pastoral companion

Electing our future

2010-04-11T16:17:00.002+08:00

THE Easter message of Christ’s resurrection and victory over sin and death offers us the promise of rising above our own brokenness and rebuilding the structures of our fragmented society. It is fitting then that our coming elections should take place during this Easter season. For Easter is the season of hope—and concrete action for building the future.

The apostles were filled with joy, mixed with initial incredulity, as the first witnesses of the Resurrected Christ. But they were also impelled by the Holy Spirit to share this joy and conviction over the good news of Christ’s resurrection with the whole world, even at the cost of hardships and martyrdom.

It is in this light that we too, as good Christians and responsible citizens, are challenged to be involved in our electoral process. This has been dubbed by our archdiocesan ministry workers in good governance as PEACE, i.e., Political Easter Action for Credible Elections. During these remaining forty days before election day, let us then adopt this form of PEACE-building in all our parishes and kapilya communities as a concrete response to the call of the bishops:

There is a duty for the Christian Catholic to transform politics by the Gospel. The Church, God’s people, must evangelize politics. God’s call to the Church is to preach the integral Gospel, the Gospel with all its social dimensions. (CBCP, Pastoral Exhortation 1997: Philippine Politics)

More recently, over the past year, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has also made three calls to the Catholic laity: (1) to form circles of discernment (so that they can see, judge, and act together on issues of public concern); (2) to get involved directly in principled partisan politics; and (3) to exercise their right and duty to campaign for candidates who are competent, honest, and public-service minded.

How then do we choose candidates who are “competent, honest, and public-service minded”? There are four C’s we can consider as criteria for measuring the qualifications of candidates.

The first “C” is Conscience. We need leaders with a sense of morality—who know what is morally right and morally wrong, and who act according to their conscience. In earlier consultations we find that Filipino voters look for leaders who are God-fearing and heed the commandments of God. A person of conscience works for truth and justice. He or she is pro-life and pro-family. He is transparent in his dealings and is accountable for his actions. He does not stall calls for public investigations in the conduct of a public office.

A person of conscience shuns corruption in any form and makes sure that public funds are not used for private gain, but for the common good. His name is not linked to drugs, gambling, or any form of shady deals; indeed even “Caesar’s wife” should be above suspicion. The effect of corruption in a person is literally a “broken heart”. On the other hand, a person of conscience has a heart that is whole and integral; he is a person of integrity.

The second “C” is Competence. A candidate for public office must have a track record, starting with his academic qualifications and work experience. In the same way that we make sure that we go to a qualified doctor when we are sick, or consult a qualified engineer for our construction plans, so also must we carefully examine the qualifications of candidates for public office.

How often have we heard of classrooms or highways that have been built with inferior materials? Or of “natural” disasters that could have been prevented, had there been more comprehensive planning based on climate change projections? Sadly, we hear stories of misfits in public office who have no concern for balancing budgets but have instead increased the public debt.

We need public officials who can lead us, not by means of “guns, goons, gold or glamor,” but by their management skills, and, more so, by their ability to inspire us to work for objectives that are realizable and urgent.

This kind of transformational leadership requires the third “C”: Commitment. A leader must have a vision and goals for the community that he or she aspires to serve. He should also have the political will and the readiness to sacrifice personal interests to pursue these goals.

Commitment means faithfulness to one’s principles and promises. It means adherence to the higher loyalties to God and country, beyond family, regional or class interests. Like Jose Rizal and other national heroes of the Philippine Revolution, public leaders today should personify the selfless kind of nationalism that unifies and creates a truly independent and self-reliant nation.

Broken promises, shifting party loyalties and the practice of transactional politics are hallmarks of trapo politicians. In its crudest form, vote-buying becomes a measure of one’s commitment—only for a day, at the price of one’s vote. On a grander scale, un-committed public officials are prone to sell the nation’s patrimony for thirty pieces of silver; thus the continuing lamentations of environmental groups over the destruction of our remaining forests and mountainsides due to irresponsible logging and mining activities.

Likewise, agrarian reform beneficiaries like the Sumilao farmers are still barred from tilling all the lands promised to them. Other target beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program are still awaiting the full implementation of this centerpiece social legislation after more than two decades of delaying action.

Social concern and a preferential option for the poor, the marginalized and the exploited thus characterize the fourth “C”: Compassion. A public official should give special attention to the basic needs of the least brethren in our communities, not simply by providing safety nets but by empowering them to become productive members of society.

A person of compassion is one who “suffers with” others. He strives to bring about the common good by dismantling unjust social structures, perhaps best epitomized in Ramon Magsaysay’s Credo: “He who has less in life should have more in law.”

A person of compassion works for unity and reconciliation. He is not vindictive against those who did not support his candidacy. His magnanimous allocation of public resources is based on the needs of the local communities rather than the favors they can give to him.

A person of compassion makes peace and builds peace. He is willing to listen in dialogue to the legitimate claims of those who take up arms against the government. He promotes inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue to forge solidarity in diversity.

Another name for compassion is Christian Charity, an all-embracing love and capacity to forgive one’s enemies. This is the core message of Easter. “There is no peace without justice,” notes Pope John Paul II, “and no justice without forgiveness.”

Election time then in the spirit of Easter should not be seen simply as fiesta time when common people seek the bounty of powerful patrons. Neither can it be viewed merely like a basketball game with a winning and losing team while spectators stand on the sidelines. We are all winners—or losers—during election time depending on which candidate wins the mandate for public office. For we are all stakeholders, and fellow sojourners in choosing the right captains for our local communities as well as for our ship of state.

Let us then all work together for PEACE—i.e., Political Easter Action for Credible Elections. And let us begin to scrutinize candidates according to the four C’s. For in choosing the best possible candidate among many others, based on Conscience, Competence, Commitment, and Compassion, we are doing nothing else but electing our own future.

Ministries for Peace in Mindanao

2010-01-10T20:24:00.000+08:00

The year 2009 in Cagayan de Oro started with extensive flooding in January of the city’s river banks and low-lying areas throughout the province. Another flash flood occurred in November that disrupted the opening days of our Mindanao Week of Peace. Several parishes in coordination with our ACCESS office distributed relief goods. Nazareth Parish initiated a rehabilitation program for damaged houses along the river.

These experiences have prompted our Ecology Desk to monitor closely our environment−i.e., the continued mining operations on the upland area of the city and the resumption of logging activities in the Gingoog-Claveria watershed area. Compounding this is the proposed bio-ethanol plant that would pollute Cagayan de Oro River, ideal for white water rafting.

Other concerns of our ad extra ministries under the Commission on Social Action, headed by Fr. Cabantan, include:

• Sustainable Agriculture: Frs. Soldevilla and Lusat have been piloting S.A. practices such as vermiculture and rice-duck farming.

• Indigenous People: Fr. Sabuga and KASALU, a volunteer group, have organized several meetings of lumad leaders from Misamis Oriental and from all over Mindanao to promote IP rights to their ancestral domain. Malitbog Parish is their base of operation.

• Women’s Ministry: The Good Shepherd Sisters have set up a Center for Women, including counseling services. Since April, they have provided support and protection for young women victims of a cybersex operation uncovered in the city. The court case against two foreign nationals is still ongoing.

• Migrant Workers: Msgr. Legitimas and Sr. Alice, D.C., have concentrated on port area activities, involving seamen’s wives and stevedores’ families.

• Prison Ministry: Fr. Durana, prison chaplain, ministers to the spiritual needs of detainees in the city and provincial jails with regular Sunday services. The Prisoners’ Awareness Week had several activities, including a mass wedding.

• Children’s Ministry: The Canossian Sisters are inaugurating this month a newly-constructed home for orphans and neglected children. The Calabrian Fathers also have two houses for abandoned boys and girls, while the Sacred Heart Fathers are supporting a Kasanag Foundation home for girl victims of abuse.

• Charity Foundations: With the support of two local foundations, the MCM Sisters are administering the House of Hope for the mentally sick and a home for the elderly. Another home for the mentally sick has been set up in Gingoog by a third foundation.

• Social Communications: Sr. M.A. Padilla, FSP, and her team have published monthly newsletters of the archdiocese. They have also set up at Xavier U and Capitol U a photo exhibit on Cagayan de Oro’s 75 years as a diocese (1933-2008). Ongoing efforts are being made to optimize the use of radio and TV time for the local church’s message.

• Good Governance: Fr. Lerio and youth leaders assisted students in the first-time registration of voters, together with chapter members of the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference. They are currently conducting seminars focusing on Responsible Christian Citizenship. These are being replicated at the parish level. Several resource persons have assisted these activities – notably, Fr. C. Diola and his Dilaab team from Cebu, and Ms. H. de Villa, PPCRV Chair from Manila. Meanwhile, several Civil Society groups are exploring transpartisan ways of involvement in the coming elections.

Our ad intra ministries under the Commission on Faith and Evangelization, headed by Fr. Salvador, are undergoing reorganizational changes while continuing their ongoing activities – i.e., Catechetics, Basic Ecclesial Communities, Christian Family and Life, and Youth. Notably, our All-Natural Family Planning program has reached out to nearly two-thirds of our parishes. It is heartening to see how our NFP counselors and couple-users, and increasingly local government units too, are adopting All-NFP as the positive alternative to contraceptives and the Reproductive Health bills.
For this special Year of the Priests, the archdiocese has been blessed with four ordinations to the priesthood last November. In January 2010, most of our priests will be joining the National Clergy Congress in Manila. By next year too, St. John Vianney Theological Seminary here in Cagayan de Oro will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. The interdiocesan seminary has trained about 350 priests for Mindanao and Bohol. Meanwhile, our sixty-year old St. Augustine Cathedral is currently undergoing renovation of its trusses and roofing at its rear section.

In the light of the recent acts of violence in Maguindanao, Basilan, and Agusan del Sur, the peace process for the whole of Mindanao needs to be strengthened. May all these renewal efforts of the local church – in our clergy, ministries, and the cathedral – be a fitting preparation for its message of peace for Mindanao in this new year 2010.

Pastoral Guidelines and Core Values in NFP Promotion

2009-04-30T17:14:00.002+08:00

By Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.

NATURAL Family Planning has paradoxically been described as the “second best kept secret” of the Catholic Church (after its Social Teachings). In contrast to government programs that offer a value-neutral approach to all methods of family planning, the Catholic Church has consistently articulated its moral principles in advocating for Responsible Parenthood and Natural Family Planning. Based on actual results, however, NFP has remained the untried option. According to the latest surveys, less than one percent of Filipino couples are adopting modern NFP methods!
On the other hand, the pastoral experience of many priests and family life workers indicate that a growing number of couples today have three felt needs: (1) They want to plan their families in terms of family size and spacing of births; (2) They prefer natural family planning, if they are given adequate information on fertility awareness and NFP methods; and (3) They want to choose among NFP methods according to their own circumstances and preference. It is in this light that church communities, as well as government entities, are challenged to promote all recognized natural family planning methods today.
Before discussing the various NFP methods, however it would be good to examine the core values that underpin the Church’s advocacy for natural family planning—values that touch on the sacredness of human life, marriage, and the family. Four pastoral guidelines for All-NFP provide the framework for the local church’s values formation and the parameters for critical engagement with government and other groups.

I. We are Pro-Life
We uphold the dignity of human life from the moment of conception. We condemn abortion which is also proscribed by the Philippine Constitution. All-NFP is a proactive program that helps prevent the tragedy of unwanted pregnancies and recourse to abortion. It also provides an alternative to contraceptive methods that are considered as abortifacients.
The dignity of human life is directly linked to the dignity of the human person.

1) The human person is created in the image of God. “God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). The biblical perspective states that man and woman have the same dignity and are of equal value.
God’s creative act takes place from the moment of conception: “You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb. When my bones were being formed, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there – you saw me before I was born” (Psalm 139: 13,15,16).
2) The human person is created by God in unity of body and soul. The spiritual faculties of reason and free will are linked with all the bodily and sense faculties. The spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby it exists as a person.
Man is an embodied spirit. “It is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature” (CCC, 365).
3) The human person is open to transcendence: he is open to the infinite and to all created beings. Through his spiritual faculties of intellect and will, the human person reaches out to know the truth and to love and choose the good and the beautiful.

