him in Turkey. Actually, though, it is the same Pope who, out of love for Islam, did not fail to criticize it at Regensberg, and did not lack spiritual brotherhood in Istanbul. pean lay newspapers criticized the bishop because he rejected an open and brotherly proposal, etc... Without any violence, a sense of culture and identity and of real religious freedom is growing among Christians. Thus, that irenic and falsely multi-ethnic attitude of a mishmash of religions is beginning to fall by the wayside. This is especially urgent in France, where fear of offending Islam does not even allow for the annual drafting of statistics on conversions from Islam: bishops and those responsible for dialogue with Muslims refuse to give news on the number of Muslims who are asking for baptism. I personally am not against the fact that there are Christians who become Muslims, as long as they convert for reasons of faith and not for political or economic reasons. But I also want news on how many Muslims are becoming Christians and that such information can be freely given. It is in such frank openness that true spiritual emulation is created. For Muslims and Christians alike, mission is an obligation. Muslims call it dawa and it is an obligation; Christians call it evangelization, and it too is an obligation. Unfortunately, there are among Christians more and more people who refuse to announce and to speak of their faith, out of respect or as not to fall into proselytism. Muslims have dawa offices all over the world. They are tied to each Islamic state and build mosques, spread the Koran, send out preachers and other resources: a sort of Propaganda Fide for each Islamic state. The difference is that, among Muslims, it is the state that supports Islamic mission. In the case of Christians, it is the communities, the Church which supports mission. If a Church or a bishop is not interested in mission, it means that they are asleep or closed in upon themselves. So far, I have seen churches which are very well organized vis--vis Muslims from the point of view of charity: help to immigrant, hospitality, schools, etc. It is, however, a generosity without proclamation. It is said that this happens to save dialogue. But proclamation is necessary so that dialogue is a dialogue in truth. It is necessary that the Church realize that its existencenot only numericaldepends on the proclamation of the Gospel to Muslims also. If this drive is lacking, then it means that she has lost that sense of the beauty of faith encountered in Christ. It means slipping into the void of relativism. I
Pascal Deloche/Godong/Corbis

Christian mission tempted by relativism At Regensburg, Benedict XVI dared to speak of violence, the lack of reason, the necessity of interpretation in Islam, and thus many Muslim intellectuals praised him and hoped that the Pope does not apologize. In the West, the calls for an apology were numerous, even among Christians. In effect, what had happened, however, was that the Popes behavior at Regensburg upset the overly irenic conception of the Churchs mission and the tolerant dogoodism of lay environs. Benedict XVI made it understood that speaking the truth, saying things that hurt, is not an insult, but a path for healing. Occasionally, a bitter pill must be given. Often among Christians who are engaged in dialogue with Islam, there is a tendency to hide and not speak about differences. This is acceptable at the beginning: if I begin a relationship with you, I certainly dont begin by defining how much there is that separates me from you. But the relationship must deepen. An outcrop of the clarity suggested by the Pope is the behavior of the Bishop of Cordoba. This prelate received the umpteenth request from a group of Muslims (converted Spaniards) who wanted to use the cathedral to pray together and give an image of true ecumenism. The bishop replied that he saw this possibility as ambiguous and did not allow it. Various Euro-