Despite his limitation in attaining his finite ends in this life, man tends towards total truth and the absolute good—i.e., union with God, or the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What Christian philosophers call the Summum Bonum or the Beatific Vision is premised on the promise of the resurrection and eternal life. Pope John Paul II sums this up: “Human life is precious because it is a gift of God—and when God gives life, it is forever.”
4) The human person is endowed with a moral conscience that enables him to recognize the truth concerning good and evil. Man’s exercise of freedom and responsibility implies a reference to the natural moral law, of an objective and universal character, which is the foundation for all rights and duties. “Living a moral life bears witness to the dignity of the person” (CCC, 1706).
The dignity of the moral conscience as man’s “most secret core and sanctuary” enables the person to acknowledge that inner law which is fulfilled in the love of God and of one’s neighbor (GS, 16). Love of neighbor, in the language of the modern world, can be interpreted in terms of promoting and defending human rights. Fig. 2 locates the context of human rights and duties, understood as access to the means that enable a person to attain his natural and supernatural ends. In this light, human rights can be understood as moral claims, and duties as moral responsibilities.
5) The human person is essentially a social and relational being.
He is a being—with others in the world. He is a person among other persons, among equals—in the family, in the small community or in the larger society.
He is also a being-through-others in the world. He is born from the union of parents and grows up within the widening circle of relatives, teachers, and friends. He too is a being-for-others in the world, available in service to others, capable of loving others and being loved in return. He is called to enter into communion with others, and to forge bonds of solidarity for the common good.
In the web of relationships that surround him, the person learns to interact “horizontally” with other persons and society at large. He also deepens his “vertical” relationships with God as his Creator and Father as well as with the world of nature.
In the process, he also relates to himself as a self-project with an immensity of possibilities. He remains a subject, an “I” capable of self-understanding and self-determination. In this sense, as a center of consciousness and freedom, he exists as a unique and unrepeatable being (CSDC, 131).
6) The Christian view of the human person balances the mystery of sin with the universality of salvation in Jesus Christ.
The tragedy of original sin as well as personal and social sin has brought about the consequences of alienation of man from God, from his true self, from other persons, and from the world around him.
Indeed, “Christian realism sees the abysses of sin, but in the light of hope, greater than any evil, given by Jesus Christ’s act of redemption, in which sin and death are destroyed” (CSDC, 121). In this light, man is a being-unto-death-and-beyond, ultimately a being-unto-God. Life becomes a pilgrimage and death a graduation to eternal life.

II. We are for Responsible Parenthood
This is our goal: to enable parents to be aware of their rights as well as their duties in the procreation and education of their children. Planning one’s family in order to adequately care for every child that comes into the world is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly by parents.
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter on the regulation of birth, Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), describes responsible parenthood in terms of the parents’ deliberate decision in planning the size of the family:
In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth (HV, 10).

The Second Plenary Council of the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines explicitates further this meaning of responsible parenthood:
Christian parents must exercise responsible parenthood. While nurturing a generous attitude towards bringing new human life into the world, they should strive to beget only those children whom they can raise up in a truly human and Christian way. Towards this end, they need to plan their families according to the moral norms taught by the Church (PCP II, 583).

Planning one’s family highlights the central value of the family in human society. In particular, we can reflect on the role of the Christian family in the modern world, in terms of four tasks elaborated in Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation:
1) Forming a community of persons. As an “intimate community of life and love” (GS, 48), the family reflects and is “a real sharing in God’s love for humanity” (FC, 17). It is based on the indissolubility of marriage and conjugal communion. It fosters the dignity and vocation of all the persons in the family – husband and wife, children, relatives. It underlines the equal dignity of women with men, the rights of children, as well as care for the elderly. Indeed, this communion of persons makes the family “a school of deeper humanity” (GS, 52).
2) Serving life. The fundamental task of the family is to serve life – i.e., “transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to person” (FC, 28). Fecundity is seen as the fruit and the sign of conjugal love. The Church stands for life and stresses that “love between husband and wife must be fully human, exclusive and open to new life” (HV, 11).
Educating children in the essential values of human life is an integral part of serving life. These values include a sense of true justice, of true love, and of service to others. Parents are “the first and foremost educators of their children,” while the family itself is “the first and fundamental school of social living” (FC, 36-37). Education for chastity as well as education in the religious faith of the parents, are other essential values that must be respected and supported by the state.
3) Participating in the development of society. As the “first and vital cell of society,” and the “first school of the social virtues,” the family is “by nature and vocation open to other families and to society” (FC, 42). Hence, the family also plays a social and political role. Its members in their various capacities are called to contribute to the development of the wider community. Christian families should strive to live out the values of truth, freedom, justice and love—the pillars for building peace on earth, envisioned in Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris.
4) Sharing in the life and mission of the Church. The family is seen as the “domestic church” (FC, 49). In this light, it partakes in the threefold role of Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest and King. The family is seen as (a) a believing and evangelizing community, (b) a community in dialogue with God, and (c) a community at the service of man (FC, 50).
Christian marriage itself is seen as a “profession of faith” and it is this journey of faith that continues throughout the life cycle of the family. The Christian family educates the children for life that enables them to discover the image of God in every brother and sister.
In sum, responsible parenthood gives birth to a Christian family that is a community of love and is at the threefold service of nurturing life, developing society, and continuing the mission of the Church.

III. We are for Natural Family Planning
If responsible parenthood is the goal for married couples, natural family planning is the means deemed morally acceptable by the Church. Pope John Paul II underlines “the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle” (FC, 32). It is in this light that we can discuss the nature of natural family planning and ten reasons for its adoption.
a) What is Natural Family Planning?
Natural family planning is an approach for regulating births by identifying the fertile and infertile periods of a woman’s cycle. As an educational process and a way of life, there are four elements:
It involves the observation of a naturally occurring body sign or signs
• in order to identify the woman’s fertile and infertile periods.
• It involves the timing of intercourse
• to avoid or achieve pregnancy.
In contrast to artificial contraceptives, NFP means No DIDO − i.e., no Drugs, Injections, Devices, or Operations at any time. It also means no withdrawal.

b) Why Natural Family Planning?
1. Normal intercourse is preserved. Couples can plan the size of their families and space births the natural way. They do not resort to artificial means.
2. NFP is morally acceptable to people of all religions and cultures. It does not separate the love-giving and life-giving dimensions of the marriage act. The unitive and procreative ends of marriage are kept whole.
3. There are no inherent health risks in NFP methods. No pills, drugs, injections, devices or operations are used. A healthy body does not need this kind of “medical” treatment.
4. Modern NFP methods are effective and reliable. They are based on scientific studies and are time-tested. Simplified methods are easy to learn. Some NFP methods may be combined to reinforce each other.
5. There is no cost involved once the method has been learned. Couples are empowered not to rely on health centers, donor agencies, or drugstores. NFP is pro-poor, and not for profit of outside companies.
6. NFP becomes sustainable from generation to generation. Mothers can readily pass on the practice of NFP to their daughters.
7. NFP involves a joint decision by the couple. Neither partner feels being used by the other. It is an ideal way of exercising shared parenthood. A “contraceptive mentality” is avoided.
8. NFP engenders sexual discipline for the spouses through periodic abstinence. The practice of NFP manifests a conscious familiarity with the natural rhythm of the human body, mutual caring between the spouses, and the development of self-control that is carried over in the upbringing of the children.
9. Couples who use NFP seldom or never resort to abortion. They manifest an innate respect for human life. They welcome every child as a gift from God – even in the eventuality of an unexpected pregnancy.
10. Couples who use NFP seldom or never end up in separation or divorce. NFP enhances communication between spouses and promotes a wholesome family life.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the nature and rationale of NFP:
Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom (CCC, 2370).

IV. We are for enabling couples to make an Informed and Morally
Responsible Choice, according to the dictates of a Right Conscience “The education of an authentic freedom” constitutes our fourth pastoral guideline. Within the context of a pluralistic society, the government’s focus is to refrain from coercion and to provide information on all family planning methods that it deems necessary for couples to make an informed choice. On the other hand, the Church’s focus should be to provide information on all NFP methods and to help couples form a right conscience so that they are able to make not only an informed but also a morally responsible choice.
Three kinds of freedom are implied in this pastoral guideline. There is first the ontological freedom of every human person, endowed with reason and free will. Innate in his human dignity is the person’s freedom to choose good or evil—even to say “no” to his Creator, or to go against his very nature by doing what would be considered inhuman acts.
From the societal perspective, governments promote the civic and political freedoms of their citizens by safeguarding the exercise of their rights and duties within the bounds of public order. Thus the freedoms of speech, of assembly, of religion, of economic enterprise, of responsible parenthood itself, etc. are hallmarks of a democratic society. A dictatorial government, on the other hand, suppresses by superior force the basic freedoms of its citizens.
A third kind of freedom is what we call authentic freedom—i.e., the freedom to do what ought to be done. “Man’s dignity,” according to the Vatican II Council Fathers, “demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within…” (GS, 17). This inner prompting is what we mean by conscience which calls man to acknowledge the natural moral law given by God.
“For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God,” cite the Council Fathers. “His dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he will be judged… By conscience in a wonderful way, that law is made known…” (GS, 16). Thus the individual assumes personal responsibility for all his human acts that are knowingly and willingly done, heeding the dictates of his conscience.
However, conscience itself needs to be formed and guided by the objective norms of moral conduct. Ignorance or sinful habits pose as obstacles to the formation of a right conscience. It is in this light that values formation is an integral part of our All-NFP program − to enable parents as well as their children to acquire “a truly responsible freedom” (FC, 21).
This includes providing information on all scientifically-based NFP methods as a pastoral imperative. Corollary to this would be presenting the positive motivations for NFP and its integral attractiveness, instead of simply attacking the agencies promoting contraceptives. “Proclamation is always more important than denunciation,” notes Pope John Paul II, “and the latter cannot ignore the former, which gives it true solidity and the force of higher motivation” (SRS, 41).
In summary, these four pastoral guidelines provide the core values for our All-NFP ministry. Couples, indeed, have to consider several crucial factors: the good of their children already born or yet to come, their own situation at the material and spiritual level, and the over-all good of their family, of society, and of the Church. “It is the married couple themselves,” note the Council Fathers, “who must in the last analysis arrive at these judgments before God” (GS, 50).
For its part, the local church can carry out its servant role by reaching out to as many couples as possible with the good news of various natural family planning methods today that are proven to be safe, reliable, practicable and adaptable to the various circumstances of family life. Instead of resorting to condemnation or confrontation, we find that for concerned couples, authentic values can best be formed with charity, compassion, and the formation of conscience.

References:

CCC - Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, 1994.
CSDC - Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Pontifical Council for
Justice and Peace, 2004.
FC - Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), Pope John Paul II, 1981.
GS - Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World),
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 1965.
HV - Humanae Vitae (Of Human life), Pope Paul VI, 1968.
PCP II - Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of the Philippines, 1991.
SRS - Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social Concern of the Church), Pope John
Paul II, 1987.

Bishops’ Consensus on NFP and SDM

2009-02-17T12:11:00.001+08:00

LAST January 21, 2009, at the end of the bishops’ seminar on peace- building at Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila, Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, CBCP President, convened a dialogue meeting on Natural Family Planning and the Standard Days Method. The dialogue was opened to all the bishops. Twenty-nine bishops attended or roughly half of all those who had just finished the peace-building seminar. These included Archbishop Lagdameo and bishop members of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life. Bishop Gabriel Reyes of the Commission on the Laity facilitated the dialogue.

The dialogue group first listened to the impressions of bishops whose dioceses were already including SDM in their NFP program – i.e., Cagayan de Oro, Ipil, Isabela (Basilan), Jolo, Digos, and Cotabato. In general, the bishops did not find anything objectionable with SDM being included as an added option in the local church’s NFP program, except that there may be need for more training and monitoring.

The group then listened to objections and reservations brought up against SDM as an NFP method – e.g., that it was not natural and appeared too mechanical with the use of beads; that the information on the internet included the use of back-up contraceptives; that it was as ineffective as the old calendar rhythm method. The third part of the dialogue consisted of a general discussion and clarifications that led towards the formulation of the consensus statement.

At the CBCP Plenary Assembly three days later on Jan. 24, the consensus statement was included in the report of Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, ECFL Chairman. The consensus statement was drafted and read by Bishop Reyes. This was distributed to all the bishops. The full statement reads:

According to the Analytical Index of CBCP Pronouncements (87th Bishops’ Plenary Assembly, July 2003, page 25), “The Body gave an affirmative indication on the issue whether or not the Standard Days Method (SDM) without any of the contraceptive component and without collaboration with government could be used by a diocese in its program of Natural Family Planning.”

This decision or ruling has never been abrogated.

Basing themselves on this CBCP decision, the bishops during the above-mentioned dialogue, agreed on the following:

1) The Standard Days Method, provided it is not mixed with contraceptives, is a natural family planning method and is consistent with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church. The bishop should inform the priest or lay faithful who thinks otherwise and should stop him from spreading his error.

2) It belongs to the bishop to decide whether his diocese will promote or not the SDM, in accordance with his pastoral discernment.

3) The bishop may not prohibit any couple in his diocese from using SDM as their method of natural family planning.

The bishops strongly reminded themselves of the saying:

“In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas.”

After some discussion on the floor of the plenary assembly, this consensus statement was affirmed and left unchanged by the body. This is now part of the minutes of the CBCP Plenary Assembly.

As I review the consensus statement, three salient points can be noted:

1) Recalling their earlier consensus vote in July 2003, the bishops merely
explicitated their view that SDM in itself, without mixing with contraceptives, is
consistent with the moral teaching of the Church.

2) The statement asserts the responsibility of each bishop to decide whether or
not to include SDM in his diocese’s pastoral program at the present time.

3) On the other hand, it also asserts the right of any couple to adopt SDM as an
NFP method in any diocese.

Pope John XXIII’s statement aptly describes the spirit of the bishops’ dialogue and consensus statement: “In whatever is necessary, unity; in whatever is doubtful, liberty; in everything, charity.”

Bishops’ Consensus on NFP and SDM

2009-02-17T12:11:00.000+08:00

Catechetics and the NNCDP

2009-01-22T10:59:00.001+08:00

DURING the clergy meeting on January 12 in Cagayan de Oro, we discussed the summary of the Catechetical Review and Strategic Planning started by a core group earlier. We then recommended that the process of reviewing and planning our catechetical program should be continued and brought down to the parish level.

In this regard, each priest/deacon received a copy of the New National Catechetical Directory for the Philippines 2007. We suggested that the district priests discuss the contents of this book during their monthly meeting over the next six months. They could discuss one chapter at a time—e.g., for one hour, like a BEC session. The priests could take turns in facilitating the discussion. A written summary would be presented at the next clergy meeting for consolidation with the other reports.

There were five reasons why we invited everyone to read and reflect on the NNCDP together.

1. This is a concrete follow-up of our Archdiocesan Pastoral Assembly held last December 12-13. The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (1991) considered catechesis as the most fundamental area of renewal. The National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal (2001) affirmed this by making “Integral Faith Formation”—through catechesis—as the first of its nine pastoral priorities.

2. The NNCDP incorporates and integrates all our ad intra ministries—i.e., Catechetics, BEC formation, Liturgy, Bible Apostolate, Family Life, Youth, etc. It also points out their intimate relationship with our ad extra ministries—i.e., the social apostolate and works of charity.

3. Parish priests are the primary “educators in the faith” and “the key source for the parish catechetical ministry” (NNCDP, nos. 441-442). Without the support of the parish priest, the catechetical program in the parish will be hobbled and may become moribund.

4. Concretely, the NNCDP gives us a comprehensive framework for evaluating our current catechetical program – as we approach the end of the school year, and prepare for the coming school year.

5. For the individual priest, the NNCDP can serve as a pastorally-oriented synthesis of our theology courses in the seminary. For instance, the threefold pattern of Christian Faith indicated in No. 213—in terms of Creed, Code, and Cult; or Jesus as the Truth, the Way, and the Life—can give us a manner of envisioning the interconnection among our various parish ministries.

To start off the discussions on Chapter One of the NNCDP at their next district meeting, three guide questions were proposed to the priests:

1. What are the expressions of religiosity (devotions) in your parish today?

2. What are the core values behind these expressions of religiosity (devotions)?

3. How do you include these core values in your catechesis?

They were of course free to focus on other matters of relevance to your local communities. In due time, members of the catechetical core group would be suggesting guide questions for the other chapters. We proposed that this collective effort at catechetical renewal would be our way of starting off the next 75 years of the archdiocese after our jubilee celebrations last year.

A pastoral call for environmental protection

2009-01-19T15:28:00.001+08:00

To our brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro:

During this period of calamity I would first like to express my solidarity and prayers for all those families who have been displaced by the sudden floods. These first occurred on January 3 with the swelling of the Cagayan de Oro river. Then on January 11 until now flash floods have taken place more extensively throughout various parts of the city and several municipalities in Misamis Oriental.

As of the latest reports more than 75,000 persons have been displaced and 44 barangays in the city have been affected.

In visiting some of the displaced families that have been forced to seek shelter in chapels or formation centers of the church or community centers in the barangays, I see the faces of children with their mothers waiting patiently for some assistance.
On the other hand, I am also heartened to see many parish communities mobilizing to distribute relief goods among those displaced communities.

Many individuals, companies and organizations have also sent their assistance in goods or in cash to the Bishop’s House or directly to the parishes affected by the floods. These are indeed signs of solidarity and brotherhood regardless of religious or cultural differences.

Even as we attend to the immediate needs of displaced families, we must not lose sight of the long term factors that have aggravated the effects of natural calamities. Among these man-made factors are:

• Continued logging operations in the upstream areas of the city; these include the more remote areas of the city and watershed areas in the ARMM region and Bukidnon

• Hydraulic flush mining that have caused the heavy siltation of Iponan river and its tributaries

• Small scale and large scale mining in other upland areas of the city

• Lack of solid waste management that has led to clogging of the city’s drainage canals

• Similarly housing developments that have obstructed the natural flow of water

These and many other factors have to be reviewed carefully by public officials with the participation of civil society groups. The church and other parish communities are ready to join and support all these efforts for a safer, cleaner and brighter Cagayan de Oro and surrounding areas.

Cagayan de Oro at 75

2009-01-07T18:05:00.001+08:00

DURING the past year 2008, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Diocese of Cagayan de Oro. In 1933, Cagayan de Oro became the second diocese in Mindanao (next to Zamboanga) and included the northern provinces of Surigao, Agusan, Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental, Lanao, Misamis Occidental, and the island of Camiguin.

Today the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro is only one of the 21 ecclesiastical units in Mindanao, which include five archdioceses, 12 dioceses, three prelatures, and one apostolic vicariate. Its territory has been reduced to the two provinces of Misamis Oriental and Camiguin and one municipality in Bukidnon. Nonetheless, with its 50 parishes and 8 chaplaincies, two seminaries, and 115 diocesan priests, the archdiocese remains among the larger ecclesiastical units in Mindanao.

Most Rev. James Hayes, S.J., became the first bishop of Cagayan de Oro. The city street that now bears his name connects all the major institutions that he started—Lourdes College run by the RVM sisters, Ateneo de Cagayan (now Xavier University) under the Jesuits, Maria Reyna Hospital administered by the St. Paul of Chartres sisters, and on Seminary Hill San Jose de Mindanao Seminary and the Discalced Carmelite Sisters’ Convent.

When Cagayan de Oro was elevated as the first archdiocese of Mindanao in 1951, Archbishop Hayes continued to serve until his retirement in 1970—a span of 37 years that included his incarceration during the Japanese occupation and the painstaking period of reconstruction after the war.

He was succeeded by Archbishop Patrick Cronin, a Columban, who served from 1970-1988. During this period, the parishes administered earlier by American and Filipino Jesuits were for the most part turned over to the Irish Columban priests and some diocesan priests. This enabled the Jesuits in turn to take care of the newly–opened parishes in Bukidnon.

Archbishop Jesus Tuquib became the third archbishop of Cagayan de Oro in 1988-2006, duplicating his predecessor’s term of 18 years of service. During this period, the diocesan clergy increased notably in numbers and gradually took over the running of the parishes. Today only three parishes and a chaplaincy are run by priests of religious congregations.

Archbishop Tuquib was instrumental in the construction of the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary buildings on Seminary Hill. SJVTS had earlier been established by a consortium of bishops of the CABUSTAM (Cagayan, Butuan, Surigao, Tandag, Malaybalay) subregion to serve the growing needs of the Church in Mindanao for the formation of its clergy.

It is with this historical context that we celebrated the diamond jubilee of the archdiocese. The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, was the main celebrant of our fiesta Mass in honor of St. Augustine on August 28th. Earlier he visited some of our older parishes like Sagay in Camiguin and Jasaan.

During the last quarter of this year, six district assemblies were held to follow up the archdiocese’s pastoral plan and get feedback from the lay delegates. This process culminated with an Archdiocesan Pastoral Assembly in mid-December attended by about 400 delegates from all the parishes. We reviewed our ad intra ministries focused on Catholics and ad extra ministries directed towards any one in need.

At the closing Mass, plaques of appreciation were given to three religious congregations—the Jesuits, Columbans, and RVM Sisters—for their collective contribution in building up the local church of Cagayan de Oro over the past 75 years. (We should not forget however that the Augustinian Recollects were the early evangelizers of Cagayan de Oro and surrounding areas from the 17th until the mid-19th century.)

Other highlights of this jubilee year were the creation of two shrines. The first shrine was dedicated on August 2nd to the Holy Eucharist in a city parish run by the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. The second shrine was dedicated to the Divine Mercy in Brgy. Ulaliman, El Salvador, on September 8th. With its imposing 50-foot statue overlooking Macajalar Bay and surrounding areas, the Divine Mercy Shrine has become a popular site for pilgrimages from all over Mindanao.

The most recent signs of the growth of our local church were the ordinations of four deacons and of a priest in the past two months. May the threefold blessing then of the yuletide season—Light, Love, and fullness of Life—be with the archdiocese throughout its next seventy-five years.

Peacemaking through Healing the Past and Building the Future*

2008-11-03T11:34:00.002+08:00

I. Mindanao Context

Since the Spanish colonial period, Mindanao has been a theatre of intermittent conflicts between Muslim and Christian communities. In 1996, a peace agreement was signed between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). However, another militant group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) continued the armed struggle for self-determination.

After more than three years of negotiations, a Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) was about to be signed by both panels representing the MILF and the Philippine Government in Kuala Lumpur on August 5, 2008. However, the Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order one day before the signing. This was due to the widespread outcry raised against the proposed MOA-AD whose contents were made public only a few days before the signing.

In the following weeks, in Central Mindanao, two MILF commanders instigated armed incursions against the civilian population. On Aug. 18, violence broke out in the town of Kolambugan and in some outlying barangays of Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte. Military operations in the Lanao provinces and in Central Mindanao have been carried out and are still ongoing. These are said to be limited to efforts to locate and neutralize the three commanders.

However, Christian communities and Muslim communities have been forced to evacuate from the areas of conflict. Relief operations have been undertaken by government agencies and non-government organizations. The Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro and Xavier University have sent several truckloads of relief goods to evacuation centers in Iligan, Linamon, Munai, and Marawi. In particular, volunteers of the archdiocese have accompanied the shipment of relief goods on Aug. 28 to the town of Munai, which is wholly Muslim. They have also sent goods to the Catholic bishop in Marawi for allocation to Muslim evacuees who prefer to stay with their relatives rather than in an evacuation center.

On Aug. 28 at Xavier University, a Forum on the proposed MOA-AD between the MILF and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines was held. The clarifications presented by two members of the government’s negotiating panel and a member of the MILF’s technical working group enabled the audience, composed mostly of academic and civil society groups, to have a more balanced view of the MOA-AD.

On Sept. 15, three women humanitarian workers were held hostage on Basilan island, purportedly by the Abu Sayyaf, an extremist rebel group. Up to the present, negotiations for the release of these humanitarian workers are still being conducted.

On Sept. 24, Catholic bishops came together in Davao to follow up earlier consultations with government representatives and other sectors of society. They agreed to reaffirm the common sentiment that the peace process in Mindanao should continue and even be strengthened vis-à-vis the outbursts of violence reported in a few areas. Specifically, government officials requested the religious leaders in Mindanao—including bishops and ulama—to take the lead in holding consultations with local communities with regard to their aspirations and recommendations for lasting peace on the island. In the meantime the Supreme Court ruled that certain provisions of the MOA-AD went against the Philippine Constitution. Earlier, the administration of President Gloria Arroyo had already stated that they would not pursue the signing of the memo with the MILF.

II. Promoting a Culture of Peace
It is in this light that we can examine six dimensions for building a culture of peace in Mindanao—i.e., for healing the past and building the future of present and coming generations of Mindanaoans.

Since the mid–90’s, culture of peace seminars have been conducted by peace centers in various parts of Mindanao. Much attention has been given to the need for intercultural understanding and interfaith dialogue. In the course of these seminars, peace advocacy groups have identified six dimensions for building a culture of peace in Mindanao.

1. Personal and Family Integrity
“Peace of the heart,” notes Pope John Paul II, “is the heart of peace.” One cannot be a peacemaker if there is no peace in his heart. Likewise, building peace in every home is a first step in building peace for the community. “Integrity of mind and heart” is included in this year’s theme for the Mindanao Week of Peace—which starts on the last Thursday of November.

In several localities, activities during the observance of the Mindanao Week of Peace focus on promoting a Culture of Life vis-à-vis an incipient “culture of death.” Drug awareness and a campaign against corruption are two examples of how personal integrity and the fullness of life are intertwined. To attain these, values formation and the living out of one’s spirituality are seen as constituting a major operative value.

2. Promotion of Human Right and Democracy
The language of the modern world is increasingly articulated in terms of human rights. The Holy Fathers have praised the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights as “a common standard of morality.” Increasingly too, modern nations have evolved their political systems towards the principles and goals of democratic rule—e.g., in terms of electoral contests; freedom of association and participation, etc. Over-all, the operative value of justice pervades the efforts of individuals as well as of civil society organizations in countering any violations of human rights.

In particular the rights of minority communities like those of indigenous people are to be respected. The articulation of new rights and operationalizing these through legislation has been pointed out. Some of these newly-accepted rights include: the rights of the unborn fetus in the mother’s womb; the right of minorities to their own culture; and the right of communities to a healthful environment. The prophet Isaiah points out that the work of justice is peace (Opus justitiae pax.) Pope John Paul II adds another dimension: that the fruit of solidarity is peace (Opus solidaritatis pax.)

3. Poverty Eradication
Extreme poverty can drive people to carry arms. At the outbreak of violence in Lanao del Norte two months ago, a group of indigenous people combatants surrendered their firearms to the military. Their story was that they had been enticed to join the rebel group by the offer of a monthly salary that was much higher than what they would usually be able to earn. Indeed, unemployment especially among the restless youth provides a ripe condition for rebellion or criminal acts like kidnapping for ransom. Government statistics reveal that the Muslim- dominated provinces such as Jolo, Basilan, and Lanao del Sur rank among the ten poorest provinces in terms of provision of basic services such as health, housing and education.