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evotion to the Santo Nino is happily widespread in our country. Wherever we go, we always see forms of this devotion acted out usually by our simple folks. I must say that this is a tremendous asset we have. Aside from this, we also give popular cult to Our Lady, St. Joseph, the saints, and even our dead. I believe that it is in these spontaneous pious exercises that our soul as a people can truly be seen. We are fortunately a deeply believing people. We dont merely stop at the level of the sensible, the earthly and temporal. We dont simply rely on the practical, the intelligible and reasonable. We go beyond these dimensions, and enter into the world of faith, developing a piety to go with it. Thus, thanks to God, we Filipinos possess a deep treasury of piety which we live not only in a personal capacity, but also in a social and popular way. I believe this is a great blessing that helps to keep us one and united as a people in spite of our divisive shortcomings. It is also for this reason that I would dare to say that if we really want to resolve our unavoidable differences and conflicts as we look, as a nation, for our progress and development, we should purify and strengthen our faith and piety. I believe this is where we can find those ultimate unifying elements we need as a country, even as we consider different options, conflicting views and positions in our inescapable temporal affairs like our business and politics. I dont believe this claim is baseless. Ive seen it heavily validated by experience. Ive witnessed many instances when clashes are softened and even agreements and reconciliations reached as long as parties and people pray. Ive met people who, even if their defects seem be more than their virtues, manage to make progress simply because they pray a lot. Ive also met people who, because they dont pray, cannot help but create problems even when there should be none. I believe that the many forms of popular piety we have are a manifestation of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They amply capture our peoples deepest yearnings, anxieties and concerns. They become a powerful prayer linking us with God. But, yet, it cannot be denied that they need to be purified, regulated and strengthened. We need to find out if they properly inculturate the faith. Thats a very delicate task, needing profound and comprehensive study and keen discernment.
Philippe Lissac/Godong/Corbis

Popular Piety as Unifying Tool

By Fr. Roy Cimagala They have to be purified from superstitious elements and the illicit sense of magic that somehow manages to seep in and distort them. These things are like parasites that spoil otherwise good developments in our collective spiritual life. Popular piety should also be properly focused and made to grow to maturity, freeing them from the tendency to shallow sentimentalism and self-seeking aims and self-serving maneuvers. They have to be soundly grounded on doctrine and adequately regulated by competent Church authorities. These days, they should help us in tackling our social concerns properly. Thus, there is a great need for some systematic plan of catechesis. Forms of popular piety should improve not only our relation with God, but also our relation among ourselves, which can be seen and measured in concrete terms. Also, that delicate task of harmonizing popular piety with the Churchs entire liturgical life should be undertaken. This should pose as a real challenge to the competence of our Churchs authorities. Someone has told me, rather lightheartedly, that we Pinoys dont really have serious doctrinal problems. Our problems are more of the disciplinary kind. We tend to get wild and unruly as well as too sentimental and passionate for law and order to take full effect. Just the same I believe there has to be a more systematic plan to deepen the doctrinal formation of the faithful, whether of the simple or the sophisticated type, especially these days when good and bad elements come together in society. This should be done in the field of popular piety. I

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FROM THE B L O G S

First World Gambling

Perception

he public perception of people is reality for them as far as those in tenure of public office are concerned. This is the way strong impressions become strong convictions. This reality is premised on the saying that where there is smoke, there must be fire. And when there is much smoke, the conclusion is one and the same: there must be a big fire. While only the smoke is seen, the conclusive existence of fire comes as a matter of course. This is precisely the case of the Smith issue. His transfer from local confinement to foreign custody maybe according to the provisions of VFAor otherwise. The strong handed and surreptitious method used to bring him out of an ordinary jail to a place covered by immunity, could be consonant with the particulars of the judgment of conviction against the soldier and in favor of the people of the Philippines or otherwise. But the public impression, consequent perception and pursuant conclusion on the part of many nationalists are but one and the same: Juan de la Cruz is merely a vassal of Uncle Sam. The Filipinos in reality constitute but inferior allies of the Americans. In short, the Philippines is not a sovereign but a country subservient to the U.S.A. Worst of all, there was already the

perception that the legislative department has been long since under the rule of the present administration. Its allies have consistently followed the bidding of the national leadership, repeatedly protected this from the impeachment process, loudly echoed its desire and design to change the fundamental law of the landthrough all possible means and alternatives. Now, there is even the public perception that the executive department feels and acts as a section of government that is in effect superior to the judicial branch. This is a very dangerous popular impression even if only for its negation of democracy in the country. It actually promotes the conclusion that the government is veering towards authoritarianism. This perception and conclusion are not based only on the isolated Smith case. The present administration has more than once tried to be over and above the constitution of the landsuch as with its vain declaration of National Emergency in its paranoid insecurity to lose power and influence. The records show that it was the judicial branch of government that cut it to its right shape and size. The handling of the Smith case is thus disturbing to the Common Taobe it rightly or wrongly doneunder the command of the executive department.
www.ovc.blogspot.com