But there have been success stories too of rebel-returnees who have been given productive employment and turned away from the resort of bearing arms. Economic development generally needs to accompany peacemaking efforts. There will be no peace without development—but, in a cyclical manner, there can be no development either without peace.

4. Intercultural Understanding and Solidarity
In Mindanao, religious leaders have formed a Bishops-Ulama Conference. Over the past twelve years, Catholic and Protestant bishops have been meeting in dialogue with their Muslim counterparts, the ulama, to promote intercultural understanding. Both groups declare that their religions are religions of peace. During outbreaks of violence, including the recent ones, bishops and ulama have issued joint statements condemning the destruction and stressing that the peace process should continue. These messages of solidarity have helped restore the peace. They also convey the important point that Mindanao is not engaged in a religious war.

As an operative value, the resort to dialogue instead of arms has been stressed in interfaith gatherings. These dialogue efforts have also been tried in local circles that include pastors, priests, and imams.

5. Disarmament and Cessation of Hostilities
Calls for a ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table during outbreaks of violence are oftentimes spearheaded by religious leaders of both sides. Local monitoring teams which include religious leaders have also been formed in various places to keep the peace.

Local communities have been encouraged to establish “zones of peace,” keeping away armed groups to assert the people’s right to peace. The call for firearms control is also part of these peacekeeping efforts.

6. Environment Protection
Christians and Muslims as well as indigenous people communities have joined advocacy groups against logging and mining. Protection of watershed areas that affect both upland and lowland communities has been pushed. Much still needs to be done—e.g., in cleaning up polluted rivers and safeguarding the living conditions of communities near factories and processing plants.

Stewardship as an operative value is stressed to underline the need for corporate social responsibility. Waste management practices, particularly in congested urban neighborhoods, have been introduced by local government units and non-government organizations.

In many ways, environmental conservation is a common concern among all cultural communities. A case in point are the ongoing efforts to protect the watershed area of Lake Lanao. The lake itself provides a natural habitat for the livelihood of hundreds of Muslim household living along the lakeshore. Moreover, the waters from the lake provide the source of hydroelectric power that is distributed throughout the island of Mindanao.

III. Towards a Threefold Culture

Several observers of the international scene have made dire predictions that a clash of religions and civilizations may be inevitable in our modern world. In Mindanao, for instance, Muslim–dominated and Christian–dominated areas experience occasional outbreaks of violence due to religious or cultural differences.

In this light, the six dimensions for a culture of peace provide constructive areas for healing the past by building the future together. We can summarize these dimensions by means of a threefold Culture of life, of Human Rights, and of Peace. These are all based on the core value of Human Dignity of all human beings—regardless of religion, race, nationality, or social class. Respect for the integrity of human life is translated into promotion of human rights. These in turn are the prerequisites for a just and lasting peace.

The religious traditions of our various faith communities subscribe to the values of this threefold culture. These values in one sense represent what is best in each religious tradition. In another sense, they transcend the boundaries of particular religious beliefs to build a stronger and better world for all.

+ANTONIO J. LEDESMA,S.J.

(* Commission V presentation at the 7th General Assembly of the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace, 17-21 October 2008, Manila.)

Religions for Peace In Asia and the World

2008-10-25T11:32:00.002+08:00

“The longing for peace and well-being is the
central message of all religions;
it is the essential good that all men and woman
must strive for peace across the
Asia-Pacific region and the world....”

THIS was part of the Declaration of the Seventh Assembly of the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ACRP) held in Manila on October 17-21, 2008. The ACRP gathering was the largest inter-religious event in the Philippines since the start of this millennium. Over 400 delegates from 20 countries came for the opening ceremonies at the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas. They represented the principal religions of Asia—Buddhist, Baha’i, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Islam, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian and others. The Seventh ACRP Assembly was co-hosted, by the ACRP-Philippines chapter and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, with the generous assistance of many Focolare friends.

Founded in 1974, ACRP now also known as Religions for Peace Asia, held its first Assembly in 1976 in Singapore. This was followed by Assemblies in New Delhi (1981), Seoul (1986), Katmandu (1991), Ayutthaya (1996), and Jogjakarta (2002). The member countries are Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Newly admitted were Iraq and Malaysia. Observers also came from Iran and Kyrgyzstan.

“Peacemaking in Asia” was the theme chosen for this assembly to highlight the role of religious communities in a world that has witnessed the rise of secularism on the one hand and religious extremism on the other hand. Terrorism with religious overtones, continuing militarization, and the threat of nuclear warfare among developing countries cast their shadows across the Asia-Pacific region. “Faith traditions betray their authentic messages,” continue the ACRP Declaration “if they do not commit themselves to making and building peace.”

Before the main conference at the Manila Hotel, a pre-Assembly Women’s Conference was held at UST attended by 70 participants from 11 countries representing seven faith traditions. They stressed the distinctive role of women in nurturing life and forming families as the bases of peaceful societies. Oftentimes too, women and children are victims of hunger, poverty, and war.
“Women are the bearers of human life,” stated Ms. Midori Sanada of Japan “Just as we give birth to boys and girls and foster them to grow,” she continued, “let us foster a peaceful world in which all human lives are respected.”

Also preceding the assembly was the Asian Religious Youth leaders Summit in Mindanao. This was held in Davao. This was attended by 90 young people from 16 countries representing nine faith traditions including that of the indigenous people. The delegates listened to local spokespersons like Archbishop Fernando Capalla and Datu Michael Mastura explain the current situation in Mindanao. They appealed in their final statement for the resumption of peace talks in Mindanao and the setting up of a multi-religious platform to unite the various youth organizations working for peace and development on the island.

After the opening speeches and reports, the ACRP main Assembly broke up into five commissions to examine peacemaking in Asia under various perspectives:
(1) Shared security and conflict transformation. Peacemaking in Asia can be realized through joint sharing of security concerns and through measures that transform the causes of conflict into developmental goals. The situation of refugees and internally displaced persons in particular calls for the sharing of security measures at the regional and global levels.
(2) Human rights and responsibilities and peace education. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Peacemaking in Asia is premised on the recognition of these human rights as well as the collective human obligations and responsibilities associated with these rights. In particular, the obligations to protect life and property, minority groups, women and children, and other vulnerable groups rest with governments and all social groups. In this regard, Archbishop Felix Anthony Machado, former undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, reiterated the Second Vatican Council’s recognition of religious freedom which he describes as “a condition for peace in a pluri-religious society.”
(3) Common values and community building. Building community can only be sustained by articulating common values that cut across religious traditions. Starting with the Golden Rule, which is found in practically all religious teachings, the Global Ethic framework developed by theologian Hans Kǜng and associates was discussed as a viable means towards forming global citizenship.
(4) Sustainable development and social justice. Care for the earth, economic activities within the framework of morality, and the fight against corruption are interrelated concerns that have an impact on sustainable development. Religious groups have a counter-cultural and prophetic role to play in pointing out the ethical imperative of social justice for political and business leaders.
(5) Healing the past and building the future. Peacemaking in Asia involves healing of the past through mutual forgiveness and reconciliation. In the context of the current Mindanao conflict, building the future means promoting a culture of peace in its six dimensions—personal and family integrity, promotion of human rights and democracy, poverty eradication, intercultural understanding and solidarity, disarmament and cessation of hostilities, and environmental protection. Six operative values are also needed: spirituality, justice, compassion, dialogue, active non-violence, and stewardship.

The ACRP Assembly ended with recommendations coming from the four commissions. Among these are: the need for centers of dialogue, formation of local interfaith bodies; the immediate banning of cluster bombs and the abolition of all nuclear weapons by 2020; and education towards a global ethic.

Newly elected chair of the ACRP Women’s Committee was Dr. Lilian Sison, UST Graduate School Dean. Dr. Sunggon Kim of Korea was re-elected as ACRP Secretary General, while the post of ACRP Moderator went to Dr. Din Syamsuddin of Indonesia.

Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.

Climbing the Lord’s Mountain

2008-04-10T19:28:00.000+08:00

LAST week I was in Cambodia as part of the Philippine delegation to the “Phnom Penh Dialogue 2008 on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace and Harmony.” Along with some government officials, we were religious leaders representing several faith traditions—two Protestant bishops, a Muslim scholar from the Ulama League of the Philippines, a Muslim woman officer of the provincial government of Sulu, and myself as a Catholic archbishop. We were all there to share our experiences on interreligious dialogue for peace and development in Mindanao and other parts of the country.
This was part of a larger effort started four years ago to engage the 15 countries in the Southeast Asia–Pacific region in interfaith dialogue and cooperation. The convening countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand have by now each hosted a conference–the first in Jogjakarta in 2004, followed by Cebu in 2006, Waitangi in 2007, and the most recent one, with the support of Australia, in Phnom Penh.
The cultural and historical setting of Cambodia for this fourth dialogue-conference was to me a highly significant choice. For perhaps nowhere else in this part of the world can we find such stark contrast between the lowest depths and the sublimest heights that the human spirit can reach.

Genocide Museum
While in Phnom Penh, a number of us, delegates, had a chance to visit the Genocide Museum, named Tuol Sleng, which was the most secretive prison of the Khmer Rouge regime during its reign of terror in 1975-78. This was located ironically in the downtown area of the city. The prison compound was the original site of a high school. Its four three-story buildings with their classrooms were converted into a high-security detention and interrogation center, complete with barbed wire fencing and torture chambers. The classrooms were partitioned into individual cells or dormitories where detainees were chained and isolated for two to four months before being executed.
From accounts of a few survivors, everything was taken away from the prisoners. They were stripped to their underwear and slept directly on the cement floors without any mat, blanket or mosquito net. There was little food, less water, and no medicine. Among the ten regulations posted on each cell were instructions like:
“Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this or that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.” “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.” “Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet.”
A distinctive feature of Tuol Sleng prison was its documentation office which photographed all prisoners and kept detailed biographies of each one from childhood to the date of arrest. It is these ID photos that have now been enlarged and displayed on the walls – blank faces of men and women, including some children, who for the most part were innocent of any crime except for their protests against the excesses of an abusive regime. Interviews and confessions of some of the prison staff, with pictures of their family background, only reinforce the horror of how the spiral of evil can reach down to the humblest of rural households.
At any time, the prison held from 1,200 to 1,500 prisoners. During the three years of its existence, records indicate that there were about 10,500 prisoners, not including another 2,000 children, who were killed in the same place. The numbers themselves are but a microcosm of the estimated one to two million Cambodians—a fourth of the population—who lost their lives under the harsh conditions of the Pol Pot regime. The Khmer Rouge cadres targeted the educated and bourgeois class and “anyone with eyeglasses.” They forced all city residents, young and elderly, to go out and work in the countryside. This was the case of an ideologically-blinded regime that wanted to turn the clock back to an idyllic past where everyone was treated equally—but without human rights nor the freedom of the human spirit.

Symbols of religious faith
In contrast, this idyllic past and the achievements of the human spirit were perhaps best enshrined in the northwestern region of Cambodia. Instead of a third day of conference proceedings, all the delegates traveled to Siem Reap, 300 kilometers away from Phnom Penh. Upon arrival, we visited and walked through the largest outdoor religious monument in the world—Angkor Wat and its surrounding complex of temples constructed from the 9th to the 13th centuries. Built by a successive line of Hindu and Buddhist kings over five centuries, Angkor Wat and the nearby temples of Ta Prohm and Angkor Thom represented sacred space and the symbolisms of religious faith.
With its awe-inspiring landscape, Angkor Wat itself is a microcosm of the Hindu universe. Its surrounding moat and outer walls lead inwards onto three levels of concentric galleries and towers. The towers represent the mountain ranges that surround Mount Meru, the mythical home of the gods. The pilgrim’s upward climb over the massive laterite and sandstone blocks and brick walls is virtually an ascent to the sacred mountain.
In all, Angkor Wat with its intricately-carved figures of gods, warrior-kings, apsaras, and Buddha statues evokes an atmosphere of contemplative prayer, detachment from worldly pursuits, and longing of the human spirit for the divine. These are perhaps best portrayed in the four faces of the Buddha pointed towards the cardinal directions of the compass, and carved repeatedly on the towers of the nearby Bayon temple. These represent the human-divine qualities of Charity, Compassion, Sympathy, and Equanimity.

Multifaith dialogue and cooperation
In many ways, these are the same qualities that our interfaith dialogue hoped to evoke for the Asia-Pacific region. For our troubled world today, the final statement of the Phnom Penh Dialogue stressed the urgency of multifaith dialogue and cooperation, peace as a sacred priority, increased participation of women and youth, and interfaith cooperation addressing community concerns in our region—such as poverty, human rights, and environmental issues.
For the political prisoners of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng literally meant a “poisonous mound.” But for the builders of Angkor Wat, the temple-mountain represented man’s ascent to God. And for all of us today, pilgrims in interfaith dialogue for peace and harmony, the same invitation to climb the Lord’s mountain is perhaps best echoed in the prophet Isaiah’s summons:
“In days to come,
The mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established as the highest mountain
And raised above the hills.