irst world gambling in a third world countrythis is the loud claim of PAGCOR. This is the big pride of the present government owning and operating the gambling institution. A recent self-praise release had even the gall to say that the government gambling corporation has earned respectability, demonstrated transparency and posted a record P25 billion take for the year. This is supposedly the banner rakein of the government corporation. This is the height of social insensibility. More people are poor, hungry and sick. More men and women leave the country to make a living. More children are made to work. More families live in shacks if not in the streets or under certain bridges. Yet, they have a government that takes shameless pride in having a world class gambling corporation. The government continues to lose credibility. It has long since earned the distrust and scorn of many. That is why there are more and more protest rallies, expressions of anger and resentment in the streets. Add to this, its less and less approval by the citizens. But lo and behold, the government has the guts to say that its gambling arm is adorned with respectability. The same government has recently earned the shameful distinction of being second to none in corruption. It continues to gather record high corrupt practices in the present as well as in the recent past. Still, this government dares to claim transparency in its gambling industry. Something must be fundamentally wrong somewhere in all this contradictory self-serving praise of government gambling and the pitiful sad national reality. And whereas decent and honest popular perception cannot but be right, it can only be the government and gambling that are wrong realities. Time and again ad nauseam, the national leadership champions corporate gambling as its development arm, as its sourcing for charitable projects. But it infallibly refuses to acknowledge its big bad social costs. It deliberately plays deaf, dumb and blind to the truth that syndicated gambling is accompanied by guns and goonsnot to mention its invitation to corruption, the creation of addicts and the destruction of families. If PAGCOR provides such a respectable government corporation, why is it that public officials are barred from frequenting it?

www.ovc.blogspot.com

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EDITORIAL

Big Fat Lies

t has become so common and customary that big fat lies are so often said and widely publicized by some politicians that ordinary citizens have become numb to them. Worst still, the devious and gross misrepresentations of certain politicians have become standard practice that not few people are led to take them as unadulterated truth. The unhealthy effect of such fallacious and odious gimmicks on the part of such politicians is basically one and the same: people in general, their constituents in particular practically worship them as their petty gods and saviors. For lying and deceiving the public, these politicians get not simply the gratitude but also the adulation for their vile lies and deceptions. This has reference to the public works here and there done in certain parts of the country, in this province and that city. They come in form of bridges and streets, road repairs and waiting sheds, cheap foods and medicines. And such agenda have special relevance to relief and rehabilitation projects. The big fat lies come in form of the ridiculous and preposterous claims of politicians that such public welfare undertakings are at their generosity

and liberality. This grossly deceitful attribution is made through shameless advertising billboards, signs and even tri-media publications. And the biggest culprit in this dubious practice is none other than the national leadership. From housing projects to water pumps, from livelihood projects to relief goodsit claims liberality and merit for them. Their attributions are all selfserving as if the money spent thereon came from its own pocket. The truth is exactly the opposite. There is nothing it does and will do if the general public is not giving it the funds to do so. Anything and everything the national leadership does, is financed by public funds. And the sad truth is that much of these public funds that come from the direct and indirect taxes of every individual in the country, goes to nobody knows whereas of now at least. This brings one to wonder if the national leadership spends even but one centavo from its own pocket for the common good. The exact opposite would be correct: it must be very grateful to the citizens for paying taxes from their birth to their deathfor money to get its salary, benefits and perks among other things. This is the fact. This is the truth.

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STATEMENTS
tected throughout his/her entire life. 2. Created in the image of God, the human embryo has God-given inviolable rights and is destined to eternal life. 3. The human family founded on the institution of marriage (which includes fatherhood, motherhood and childhood) is the natural and fundamental group unit of society. Its rights as a social unit, and not merely of its members as individuals, have to be respected and promoted. 4. We acknowledge the contributions of science to provide cure and alleviate human suffering. However, ethics and social morality set limits for what is permissible in scientific discovery and the application of scientific knowledge. 5. The claim by some scientists that human embryonic stem cells can be used for treating adult tissue is false, and hence must be debunked. Only adult stem cells have this ability. 6. There is a need to be genuinely discerning and critical of organizations and systemsnational and internationalthat seek to abrogate the countrys sovereign constitutional protection of the family, parents rights, and the right to life. 7. Contraception which gave rise to what Pope John Paul II referred to as the culture of death has stimulated sharp increases in adultery, pre-marital sex and homosexual activity. With it, the abominable crime of abortion has been condoned and even considered a right. This loss of respect and care for human life at its beginning has led to the loss of respect and care at its natural end, as in the evils of euthanasia and abandonment of the elderly and the handicapped. 8. Various faiths and cultures, at the national and international levels, must mutually cooperate to promote, strengthen and protect human life and the family. 9. The government, particularly the legislators, has also the moral obligation to promote and protect human life from its beginning, as well as the dignity of marriage and the family. 10. Invoking the God of Life, may our families be inspired, strengthened and challenged by the example of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in responding to our vocation to serve the Church and society by caring for human life and serving the family, the basic unit of society.

A Conference Statement of the CBCP 2007 International Conference on Bioethics and the Family
January 9-10, 2007 EDSA Shangri-La Hote Ortigas Center, Metro Manila

ecent developments in modern biomedical science are proceeding at a dizzying pace, presenting untold opportunities and problems for the individual, the family, and society. Authentic progress, which promotes the dignity of the human person from conception until ones natural death, is a fundamental concern which the Catholic Church shares with all of humanity. It requires that every human activity, including and most specially those related to science, conform to the universal and timeless principles and norms of ethics, and that every human achievement confirm these principles and standards. Determined to make sure that all progress in genetic engineering and biotechnology adhere strictly to this principle, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines felt it has the duty and the

opportunity to contribute to the proper dissemination, processing and utilization of information and data that could help promote the correct public policies and private response of individuals and families to the wide range of issues in biomedicine and biotechnology. For this reason, the CBCP decided to organize the 2007 International Conference on Bioethics and the Family, drawing on the knowledge of experts from the Holy See, the United States, Europe and the Philippines, from whose presentation we have drawn the following conclusions: 1. The human embryo is a human person, composed of body and soul, from the moment of his/her conception, endowed with all the potentialities, proper identity, individuality, and uniqueness, and hence has an inherent dignity that must be respected and pro-

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Roy Lagarde / IMPACT

STATEMENTS
Dear Brothers and Sisters, n 11 February 2007, when the Church keeps the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Fifteenth World Day of the Sick will be celebrated in Seoul, Korea. A number of meetings, conferences, pastoral gatherings and liturgical celebrations will take place with representatives of the Church in Korea, health care personnel, the sick and their families. Once again the Church turns her eyes to those who suffer and calls attention to the incurably ill, many of whom are dying from terminal diseases. They are found on every continent, particularly in places where poverty and hardship cause immense misery and grief. Conscious of these sufferings, I will be spiritually present at the World Day of the Sick, united with those meeting to discuss the plight of the incurably ill in our world and encouraging the efforts of Christian communities in their witness to the Lords tenderness and mercy. Sickness inevitably brings with it a moment of crisis and sober confrontation with ones own personal situation. Advances in the health sciences often provide the means necessary to meet this challenge, at least with regard to its physical aspects. Human life, however, has intrinsic limitations, and sooner or later it ends in death. This is an experience to which each human being is called, and one for which he or she must be prepared. Despite the advances of science, a cure cannot be found for every illness, and thus, in hospitals, hospices and homes throughout the world we encounter the sufferings of our many brothers and sisters who are incurably and often terminally ill. In addition, many millions of people in our world still experience unsanitary living conditions and lack access to much-needed medical resources, often of the most basic kind, with the result that the number of human beings considered incurable is greatly increased. The Church wishes to support the incurably and terminally ill by calling for just social policies which can help to eliminate the causes of many diseases and by urging improved care for the dying and those for whom no medical remedy is available. There is a need to promote policies which create conditions where human beings can bear even incurable illnesses and death in a dignified manner. Here it is necessary to stress once again the need for more palliative care centres which provide integral care, offering the sick the

Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for the Fifteenth World Day of the Sick

human assistance and spiritual accompaniment they need. This is a right belonging to every human being, one which we must all be committed to defend. Here I would like to encourage the efforts of those who work daily to ensure that the incurably and terminally ill, together with their families, receive adequate and loving care. The Church, following the example of the Good Samaritan, has always shown particular concern for the infirm. Through her individual members and institutions, she continues to stand alongside the suffering and to attend the dying, striving to preserve their dignity at these significant moments of human existence. Many such individualshealth care professionals, pastoral agents and volunteersand institutions throughout the world are tirelessly serving the sick, in hospitals and in palliative care units, on city streets, in housing projects and parishes. I now turn to you, my dear brothers and sisters suffering from incurable and terminal diseases. I encourage you to contemplate the sufferings of Christ crucified, and, in union with him, to turn to the Father with complete trust that all life, and your lives in particular, are in his hands. Trust that your sufferings, united to those of Christ, will prove fruitful for the needs of

the Church and the world. I ask the Lord to strengthen your faith in his love, especially during these trials that you are experiencing. It is my hope that, wherever you are, you will always find the spiritual encouragement and strength needed to nourish your faith and bring you closer to the Father of Life. Through her priests and pastoral workers, the Church wishes to assist you and stand at your side, helping you in your hour of need, and thus making present Christs own loving mercy towards those who suffer. In conclusion, I ask ecclesial communities throughout the world, and particularly those dedicated to the service of the infirm, to continue, with the help of Mary, Salus Infirmorum, to bear effective witness to the loving concern of God our Father. May the Blessed Virgin, our Mother, comfort those who are ill and sustain all who have devoted their lives, as Good Samaritans, to healing the physical and spiritual wounds of those who suffer. United to each of you in thought and prayer, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of strength and peace in the Lord. From the Vatican, 8 December 2006 BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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Maurizio Gambarini/dpa/Corbis

FROM THE I N B O X

Grace/zefa/Corbis

Cheer Up Lessons on Life

he next time you feel like GOD cant use you, just remember... Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused. Moses had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Samson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah preached naked. Jonah ran from God. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. John the

Baptist ate bugs. Peter denied Christ. The Disciples fell asleep while praying. Martha worried about everything. Mary Magdalene was, well you know. The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once. Zaccheus was too small. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer...AND Lazarus was dead! No more excuses now. God can use you to your full potential. Besides you arent the message, you are just the messenger.
rowena.dalanon@cbcpworld.net

The Woman and the Frog

here was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen. The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed

with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment. The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the trees life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when its winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall. Dont let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Dont judge life by one difficult season. Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come some time later.
rowena.dalanon@cbcpworld.net

he woman freed the frog, and the frog said, Thank you, but I failed to mention that there was a condition to your wishes. Whatever you wish for, your husband will get ten times! The woman said, Thats okay. For her first wish, she wanted to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The frog warned her, You do realize that this wish will also make your husband the most handsome man in the world, an Adonis whom women will flock to. The woman replied, Thats okay, because I will be the most beautiful woman and he will have eyes only for me. So, KAZAMshes the most beautiful woman in the world! For her second wish, she wanted to be the richest woman in the world. The frog said, That will make your husband the richest man in the world. And he will be ten times richer than you. The woman said,

Thats okay, because whats mine is his and whats his is mine. So, KAZAMshes the richest woman in the world! The frog then inquired about her third wish, and she answered, Id like a mild heart attack. Moral of the story: Women are clever. Dont mess with them. Attention female readers: This is the end of the joke for you. Stop here and continue feeling good. Male readers: Please scroll down. The man had a heart attack ten times milder than his wife!!! Moral of the story: Women are really dumb but think theyre really smart. Let them continue to think that way and just enjoy the show. PS: If you are a woman and are still reading this, it only goes to show that women never listen!!!
rowena.dalanon@cbcpworld.net