“Many peoples shall come and say:
‘Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain,
That he may instruct us in his ways,
And we may walk in his paths.’

“He shall judge between the nations,
And impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
Nor shall they train for war again.”
(Isaiah 2:2-4)

Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ

Update on the 2nd National Rural Congress

2008-01-19T20:58:00.000+08:00

FRAMEWORK FOR THE SECOND NATIONAL RURAL CONGRESS

2008-01-17T09:13:00.001+08:00

“The over-riding social concern of the Church in the Philippines has been all these years centered on the inequitable distribution of the nation’s wealth and the endemic social injustices that underpin that evil.”

In its pastoral statement on “The Dignity of the Rural Poor – A Gospel Concern,” (28 January 2007), the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines summed up our social situation. It then issued a call to hold a second National Rural Congress to commemorate the first one convened forty years ago in 1967. It noted that “the greater number of our poor are in the rural areas” and that urban poverty is a consequence of rural poverty.

The pastoral statement also provides a framework on how the process of the rural congress should be carried out.

1) Social Teaching of the Church

First, it expresses “the hope that we would be able to educate ourselves more intensively in what the social teaching of the Church is all about.” The recently-published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church enables us to examine more closely the moral principles that should guide us in our quest for a just and prosperous society. In this light, the CBCP statement urges that we “focus our attention on the greatest victim of our unjust economic order, the rural poor, and the diminishment of their dignity as people and as citizens.”

2) Constitutionality

This phrase, “as people and as citizens,” connotes the second guideline in the NRC framework – to review the social justice provisions of the Philippine Constitution. Article XIII, in particular, enunciates the spirit of social legislation that should give “the highest priority” to measures that: protect and enhance the right of all people to human dignity; reduce social, economic, and political inequality; remove cultural inequalities; and diffuse wealth and political power for the common good.

The CBCP pastoral statement notes that “the one big effort of the government at alleviating rural poverty has been its ongoing comprehensive agrarian reform program.” Despite deficiencies in the drafting of the law by a landlord-dominated Congress, government must see to it that social justice programs like CARP should be reviewed and improved through consultations, and properly implemented towards its completion. This is for the common good of small farmers and landless workers.

This review also extends to other social justice measures affecting small fishermen, indigenous people communities, rural women, etc. Environmental issues as consequences of irresponsible mining and logging, as well as of climate change, have also become major concerns today.

3) Non-violent and democratic means

A third guideline for the NRC process mentioned in the CBCP statement is engagement with government and the various sectors of society through non-violent and genuinely democratic means – by first listening to the rural poor themselves; by decrying “the shameful ‘extra-judicial’ killings of unarmed crusaders for justice and equality”; and by calling on government to act. “The responsibility to act,” further notes the CBCP statement, “is just as much ours as those who have the official responsibility.” Demands for good governance, transparency and accountability are thus essential factors in this call for social transformation.

“Today we see only too clearly,” the CBCP statement concludes, “the need for the reform not only of our national institutions but of our very moral fiber as a people.” Thus, through the social teaching of the Church, through the social justice provisions of the Philippine Constitution, and through our active, non-violent engagement with government, we are confident and hopeful that this second National Rural Congress can indeed provide the renewed steps towards the social transformation of Philippine rural society today.

NRC II Central Committee and Secretariats
17 January 2008

To Friends of the Archdiocese

2008-01-04T06:02:00.000+08:00

DURING the holiday season in Cagayan de Oro, I celebrated the Midnight Masses for Christmas and New Year at the St. Augustine Cathedral which was filled to standing room capacity. These have indeed been moments of thanksgiving, recalling blessings of the past year and a half. In early December, I officiated at three ordination Masses for six new priests in their home areas—two in Mambajao, Camiguin; three at the Cathedral; and the last one in Alubijid. Last year, we also had five ordinandi—two in Claveria, and three at the Cathedral Thus the archdiocese has been blessed with eleven new priests since I was installed as archbishop on 30 May 2006.

After a year of monthly meetings and consultations with the clergy, we have now operationalized a standardization scheme for the living allowances and social security of all diocesan priests. This took effect in June 2007 at the same time that we had a general re-shuffling of pastoral assignments for our 57 parishes and chaplaincies and two seminaries. Of our 114 diocesan priests, 9 are in seminary formation, 4 are in graduate studies, 14 are in overseas parish assignments, while another 5 are working in other Philippine dioceses. One of these is “on loan” assisting my previous Prelature of Ipil.

Judging from initial feedbacks from both young and older clergy, the provision of social security for everyone has been much appreciated since this covers their hospitalization and retirement benefits. Indeed, over the past 18 months, two priests are undergoing treatment for cancer symptoms, four have had fairly serious road accidents, while several others have sought treatment for various ailments of the heart or the lungs. We are also taking care of three priests in their retirement years in our House of Ars.

As part of our health maintenance efforts, we have set up in the Bishop’s House a physical fitness gym (near the kitchen) with some instruments for stationary walking or cycling, as well as for weight-lifting. At the rear of the house, we have also cemented an area as a badminton court, which is being patronized too by sisters and lay co-workers.

Along with standardization, we have started to organize our various ministries under two general headings. The ad intra ministries, intended for Catholics, are coordinated by a Commission on Faith and Evangelization. These include the ministries of BEC Formation, Catechetics, Family and Life, Youth, Liturgy, Bible, Vocations Promotion, Mission Awareness, Hospital Care, Inter-Religious Dialogue, and Bio-Ethics.

The ad extra ministries, directed to any one in need regardless of religious affiliation, are coordinated by a Commission on Social Action. These include the ministries on Good Governance, Sustainable Agriculture, Ecology, Indigenous People, Enterprise Development, Disaster Management, and Social Communications. Moreover, the commission includes services for particular sectors, such as women victims of abuse, neglected children, the elderly, the mentally sick, prisoners, migrants, and the deaf. Two other commissions have been set up to attend to Temporalities and Clergy Formation. We have also started to organize an association of our parish-based secondary and kindergarten schools.

With the dissemination of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, the archdiocese has set up an ACCESS office (i.e., Archdiocesan Center of Concern, Empowerment, and Social Services). The office has started regular “conversations” with NGOs, academe, and other civil society groups to work together on common issues such as poll-watching, good governance, and environmental concerns over small-scale mining activities in the upstream areas of Cagayan de Oro and Iponan rivers.

Since August 2006, we have introduced in nine pilot parishes a Responsible Parenthood and All-Natural Family Planning program. We include all scientifically-based NFP methods today for couples to have added options for an informed and responsible choice. The responses from trained providers and couple-users of NFP have been heartening and the program has now been opened to all parishes. Despite skepticism from some quarters, we have always maintained that the program is for responsible parenthood (not population control) and for NFP all the way (without any mixing of contraceptives). The results can speak for themselves, and we invite interested observers to visit our pilot sites.

As a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, I joined the World Congress for Ecclesial Organizations Working for Justice and Peace, held in Rome in November 2007. The congress commemorated the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s social encyclical, Populorum Progressio (The Development of Peoples). For us in the Philippines, the year also marked the 40th anniversary of the National Rural Congress called by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

In this light, CBCP has called for a Second National Rural Congress, starting with diocesan and sub-regional consultations until the first quarter of this year. NRC II will culminate with a national assembly by mid-2008. I have been asked to chair the central committee in charge of these preparations. On a localized note, this year 2008 also marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of Cagayan de Oro as a diocese.

It is with all these in mind that, on behalf of the clergy, religious and lay faithful, I extend to you the greetings and gratitude of the archdiocese for your prayers and continuing support. May the spirit of Christmas—of Light, Love, and Life—remain with you throughout the coming years.

SOLIDARITY MESSAGE FOR SUMILAO FARMERS

2007-12-15T09:08:00.000+08:00

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people...”(Isaiah 10:1-2; NIV)

Reclaiming human dignity and abject poverty drives the 54 Sumilao farmers to pursue a historic “Walk for Sumilao Land, Walk for Justice”. Unlike the Israelites journey in Moses’ time, a ‘promised land flowing with milk and honey’ awaits them as Yahweh guaranteed. For the Sumilao farmers, however, there is nothing sweet or similar that they can look forward to when they reach Manila. Their long and arduous walk is a leap of faith with no assurance of any possible fulfillment of their claims. Unquestionably, the indomitable spirit they showed to the rest of the Filipino people in pursuing their struggle could only come from their strong faith and complete trust to God our Creator.

The Central Committee of the Second National Rural Congress (NRC-II) is one with you in spirit and in prayers in putting forward your pressing issues, in reclaiming the 144-hectare ancestral land that once belong to your people. As shepherds of God’s flock we extend our hands in in spiritual guidance, until your dignity as a people shall be restored and work with you in overcoming privation.

We urge our government officials at Malacanang and the Department of Agrarian Reform to sincerely listen to the Sumilao farmers’ aspirations. We don’t demand for special favor for our Sumilao brothers and sisters. We only pray that the social justice spirit of the law be given utmost regard. Let this be a positive signal to the government’s call of transforming agrarian reform beneficiaries as agribusiness men and women, of putting agrarian reform at the center of rural development.

The Sumilao farmers’ journey for land and justice is an inspiration to many people worth emulating – to the landless tenants in large haciendas and farmworkers in agribusiness plantations asserting their rights under the agrarian law, to our indigenous brothers and sisters claiming their ancestral lands and to agrarian reform advocates supporting the just cause of farmers, farmworkers and indigenous peoples.

Ang among panalangin sa atong Langitnong Amahan maga-uban kaninyo sa tibuok ninyong paglakaw ug ilayo kamo sa sakit o katalagman ug ampingan hangtud sa inyong malampusong pag-abot sa Maynila. Lakip niini ang among pangamuyo nga malamdagan ang atong mga opisyales sa gobyerno ug ipatuman kaninyo ang hustisya human sa lisud ug hatass nga biyahe ug pakigbisug. Kining tanan atong idangup kang Kristo Hesus lamang nga atong bugtong manluluwas uban sa giya sa Espiritu Santo, Amen!

In solidarity,

Signed:
+ ARCHBISHOP ANTONIO J. LEDESMA, S.J., D.D.
Archbishop of Cagayan de Oro
NRC II Executive Committee Chairperson
Second National Rural Congress

Populorum Progressio – 40 years Hence

2007-12-01T08:00:00.000+08:00

ON November 22-24, 2007, in Rome the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace convened the Second World Congress of the Ecclesial Organizations Working for Justice and Peace. More than 250 delegates from the Church’s social action centers throughout the world came together to commemorate the “40th Anniversary of Populorum Progressio: the Development of the Whole Man and of All Men.”

Pope Paul VI issued his landmark letter on “The Development of Peoples” in 1967, just two years after the completion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Many of the conference speakers pointed out the relevance and continuing challenges raised by the social encyclical.

There is first of all the challenge to be human—in a world where violations of human rights are still rampant, especially against women and children, tribal minorities, and the weaker sectors of society.

There is also the challenge of pluralism and different cultures, even as modern means of communication and transportation have brought the four corners of the world closer than ever before.

Finally, there is the challenge of globalization--which can be viewed either from the perspective of those countries that dominate the global market or from the perspective of the many more countries that remain underdeveloped.

It is in this light that Pope John Paul II pointed out the originality of Populorum Progressio in his commemorative encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, twenty years later.

First, Populorum Progressio emphasizes the ethical-moral and cultural character of development. “Development which is merely economic is incapable of setting man free,” notes Pope John Paul II.

Secondly, the social question has now acquired a worldwide dimension. The transfer of capital and technology has gone beyond national borders without much regulation. On the other hand, the mobility of labor has been restricted.

Thirdly, development is closely linked to justice and peace. “The new name for peace is development,” writes Paul VI, even as the earlier notion of peace includes justice as a pre-requisite.

During the second day of the conference, continental-wide reports were given on the challenges of development in Africa, Europe, America, Asia, and Oceania. Working groups by languages were then asked to discuss the interrelated themes of: conflicts, poverty and inequality, democracy, and environment.

In the midst of all these sharings on development issues today, perhaps the most striking was that of Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi in India. Speaking in the first person as a tribal himself in his keynote address, he asserted: “What I am today and what my people of Chotanagpur are today, is almost entirely because of the Social Teaching of the Church.”

He went on to cite the evangelizing work of a pioneer missionary, Fr. Constant Lievens, a Belgian Jesuit, who came to India in the late 19th century. Noting the mass exploitation of the tribals and land usurpation by landlords, Fr. Lievens took up legal cases in defense of the tribals’ lands.

Because of this, Cardinal Toppo continued: “A great number of them accepted Christianity, as they came to understand that it enabled them to regain their human dignity. Within seven years there were eighty thousand Catholics. Today there are over a million Catholics from this tribal region… While Fr. Lievens is called the Apostle of Chotanagpur for bringing Christ to our people, he is also popularly known as Nyay Ka Masiha, i.e., ‘the Messiah of Justice’ for bringing justice to our people. Faith and Justice always go together. This happened to my people, and for this reason, I am here with you today.”

Update on the National Rural Congress

2007-11-19T07:56:00.000+08:00

At the beginning of this year during our CBCP Plenary Assembly, we issued a pastoral statement on “The Dignity of the Rural Poor,” which called for a National Rural Congress to commemorate the first one held forty years ago in 1967.

In July 2007, the organizational structure and process for NRC II were approved by our Plenary Assembly. Two parallel secretariats were set up for local consultations at the diocesan and sub-regional levels. The Media and Research Offices were also activated to help the NRC Executive Committee.

To give more time for preparations, the timetable of the NRC phases has been moved. Phase One consisting of local consultations will take place mostly in January – March 2008. Phase Two which consists of the national-level congress (or congresses in four clusters) is being planned to take place some time in May or July 2008.

1) The ad intra secretariat (NASSA/BEC/ECIP) has already distributed a standard format for the diocesan consultations on the role of BECs in rural development. This will be further explained at the National Social Action General Assembly in Roxas City on Nov. 28-30.

2) The ad extra secretariat (PMP/AMRSP/RPS) has finalized its schedule of 13 sub-regional consultations on rural issues. The ZAMBASULI sub-region will have its consultation in mid-November while the rest will take place during the first quarter of 2008.

3) The CBCP Research Office has convened two meetings of research institutes on rural poverty issues. On Oct. 12th, four government agencies (DAR, DA, DENR, and NAPC) were also invited to share their research findings on agrarian reform and rural development.

4) A working group has met twice at the Loyola School of Theology to help prepare a summary of the Social Teachings of the Church for reference in the NRC consultations. Other groups have also taken the initiative of compiling a summary of CST principles.

5) The CBCP Media office has been working out plans for the wider dissemination of NRC proceedings. A website on the internet has recently been installed to share available research findings and NRC updates. The website is: www.cbcponline.net/nrc2

6) Ongoing efforts are being made to access funding for NRC activities.
However, in the spirit of self-reliance, the diocesan and sub-regional consultations will have to depend on local resources in case outside support is lacking.

7) In line with our consultations on agrarian reform and rural poverty, NRC Execom members (Bishop Pabillo and myself) have been following up with DAR and Malacañang current land issues raised by PARRDS, UNORKA, and the Sumilao farmers. (The Higaonon Sumilao farmers are currently on a long march from Impasug-ong, Bukidnon, to Manila to reclaim the land denied them more than a decade ago under a land conversion scheme that was never carried out.)

8) Members of the CBCP Permanent Council (incoming and outgoing) and all other bishops are invited to a special forum on “Agrarian Reform and the Church: A CARP Briefing and Reflections.” This will be held on Nov.28 at 1:00 – 7:00 p.m. at the Pius XII Center, U.N. Avenue, Manila.

Much interest has been generated in NRC II from church circles and the general public, including government agencies. We thank you for your continuing support. Any further inquiries can be coursed through any of the two NRC secretariats or the CBCP secretariat or the NRC II website.

PROMOTING A CULTURE OF PEACE

2007-10-10T18:25:00.000+08:00

Mindanao, the southern island of the Philippines, is home to three general cultural groups – the indigenous people communities comprising 18 ethnic groups; Muslim communities from another 8 ethnic groupings; and the Christian population coming from at least 12 language regions of the country. It is this tri-people composition that has at times caused inter-cultured hostilities in several sub-regions of Mindanao. In particular, the protracted conflict between Muslims and Christians has erupted into periods of violence.

At the same time religious leaders have made repeated calls for promoting a culture of peace wherein warring parties can lay down their arms – and prejudices – to build a brighter future for their children. It is in this light that we can examine six social concerns in promoting a culture of peace, which also constitute the foundations of a Christian ethical framework.
The starting - point and core of these social concerns is Human Dignity – i.e., that every human being is a person endowed with reason and free will and made in the image of God. Thus, as the social teachings of the Catholic Church states, “far from being the object or passive element of social life,” the human person “is rather, and must always remain, its subject, foundation and goal”.

The first social concern is Personal and Family Integrity. Wholeness and fullness of life are goals for every individual as well as for every family. These can be more readily attained through value formation and a deepened spirituality – vis-à-vis the mass media values of materialism and consumerism.

A second social concern for forging a culture of peace is promoting Human Rights and Democracy. Human rights are moral claims to the means needed to protect and promote human dignity. These are concisely articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. For Pope John Paul II, this Declaration “remains one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time.” Some of the these major rights are enunciated in his encyclical, Centesimus Annus – such as the right to life; the right to live in a united family; the right to develop one’s intelligence and freedom in seeking the truth; the right to work; and the right to live in the truth of one’s faith. Respecting these rights is a matter of justice.

A third social concern is Poverty Eradication. Peace in society is illusory if the basic needs of individuals and families are not met. A nation’s economy must be able to utilize its natural and man-made resources in order to create wealth and income for all its citizens. The virtue of compassion and sharing should be inculcated in all citizens.

Complementing personal and family integrity along the social continuum is Intercultural Understanding and Solidarity. In Mindanao, Christian and Muslim religious leaders have engaged in a quarterly bishops-ulama dialogue over the past decade to highlight this need for mutual acceptance and appreciation of cultures. Every November, the Bishops-Ulama Conference has been promoting a Mindanao Week of Peace wherein local communities are encouraged to organize common activities for peace-building – such as multi-cultural programs, peace marches, etc.

Disarmament and Cessation of Hostilities are immediate steps to take toward creating a culture of peace. As part of the political continuum, the ending of armed hostilities represents a shift from recourse to force to recourse to reason in a democratic society. As exemplified by Gandhi in India, Mandela in South Africa and the People Power Revolution of 1986 in the Philippines, active non-violence can be a more potent force than recourse to arms in building a culture of peace.

The sixth social concern and part of the economic continuum is Environmental Protection. In a rapidly modernizing and globalizing society, the irreversible destruction of the environment is not a remote possibility. Indeed many countries have learned lately to conserve and manage carefully their watershed areas, fishing preserves, and clean air domains. In Mindanao, local communities have raised outcries against irresponsible logging and mining operations that are usually undertaken by multinational corporations.

Stewardship is an operative value that has been stressed to highlight the responsibility of everyone for the common good and to remind us that we are only caretakers of God’s creation. Conservation of the environment is an imperative for sustainable development for our present and future generations.

These then are six social concerns revolving around the core value of Human Dignity – which are essential in promoting a culture of peace. Although arising from Christian ethical principles, one could also point out that this framework resonates with the human and spiritual values of other faith traditions as well as of secular governments that endeavor to work out a more comprehensive paradigm for human development. There is no peace without development; but neither can there be development without peace.

Remarks at the 125th KC Supreme Convention

2007-08-08T06:45:00.000+08:00

BUILDING BRIDGES – FROM WAITANGI TO MINDANAO

2007-08-01T19:54:00.000+08:00

“Building Bridges” was the theme of the Third Asia-Pacific Regional Interfaith Dialogue in Waitangi, New Zealand, on May 29-31, 2007. Fifteen countries from Southeast Asia and the Pacific sent delegates to this regional meeting, led by the four co-sponsoring countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

Delivering one of the opening addresses, President Gloria M. Arroyo herself stated that “the Philippines looked forward to creating deeper interfaith ties within the region as together we work towards building bridges for a culture of peace.”

In their Plan of Action, the Waitangi delegates called for building bridges among religious leaders with governments, with civil society groups, and within one’s own faith community. The Waitangi Declaration also called for interfaith education in public as well as religious schools. It cited the key role of media in deepening inter-cultural and inter-religious understanding.

However, barely a week and a half after the Waitangi Dialogue, on June 10th, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, PIME, an Italian missionary priest, was kidnapped while on his way to saying Sunday Mass in one of the village chapels of Payao, a coastal municipality of Zamboanga Sibugay province in southwestern Mindanao. Payao is one of the 19 parishes of the Prelature of Ipil.

As former bishop of the prelature in 1997-2006, I knew well Fr. Bossi and his PIME confreres who had been establishing several parishes in the former Jesuit mission district of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga. Indeed, Fr. Bossi constructed the first parish church and convento of Payao as it split off from its mother parish of Siay in 1987. With his carpentry skills, he undertook much of the manual work himself. Later on, he would also build the convento and enlarge the parish church of Bayog. As a soft-spoken, hard-working “gentle giant,” Fr. Bossi endeared himself to the parishioners of Siay, Payao, and Bayog, wherever he was assigned.

The Prelature of Ipil itself is no stranger to kidnappings and outbreaks of violence. In the mid-70’s, the district was a theatre of war between Christian and Muslim paramilitary groups, the Ilagas versus the Blackshirts and the Barracudas. In 1985, its first bishop, Msgr. Federico Escaler, S.J., was held hostage with other traveling companions for several days. In 1995, the town of Ipil itself was attacked by the Abu Sayyaf and other rebels, with its market place razed to the ground and more than 60 people killed.

In the following years, two other priests who had worked in the prelature were kidnapped—Fr. Luciano Benedetti, PIME, a confrere of Fr. Bossi; and Fr. Rhoel Gallardo, a Filipino Claretian, who was eventually killed in captivity on the island of Basilan in the Jubilee Year 2000.

Fr. Bossi was eventually released on July 19, after a 40-day ordeal and after losing 40 pounds. He returned briefly to Payao a week later amidst a joyous celebration to thank his parishioners for their fervent prayers for his safety. Yet, Fr. Bossi’s safe return was not exactly a happy ending. During the week before his release, 14 Philippine marines had been killed in Basilan while on a search expedition to find him. Ten of the dead soldiers’ bodies were beheaded and mutilated. With the build-up of military forces in Basilan to go after the perpetrators, war clouds are looming once more over Mindanao.

It is in this context that the Bishops-Ulama Conference, Catholic universities and other Civil Society peace advocates in Mindanao have all called for moderation and a thorough investigation before an escalation of hostilities breaks out. Indeed, the practicable alternative to a Basilan offensive is the resumption of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Echoing the Waitangi Declaration, “building bridges for a culture of peace” starts here in Mindanao—in the midst of a brewing war zone.

+Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ

Plans for the 2nd National Rural Congress

2007-07-13T08:26:00.000+08:00

Land to the Tillers

2007-06-11T21:25:00.000+08:00

Moral Principles behind CARP

2007-06-11T21:18:00.001+08:00

Why Agrarian Reform? —Three Moral Principles

2007-06-10T08:38:00.000+08:00

At the beginning of this year, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issued a pastoral statement on “The Dignity of the Rural Poor—A Gospel Concern.” We expressed our concern over the “inequitable distribution of the nation’s wealth and the endemic social injustices that underpin that evil.

We further pointed out that most notable effort of government at alleviating rural poverty has been the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Today, we observe the 19th anniversary of CARP. Once more, we reiterate the call made in our pastoral statement:

“We ask that the CARP, defective as it is, be finally completed next year as it has been targeted. And if it is not sufficiently implemented by then, the program should be further extended and funded more seriously and generously. But we ask that the law itself must be reviewed and improved.”

The killings last week of two of the Mapalad farmer leaders on the land that had recently been given to them as agrarian reform beneficiaries after a protracted struggle of more than ten years highlight the many obstacles to the full implementation of CARP— e.g., the myriad legal loopholes encountered; repeated delays in implementation; adamant landlord opposition pitting small farmers against small farmers: lack of political will of government agencies; and inadequacies on the part of local government and law enforcement units to provide security for agrarian reform beneficiaries.

What is happening in Had. Velez-Malaga is only a microcosm of what has been taking place in several other conflict areas of agrarian reform, such as the Bondoc peninsula in Quezon, Negros Oriental and Occidental, Iloilo, Mindoro Occidental, Batangas, Davao del Norte, Masbate, and Had. Luista in Tarlac. In one report submitted by a consortium of NGOs, since 1998 when CARP was extended the first time up to the present, 387 cases of human rights violations victimizing 18, 872 farmers and rural organizers have been recorded (PARRDS, 2007). Human rights violations take the form of extra-judicial killings, frustrated murder, illegal arrests and detention, physical assault, destruction of private property, arson, violent dispersal, etc.

It is in this that we can ask ourselves: Why agrarian reform? The social teachings of the Church point out three moral principles.

First is the universal destination of goods. “God destined the earth and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity.” (Vatican I, 1965, Gaudium et Spes, 69)

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) explicitates this further: “Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable…. Private property, in fact, regardless of the concrete forms of the regulations and juridical norms relative to it, is in its essence only an instrument for respecting the principle of the universal destination of gods; in the final analysis, therefore, it is not an end but a means. (177)

A second moral guideline is the principle of the common good. This is intimately linked to the dignity of every human person as being made in the image of God. The common god is described by the Second Vatican Council as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” (GS, 26)

“The demands of the common good,” states the Compendium, “are dependent on the social conditions of each historical period and are strictly connected to respect for and the integral promotion of the person and his fundamental rights.” (CSDC, 166)

The admonition of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno (1931), still rings true for the Philippine situation today: “the distribution of created goods, which… is labouring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common god, that is, social justice.” (197)

A third principle is the preferential option for the poor. Hence, the Compendium states: “The principle of the universal destination of gods requires that the poor, the marginalized and in all cases those whose living conditions interfere with their proper growth should be the focus of particular concern. To this end, the preferential option for the por should be reaffirmed in all its force.” (CSDC, 182)

President Ramon Magsaysay, the first Philippine President to advocate for land reform (and whose 50th death anniversary we observe this year), expressed this insight more concisely: “Those who have less in life should have more in law.”