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B O O K REVIEWS

COMPENDIUM OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Freshly reeling off the press, this superbly abridged formulation of the contents of the Catholic faith is but a timely sequel to the Catechism of the Catholic Church presented to the universal Church by the late Pope John Paul II is October 1992. Borne out from the International Catechetical Congress of October 2002, Pope John Paul II, in 2003, then established a Special Commission under the presidency of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to draft this concise formulation of the Catholic doctrine. Like its predecessor, Catechism of the Catholic Church, this Compendium readily enables everyone to know what the Church professes, celebrates, lives and prays in her daily life. There are three principal characteristics of the Compendium: the close reliance on the Catechism of the Catholic Church; the dialogical format; and the use of artistic images in the Catechesis. Through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church,

THE BISHOPS STAFF

Abp. Oscar V. Cruz, JCD
The Church as a whole is much blessed in the matter of symbols like, among others, the Cross, Catholic liturgy, sacramental life of the Churchwhich are meant to convey the many realities of the Catholic Faith. A Bishop himself has, wears and carries certain symbols, all of which are meant to convey his threefold teaching, sanctifying and serving Officealso known as his Prophetic, Priestly and Kingly Ministry. Some of the more distinctive symbolic items used by a Bishop on liturgical occasions are: the Mitre, which symbolizes his hierarchical consecrated status in the Church; the Pectoral Cross that emphasizes his life of sacrifice in the faithful exercise of his threefold episcopal ministry; and the Episcopal Ring that conveys his union with Christ through his close communion with the Church, serving well to symbolize his office as Bishop. But what about the Bishops Staff? In his latest book, Bishops Staffremarkably his 24th, to dateArchbishop Cruz, the Philippine hierarchys foremost canon lawyer par excellence, scholarly unravels the theological, and canonical too, significance of the Bishops Staff, also known as the Shepherds Staff. In Holy Scriptures, the figure of shepherds holding walking poles while tending their sheep was very

may everyone who reads this authoritative text recognize and embrace ever more fully the inexhaustible beauty, uniqueness and significance of the incomparable gift which God has made to the human race in His only Son, Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, beautifully prefaces Pope Benedict XVI in his Motu Propio for the approval and publication of the Compenium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Vatican
The recent declaration by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines of 2006 as Year of Social Concerns ever more highlighted the Churchs incessant call for a deeper understanding of the Catholic Churchs social doctrine. Unmistakably for sure, throughout the course of her historyand particularly in the last hundred yearsthe Church has never failed to speak the words that are hers (Pope Leo XIII) with regard to questions concerning life in society. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church unassumingly poses indeed to be an excellent synthesis, a kind of vademecum, of the Churchs social teaching. The reading of these pages is suggested above all in order to sustain and foster the activity of Christians in the social sector, especially the activity of the lay faithful to whom this area belongs in a particular way; the whole of their lives must be seen as a work of evangelization that produces fruitEvery reader of good will will be able to understand the motives that prompt the Church to intervene with her doctrine in the social sector, an area which, at first glance, does not belong to the Churchs competence, and these same readers will see the reasons for an encounter, for dialogue, for cooperation in serving the common good, pre-notes Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of Vaticans Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, for the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

common. Even in these times, in countries where flocks of sheep are raised, the phenomenon of shepherds with their staffs remains. One thing is certain: the staff held by a shepherd has practical reason in relation to the common good of his flock. And this can be summarized into three basic purposes: One, to lead the flock to places where they can find food and drink. Two, to secure the flock from venturing into unsafe or dangerous areas. Three, to defend the flock when attacked by ferocious wolves and other predatory animals. The Bishops Staff carries and conveys substantially the same threefold commitment in favor of the portion of Gods People entrusted to his pastoral care as his own cherished flock, Abp. Cruz anticipatingly explains about the Bishops Staff.