This year marks the 40th anniversary of a major social encyclical, Populorum Progressio, or “The Development of Peoples.” Only two years after the completion of Vatican I, Pope Paul VI recalled the traditional view of the Church that large landed estates that “impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused of poorly used, or because they bring hardships to people or are detrimental to the interests of the country” can be expropriated by authorities for the sake of the common good. (PP, 24)

This year, to, is the 40th anniversary of the National Rural Congress convened by the Catholic Church in 1967. Reviewing this period, the bishops have decided to convene a second national rural congress “to make us meet in true Gospel fidelity our present social concerns.”

We join hands with all our farming and rural poor communities, non-government and people’s organizations, as well as government agencies and the business sector. Starting with the convening of diocesan-level rural congresses, we are ready to listen to the various rural sectors and discern with them and to plan “how we must as a people come together to work for the common good of the country” and of all of us “as children of the same Father in heaven.”

For the Central Committee of
the Second National Rural Congress

+Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J., D.D.
Archbishop of Cagayan de Oro
Vice-President, CBCP
10 June 2007

The Church and Politics

2007-05-06T20:23:00.000+08:00

Termination of MOA

2007-02-24T08:51:00.000+08:00

2 February 2007

To: Parish Priests and Family Life workers in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro
From: Abp. Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
RE: Termination of MOA between CWL and DOH/POPCOM

At the CBCP general assembly last week, I had a dialogue meeting with bishop-members of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life. They expressed their concerns about the reported Memo of Agreement on Natural Family Planning between the archdiocesan chapter of the Catholic Women’s League and the regional offices of the Department of Health and the Commission on Population. Although ECFL members agreed with the objectives of the MOA, apprehensions were raised about the sincerity of government agencies in promoting solely an NFP program, based on their past record. There were also perceptions publicized in the media that the church was now for “population control” and condoned the use of contraceptives. Similar apprehensions were earlier raised by a number of Family and Life workers in Mindanao.

In order to allay these fears and for the sake of collegialitas affectiva, I have requested the archdiocesan chapter of CWL as well as the regional DOH and POPCOM offices to terminate their MOA by February 15th. In this manner, the archdiocese and church-related organizations will maintain their identity and keep a critical distance from government agencies on matters of family and life.

On the other hand, as was also mentioned during the CBCP deliberations, we should not be afraid to dialogue with government agencies – particularly with regard to their avowed program on responsible parenting and the promotion of only natural family planning. Related to this, I would like to point out three distinctions to clarify issues that were raised at the CBCP plenary assembly. For lack of time, these issues could not be properly discussed by the three resource persons who gave contrasting perspectives on the Standard Days Method as a simplified NFP method.

(1) Our All-NFP program in the archdiocese has the goal of promoting responsible parenthood, not population control. Regardless of how the population growth rate is interpreted, responsible parenthood through NFP is a desirable goal for all couples. This reiterates what the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines has stated:

“Christian parents must exercise responsible parenthood. While nurturing a generous attitude towards bringing new human life into the world, they should strive to beget only those children whom they can raise up in a truly human and Christian way. Towards this end, they need to plan their families according to the moral norms taught by the Church.” (Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, CBCP, Manila, 1991, no. 583)

(2) We should distinguish SDM as an NFP method in itself, and SDM as it may be presented by non-church groups. We include SDM in our All-NFP program, without combining it with contraceptives. Other programs by government entities or NGOs may suggest back-up contraceptives with SDM. This is not our program. Indeed, SDM-cum-contraceptives cannot be considered a natural method any more.

From our field experience, we find that many couples prefer a natural method all the way and can handle the twelve-day abstinence period of SDM (which is actually shorter than that of the average cycle in the Basal Body Temperature Method.)

(3) Finally, SDM has been characterized as being unreliable, not scientific, and a return to the old calendar rhythm method. The scientific basis for SDM in terms of computer simulation and the calculation of an average cycle through the science of statistics has to my mind been sufficiently explained by the available literature. But perhaps the most convincing evidence for our NFP promoters is the adoption of SDM by more than 1,300 couples in the Prelature of Ipil over the past five years. From their testimonies, SDM is an NFP method that is simple, reliable, and effective.

In this regard, we should distinguish between effectiveness and the acceptability of various NFP methods. Other NFP methods, when properly followed, may have a higher effectiveness rating than SDM – e.g. 98% vis-a-vis 95%. In terms of acceptability, however, SDM from our field experience is adopted by two-thirds of all NFP-users. Indeed, in terms of acceptability SDM does not have to be contrasted with other NFP methods. Rather we should see it in the larger context that NFP, due to the availability of simplified methods, has now become much more acceptable vis-à-vis artificial contraceptives.

This then is the opportunity and the challenge for all of us in our All-NFP program: to make available information on all modern NFP methods with the concomitant value formation and to reach out to all our kapilya communities through resident providers. With or without the help of government agencies, we shall continue to carry out our ministry and to pursue our goal of promoting responsible parenthood through All-NFP.

CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT IN ALL-NFP PROMOTION

2006-12-29T11:00:00.000+08:00

Dear Bishops of Mindanao and FLA Coordinators,

In 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

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 government’s “cafeteria” approach of promoting contraceptives. This guideline takes into consideration the words of caution expressed in Cardinal Trujillo’s 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 can summarize this program with the numbers 1-6.

We have one comprehensive All-NFP program to promote Responsible Parenthood through Natural Family Planning. This includes all recognized scientifically-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 differentiate – the natural vis-à-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 today – namely, (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 four pastoral guidelines – namely, (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 Two-Day Method (TDM), another simplified method based on cervical mucus observation. For a fuller exposition of these 1-6 elements, I am attaching my updated article on “Mainstreaming NFP in Ipil Prelature.” (Annex A)

In general, we are heartened by the positive response of almost 1,500 couple-users of NFP in the prelature so far. Two-thirds of these are SDM-users while a 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; cost-free considerations; adherence to the Church’s 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 12-day 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 All-NFP 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 Women’s League in the All-NFP program, in coordination with 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 Health-Philippines (IRHP). (Annex B) Biological factors relative to a woman’s fertile period, variations within the average woman’s 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 population – in 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 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 church-government 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 family-oriented organizations. However, in deference to the precautions expressed from various quarters, I encouraged the Catholic Women’s League as a religious lay organization to be a signatory to the MOA 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 offices – i.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 approach – probably the only one of its kind among developing countries today. (See PDI news items in Annex C.)

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 Church’s 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 resources – financial, 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 wholistic 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 place – i.e., engaging government agencies in the common objective of promoting responsible parenthood and NFP to address the felt needs of couples. Without a MOA, government agencies will continue to pursue NFP as its declared program at any rate – but without the guidance and value formation that only church-based 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 collaboration – where moral principles are highlighted as a frame of reference.

Vis-à-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 government on NFP promotion; or (3) to critically collaborate with government in promoting NFP. We have actually tried the first two approaches – with 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 approach – that includes simplified NFP methods and critical collaboration with government – can 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 it comes to acceptability among various NFP methods, we cannot make the best the enemy of the good. Indeed, whatever is acceptable to a particular couple under their own circumstances can be said to be the best for them.

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 hope – of 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 Life – which also encapsulate the spirit of All-NFP promotion in Filipino homes today.

Sincerely,

+ Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J., D.D.
Archbishop of Cagayan de Oro

From Gaudium et Spes to the Compendiumof the Social Doctrine of the Church

2006-05-12T07:23:00.000+08:00

The year 2005 marked the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in Modern World” (or Gaudium et Spes). This document focuses on the Church’s relations ad extra—i.e., sharing “the joys and the hopes” of the world. It synthesizes in contemporary accents the Church’s social teachings from the first social encyclical of Pope Leo XIII in the late 19 th century to the encyclicals of Pope John XXIII in the 1960’s.

In its opening chapters, the document touches on recurrent theme such as the Church’s mission in the world, the dignity of human person, and the challenges of modern-day atheism. In its second part, Gaudium et Spes focuses on problems of special urgency such as: marriage and the family, culture, socio-economic life, the political community and world peace.

One concrete result of Gaudium et Spes was the creation of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace which was tasked by the Holy Father to carry on the Church’s dialogue with the world on the Social issues if the day and to help guide the Church’s pastoral action in society. It was with this mandate that the Pontifical Council convened in Rome in October 2004 the First World Congress of Ecclesial Organizations Working for Justice and Peace.

There were two interrelated reasons for the congress: first, to prepare for the commemoration of the 40 th anniversary of Gaudium et Spes; and secondly, to launch the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which had just been published by the PCJP presidency of the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the 525 page Compendium has finally come to light and offers “a concise but complete overview of the Church social teaching.”

In systematic fashion, the Compendium takes us once more the classical themes of Gaudium et Spes, this time expanded with citations from other ecclesial documents, particularly Pope John Paul II’s three social encyclicals and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994).

The Compendium contains three parts. Part One, comprising four chapters, discusses the presuppositions of the Church’s Social Doctrine: God’s plan of love for humanity; the Church’s mission and social doctrine; the human person and human rights; and the principle of the Church’s Social doctrine.

Part Two, composed of seven chapters, contains an up-to-date examination of the traditional themes of social doctrine: the family, human work, economic life, the political community, the international community, and the promotion of peace. A noteworthy addition is a chapter on the environment.

Part Three, in a single chapter, contains recommendations for pastoral action in the social field and dwells in particular on the commitment of the lay faithful. The Compendium concludes with an invitation to the men and women of our age to build a “civilization of love” – the over –arching motif of the entire document.

At the dawn of the third millennium, the Compendium is offered as a continuing work in progress not only for Catholics but also for brethren of other faiths as well as for “all people of good will who are committed to serving the common good.”

If Gaudium et Spes has been characterized by Cardinal Renato Martino, current PCJP President, as containing the “genetic code” for the Church’s social apostolate, the Compendium can well be viewed as the vademecum for today’s church worker in the social field – as bishop, priest, religious or, especially, as lay person. Comprising about a third of the Compendium is a valuable analytical index that provides cross references for the topical themes of the Church’s social teachings.

A papal audience for the delegates provided a high point for the world congress. In his brief message, the late Pope John Paul II forcefully remarked:

"The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has just been published as an instrument meant to help Christians in their daily commitment to make the world more just, from the perspective of a true solidary humanism. The social doctrine is an essential part of the Christian message (Centesimus Anus, 5) and must be better known, integrally spread and witnessed to by constant and coherent pastoral action.”

For the Church, there is no socio-pastoral action without a social doctrine; but neither there can be a social doctrine without pastoral action.

FROM SOLIDARITY TO HUMAN SECURITY

2006-05-01T06:23:00.000+08:00

I - If one were asked to summarize the social teachings of the Church in one word, we could adopt Pope John Paul II’s favorite term, “Solidarity.” The dictionary defines “solidarity” as “agreement of all elements or individuals”; or as “unity of a group or class that is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards”; or as “mutual dependence.”

In the recently-published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, we discover a more profound description of Solidarity from the tradition of the Church.

(1) Meaning and value. Four dimensions are highlighted in the concept of solidarity:

--a) the intrinsic social nature of the human person;
--b) the equality of all persons in dignity and rights;
c) the common path taken by individuals and peoples towards an even more committed unity; and
--d) the bond of interdependence between individuals
and peoples.

In this light, solidarity would be opposed to individualism, class conflict, imperialism, isolationism as well as any form of dictatorship. It is based on the dignity of every person and of all persons in human society.

(2) Solidarity as a social principle and a moral virtue. The relationships of interdependence, particularly in a globalized world, impel us towards genuine ethical-social solidarity. As one of the key principles for the social teachings of the church, solidarity becomes the starting-point for our conduct in society.

As a moral virtue, solidarity disposes us to determine the order of institutions – i.e., from “structures of sin” to structures of solidarity. In this regard, it is helpful to keep in mind how the Church defines virtue in the first place:

A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. (italics supplied)

It is in this light that Pope John Paul II defines solidarity as a “firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good. That is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”

(3) Solidarity as a Christian virtue. Solidarity, as a recurring theme in the social teaching of the Church, has been expressed in various terms, such as “friendship” by Pope Leo XIII, “social charity” by Pope Pius XI, the process of “socialization” by Pope John XXIII, and “a civilization of love” by Pope Paul VI. It also refers to the “preferential option for the poor” which Pope John Paul II defines as a “special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity.” In the Compendium, solidarity takes on the lapidary phrase of “solidary humanism.”

Thus, solidarity is closely linked to charity with the distinctively Christian dimensions of “total gratuity, forgiveness and reconciliation.” It enables us to discern a new model of unity of the human race—towards “communion” which is the soul of the Church’s vocation to be a “sacrament.”