HENRI J.M. NOUWEN

In My Own Words
Robert Durback, ed.
Thus, for many of us, silence has become a threat. There was a time when silence was normal, and a lot of noise disturbed us. But today, noise is the normal fare, and silence strange as it may seemhas become the disturbance. It is not hard to understand that people who experience silence in this way have difficulty with prayer. This is just one treasure trove of an exceptionally exhilarating thought cadged from the spiritual memoirs of Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Roman

Catholic priest who died in 1996 and was one of the most popular spiritual writers of our time. In Henri J.M. Nouwen: In My Own Words, Robert Durback, a former monk of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner (South Carolina, USA), magnificently dishes out a gorgeous collection of Henri Nouwens spiritual reflections. For Durback, Henri Nouwen though many looked to him as a guide on the spiritual journeyconsidered himself just a fellow traveler. His hope was to encourage others along the way to recognize the beauty of their own unique spiritual experiences. This collection of his thoughts fulfills that hope.

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ENTERTAINMENT
native African father searching for his family, a white African search ing for a way out and an American journalist searching to expose the truth three characters brought together by an invaluable pink diamond amidst the Civil War in Sierra Leone in 1999. Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCarpio) is a mercenary who convinces Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) to team up with him to sell the blood diamond the latter found when he was enslaved by the rebel forces. In return, Danny promises to find Solomons captive family through his connections. They recruit Maddys (Jennifer Connely) help in exchange for names and information on the diamond trade for the expose she is hoping to feature. Unfortunately, to Solomons heartbreak, his son, Dia (Kagiso Kuypers) has been indoctrinated by rebel soldiers and is transformed into as cold-blooded child soldier. Edward Zwick transforms a sociopolitical issue into a highly riveting and powerful film. He maximizes the potentials of the intelligent scripting of Leavitt with a perfect balance of pushing the horror of a situation before going to the next sequence. The plot moves flawlessly with unforgettable lines and impressionable characters. DiCarpio and Hounsou give brilliant performances and so does the young Kuypers. The cinematography reveals the stunning beauty of Africa and the appalling violence of war with excellent editing piercing it tightly. The scoring is chillingly romantic. The film is perhaps one of the best of its genre. This is the type of movie that makes one thankful he is merely an onlooker of actual events and situations through the celluloids drama. Blood Diamond is an insightful movie exposing atrocities of consumerism, exploitation and corruption and gives a well backhand wakeup for the indifference and hypocrisy not only of world leaders and those in power but also of the common people living thousand of miles away from the conflict and violence. The horrors of war is excruciating affecting families and children and its scars are irreversible. But what is worse is how societies take advantage of poverty and conflict to further their personal interests. A haunting question is not what one is willing to risk to get what he wants but to know in the depths of his person what really will make him happy. As a native poetically says every person at the core is good. So does Danny Archer realize this that despite his fiery desire to get out of war torn continent and after all

CATHOLIC INITIATIVE FOR E NLIGHTENED MOVIE APPRECIATION

Title: BLOOD DIAMOND Running Time: 135 min. Cast: Leonardo di Carpio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo, Anthony Coleman Director: Edward Zwick Producer: Gillian Gorfil Screenwriter: Charles Leavitt Music: James Newton Howard Editor: Steven Rosenblum Genre: Action/Drama Cinematography: Eduardo Serra Distributor: Warner Bros. Location: Sierra Leone, Africa Technical Assessment: Moral Assessment: CINEMA Rating: For viewers 18 and above

the risks he put has been through, he makes a most noble sacrifice for Solomons family. Recommended for older audience because of the violence and gore.

The CINEMA Logo

The CINEMA logo incorporates crisscrossed film strips, an open eye, and the CBCP-Office on Women logo. The film strip represents the specific medium on which CINEMA centeres its apostolate -- thus, its central location in the logo. Film strips are crisscrossed to symbolize the first letter "X" (chi) of the Greek word for "Christ", reminiscent also of the cross. The film strips indicate that film must be appreciated in the light of the Cross, the instrument of enlightenment. The open eye underscores the link between the eye of the camera and the human eye, emphasizing a soulful appreciation of FILM as an art. Its prominent position in the logo indicates the importance of vigilance in our choice and patronage of cinema for it to uplift and enrich its viewers.

The Office on Women logo -located in the corner beneath the film strips and the open eye -- signifies the visual function of the Episcopal element in CINEMA's existence. It is the foundation upon which CINEMA is built under the auspices of its Office on Women. Altogether, the elements in the CINEMA logo are a visual embodiment of the organization's name -Catholic INitiative for Enlightened Movie Appreviation -- an eloquent statement of the purpose of this Church-inspired body.

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N E W S BRIEFS

LAOS

IRAQ

CHINA

BANGLADESH

Apostolic vicariate cel- C h r i s t i a n c o l l e g e , China looking to Israel Over 300 injured in poebrates 1 st priestly or- seminary reopen in for water tech litical protests dination in 50 years Iraq China will work with Clashes across Dhaka
The Catholic community of the Apostolic Vicariate of Paks, in Laos, had celebrated the first local priestly ordination in 50 years. Fr Andrew Souksavath Nouane Asa was ordained a priest last Dec.30, 2006 by the Vicar Apostolic Bishop Louis Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun. With Andrew, Paks now has four priests. Present in the occasion were the four Bishops of Laos, two bishops from Thailand, about 25 priests from Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. The small community of 42,000 Laotian Catholics lives among a mainly Buddhist population of 5.4 million.
INDIA

Classes have finally resumed at Iraqs only school of Christian theology and a seminary that moved out of Baghdad for security reasons. Asianews reported that the doors of Babel College and St. Peters Major Seminary reopened Jan.16, after being closed for months. Abductions, assaults and threats to the Christian community in the capital convinced local Church leaders first to shut down both the college and seminary, and then to move them out.
ISRAEL

companies in Israel to jumpstart a number of water purification and recycling projects. According to a report, China wants to kick off 11 major water purification projects in the next five years. Water consumption rose seven times higher in the last century. Experts said water supplies are rapidly consumed in China and elsewhere turning many governments to invest in plants to desalinate seawater or clean wastewater for re-use. Israel is one of the countries that could cash in on the trend because water purification has a long history there. About 75 percent of the water used in the country is recycled.

left at least 300 people injured, including several policemen, news reports said. Riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons Jan. 8 to disperse thousands of stone-throwing protesters in the Bangladeshi capital who are demanding postponement of this months elections. About 5,000 protesters tried to overrun barbedwire barricades manned by police in central Dhaka. The violence broke out on the second day of a crippling three-day transportation blockade imposed by a 19-party alliance that opposes the Jan. 22 election.

Israels chief rabbi INDONESIA BURMA ready to welcome Greenpeace protesters Bishop calls for lay Pope Landmines kill, maim nabbed faithful involvement in and starve civilians Chief Rabbi Jonah politics
Bishop Oswald Gracias of Mumbai calls for more participation of lay Christians in politics and society. He stressed its important to help lay faithful realize that they have great relevance in the pastoral activity of the Church and its mission to carry Christian values to the fields of politics, media, social action and education in India. The prelate also called for more collaboration between clergy and lay people in the different church realities, noting that lay Catholics are present in many areas where clergy and religious are denied access. Metzger said he would warmly welcome Pope Benedict XVI in Israel, according to Zenit News. Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said that the Pope has accepted the invitation, but that he will visit Israel when the conditions are appropriate. The source said the government has already invited the Holy Father to visit the country. The moment the Pope is pleased to come to Jerusalem, we will welcome him warmly, Rabbi said. The widespread use of landmines by the Burmese army against civilians to terrorize them and hamper the annual harvest season should cease, Human Rights Watch said. The Burmese government is the only government in the world that has used antipersonnel mines on a regular basis throughout 2006. Reports said that since the start of the harvest season last November, soldiers have been laying increasing numbers of antipersonnel landmines in front of houses, around rice fields, and along trails leading to fields in order to deter civilians from harvesting their crops.

T w e n t y - t h r e e Greenpeace activists were arrested and detained by Indonesian police for a non-violent protest held at the Ministry of Forestry recently. They are being charged with unpleasant action which carries fines and a 1-year jail term. We call on the Indonesian government to stop persecuting those who are fighting to protect our remaining forests by revoking all existing commercial logging permits and stopping the issuance of new permits, said Hapsoro, Forest campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia and among those arrested.

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