Some witnesses of solidarity among the saints, cited by Pope John Paul II, are St. Peter Claver, the apostle of the Negro slaves in Cartagena, and St. Maximilian Kolbe who offered his life in exchange for the life of a fellow prisoner in the concentration camp in Auschwitz. We can also mention Blessed Mother Teresa in her work of charity among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Their lives exemplify the meaning of solidarity among fellow human beings, as described by the late Holy Father:

Solidarity helps us to see the “other”—whether a person, people or nation—not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and then discarded when no longer useful, but as our “neighbor,” a “helper,” to be made a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God.”

(4) Solidarity in the life and message of Jesus Christ. The perfect exemplar of solidarity is the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who reveals man to man, and “is one with humanity even to the point of ‘death on a cross.’ ” Jesus reveals the transcendent love of God-with-us (Emmanuel).

In his disdain for any form of social discrimination and his special attention to the outcasts of society, his acts of solidarity shine forth with the Christ-modeled charity of total generosity, forgiveness and reconciliation. Ultimately, Jesus’ life and death wrought redemption, restoring a broken world in his love—a sign of grace, life and hope for the countless poor, the lame, the blind, the homeless, and the unwanted in our society today, or what Mahatma Ghandi has once described as “the last, the least, and the lost.”

(5) Solidarity and the common growth of mankind. As a dynamic principle, there is an intimate connection between solidarity and the common good, between solidarity and the universal destination of goods, and between solidarity and peace. “The process of development and liberation takes concrete shape in the exercise of solidarity, that is to say in the love and service of neighbor, especially of the poorest,” notes Pope John Paul II.

Solidarity, on the one hand, recognizes the space given to human freedom for the exercise of social responsibility and what the CBCP statement calls, “heroic citizenship.” On the other hand, it reminds us that we are all debtors of society of which we have become part and that we all have a common obligation to continue humanity’s journey towards future generations—an allusion to promote human life and the integrity of creation.

It is in this context that Pope John Paul II states that “the solidarity which we propose is the path to peace and at the same time to development.” He concludes by transposing Pope Pius XII’s motto, Opus justitiae pax (peace as the work/fruit of justice) into his own saying, Opus solidaritatis pax (peace as the fruit of solidarity).

II - How then do we forge solidarity in our world today? In one sense, the globe has shrunk in terms of travel distance and real-time communication. In another sense, the world has become more diversified, fragmented, and endangered in terms of ecological degradation and, what some have called, a clash of cultures and civilizations. Wars within and beyond national borders, man-made and natural disasters, epidemics, and threats of terrorism characterize the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era. The world has indeed become a better and safer place for many; but for many more, the experience has been the opposite—as millions continue to struggle with the stark realities of poverty, disease, war, and insecurity.

It is in this context that the framework of “Human Security” has been offered to complement the earlier paradigms of state security, promotion of human rights, and human development.

(1) From state security to human security. With the rise of nation-states in the 17th century, the concept of state security, based on national sovereignty, has been the prevalent framework in international relations. On the other hand, human security focuses on the protection of individuals, households and local communities.

In confronting menaces to peace and stability, state security is preoccupied with protecting territorial boundaries, or protecting the existing government from internal threats, such as coups or rebellions. On the other hand, human security confronts broader and border-less menaces, such as environmental pollution, the spread of infectious diseases, and threats of region-wide terrorism.

The protagonists for state security are usually politicians and the military; human security, on the other hand, involves a wider range of actors, such as civil society groups, non-government organizations, religious leaders, media, and international agencies.

Ultimately, the overriding goal for state security is to protect and preserve the state; human security, on the other hand, is people-centered and aims to protect and empower the people.

It would be instructive to relate these to current “threats” affecting the country—such as the Asian bird-flu epidemic, terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, and the reported coup attempt and Fort Bonifacio stand-off during the 20th anniversary of the EDSA I People Power revolution.

(2) Definition of human security. While acknowledging the location–specific concerns of particular countries and regions of the world, the Commission on Human Security offers a definition of human security—i.e., “to protect the vital core of human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfillment.”

It involves:

· protecting fundamental freedoms – that are the essence of life;
· protecting people from severe and widespread threats;
· using processes that build on people’s strengths and aspirations;
· creating systems (political, social, economic, cultural, environmental, etc.) that help people attain survival, livelihood and dignity;
· including excluded minorities in the development process;
· enabling individuals and communities to make informed choices and to act on their own behalf;
· encompassing: freedom from want,
freedom from fear,
freedom from discrimination, and
freedom of future generations to
inherit a healthy natural environment.

In summary, the Commission states: “Human security complements state security, enhances human rights and strengthens human development.” As pointed out by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, it joins “the main agenda items of peace, security and development.”

(3) Basic freedoms for human security. In a landmark study of the Human Development Report 2000, the United Nations Development Programme explored the intimate linkage between “human rights and human development--for freedom and solidarity.”

Seven fundamental freedoms are outlined:

· Freedom from discrimination – by gender, race, ethnicity, national origin or religion;
· Freedom from want – to enjoy a decent standard of living;
· Freedom to develop and realize one’s human potential;
· Freedom from fear – of threats to personal security, from torture, arbitrary arrest and other violent acts;
· Freedom from injustice and violations of the rule of law;
· Freedom of thought and speech and to participate in decision-making and form associations; and
· Freedom for decent work – without exploitation.

We can place these freedoms under three general headings related to a Culture of Life and Development; a Culture of Human Rights and Democracy; and a Culture of Peace and Solidarity. These three headings also approximate the economic, political, and cultural dimensions of human freedoms.

Within a Human Security framework, these three “cultures” reinforce each other as nested paradigms, starting from the basic economic needs of human life itself and extending to political freedoms and ultimately to cultural and spiritual values. “People’s horizons,” notes the Commission on Human Security, “extend far beyond survival to matters of love, culture and faith.”

(4) Human security following violent conflict. The Human Security paradigm was originally conceived to address the inadequacy of the State Security framework during periods of violent conflict. Under a state security perspective, only the first cluster on public safety would be addressed by a military force bent on victory in the battlefield.
As was borne out in the aftermath of the armed conflicts in Central Mindanao in the years 2000 and 2003, the other clusters such as humanitarian relief, rehabilitation & reconstruction, and reconciliation & coexistence were left mostly to local NGOs and international relief agencies. Government’s role, as indicated at the left margin predominates under the cluster of public safety, but diminishes in proportion to the people’s own involvement in the subsequent stages, particularly in the clusters on reconciliation and governance & empowerment.

(5) Advancing human security in Mindanao. As an illustrative case, a human security agenda in Mindanao would involve these various components:

· Protecting people in violent conflict (refugees);
· Providing minimum living standards (work-based security; secure livelihoods; access to land, credit, training);
· Access to basic health care;
· Access to basic education for all;
· Articulating common goals, while developing multiple identities (inter-religious dialogue; culture of peace);
· Empowering communities for good governance (engaged citizenship; social auditing; meaningful elections);
· Forging alliances among civil society groups, including churches, government agencies, and local communities.

The work of Tabang Mindanaw for relief and rehabilitation in Central Mindano; of the BASULTA cluster of local NGOs and international agencies in the development of the Basilan-Sulu-Tawi-Tawi area; of the Bishops-Ulama Conference in interreligious dialogue; of numerous peace centers, particularly in the observance of the Mindanao Week of Peace—these are all ongoing efforts at building peace and human security on the island. The Commission notes:

Human security in its broadest sense embraces far more than the absence of violent conflict. It encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfill his or her potential.

Does the language of Human Security then resonate with our affirmation of Solidarity in the social teachings of the Church? In the Philippine context, it seems there can be no solidarity without human security. But neither can there be human security without that deepened sense of solidarity that the Church’s tradition offers us.

Bishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.

(Keynote address, Second National Assembly of the Philippine-Misereor Partnership, SEARSOLIN, Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City, 16 March 2006.)

Letter to Cagayan de Oro and Ipil

2006-03-11T14:17:00.000+08:00

PRELATURE OF IPIL
Bishop’s Residence
P.O. Box 7283
7001 Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay
Philippines

8 March 2006

To the people of God in Cagayan de Oro Archdiocese and Ipil Prelature,

Thank you for your felicitations on my appointment by the Holy Father as the Archbishop of Cagayan de Oro.

While acknowledging my limitations, I humbly accept this assignment. I realize that this will be a bigger responsibility than my present assignment as Bishop of the Prelature of Ipil.

Over the past 9½ years, I have come to know, respect and love the clergy, religious and lay leaders and workers of this prelature. It is with a heavy heart that I shall be leaving them in a few months’ time.

On the other hand, coming to Cagayan de Oro by the end of May will not be strange to me since this has been my earlier home for 16 years.

Hence, I shall strive to be available to all the Christian communities in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro. This will be my new home, my local church, and the reference point for any activity that may involve my time and energy for the Church in the rest of Mindanao and the Philippines.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother accompany all of us in this new leg of the journey towards his Kingdom. And may I humbly ask for your prayers and collaboration.

In Our Lord,

+ Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Bishop, Prelature of Ipil

Letter to Muslim Brothers and Sisters

2006-02-24T19:21:00.000+08:00

21 February 2006

To our Muslim brothers and sisters,

Assalamu alaikum. Peace be with you.

In the recent cartoons controversy that has affected Muslim communities in Europe and other parts of the world, including the Philippines, we would like to express our sentiments of solidarity with your sense of indignation and outrage.

While we do not condone any acts of violence against persons or properties, we reiterate some of the common principles that both Muslim and Christian religious leaders have been espousing in our interreligious dialogue – whether through daily living or periodic exchanges in our bishops–ulama forum and other engagements.

1) We value the spirit of dialogue, tolerance and respect for each other’s religious traditions in bridging cultural differences that have divided our communities in the past and at present. Religious freedom and the rights of minority communities to their own culture are key values to be promoted.

2) Instead of viewing religion as a source of conflict, we have all asserted that Christianity and Islam are religions of peace, and that we have to build on our religious traditions to forge a culture of peace.

3) We recognize that extremist groups on either side can easily destroy the peace. Hence, we have jointly issued statements condemning acts of violence, particularly against innocent third parties. Insulting words and caricatures may also be considered forms of violence.

4) We have noted that people in mass media have often exaggerated conflict stories between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao and other parts of the country – giving rise to a culture of violence and war. Media should strive, instead, to present the truth in a balanced way and practice the tenets of peace journalism.

It is in the light of these common perspectives that we join you in a common effort to promote mutual understanding and respect for our religious traditions and beliefs.

Sincerely,

Abp. Fernando R. Capalla, D.D.
Archdiocese of Davao
Vice Chairman, ECID

Bp. Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Prelature of Ipil
Chairman, CBCP Episcopal Commission on Interreligious Dialogue

Bp. Martin S. Jumoad, D.D.
Prelature of Isabela, Basilan
Member, ECID

Bp. Edwin A. de la Peña, M.S.P., D.D.
Apostolic Vicariate of St. Mary’s of Marawi
Member, ECID

2006-02-24T19:19:00.000+08:00

BUILDING PEACE THROUGH A SPIRITUALITY
OF PUBLIC SERVICE

I

On this fifth anniversary of Zamboanga Sibugay, we have many blessings to be thankful for – a completed highway, more farm-to-market bridges, higher prices for rubber, and, despite some outbreaks of violence, relative calm and quiet throughout the province.

Yet, we cannot close our eyes to the shadows around us – the continuing poverty of many rural households, the lack of basic services, and the growing threat to our environment with the coming in of mining operations, whether large or small-scale. We should also not forget the killing of our Provincial Accountant, Mr. Venancio Ferrer, Jr., more than a year ago. This brazen crime remains unsolved up to this day.

In the latest Philippine Human Development Report of 2005, our new province, which is still included in the mother province of Zamboanga del Sur, is listed among the bottom ten “most inequitable provinces” (p. 111). Comparing measures for inequality from the years 2000 to 2003, Zamboanga del Sur (and Sibugay) ranks as the second least improved province, being outdone only by Lanao del Sur (p. 112). In sum, our province together with its mother province manifests extremes of wealth and poverty that accounts for the marked degree of inequality among residents.

It is in this light that we can soberly count our blessings along with the many more challenges that confront us – either as private citizens, or as public officials and civil servants for those of you who have been vested with some form of public authority.

The recent pastoral statement of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines calls for “renewing our public life through moral values.” It points out that the root of our crisis is the erosion of moral values. It invites public servants and citizens’ groups alike to promote “a spirituality of public service, integrity and stewardship.” “These forms of social spirituality,” the statement continues, “should counteract the persistent evils of gambling, drug-pushing, usury, destruction of our environment, and corruption in public office.”

The CBCP statement is addressed not only to one person or political party, but to all of us. How then do we develop a spirituality of public service – that builds lasting peace and development in our land?

II

In his Message for the World Day of Peace at the beginning of this year 2006, Pope Benedict XVI dwelt on “the truth of peace.” We invite all men and women of good will to reflect with us over the salient points in this papal message:

1) Peace cannot be equated simply with the absence of armed conflict, but should be viewed as “the fruit of an order which has been planted in human society by its divine Founder.” It is this fundamental truth about God and the “tranquillity of order” that he has established that drives us to express our own yearnings and hopes for peace in our land.

We reach out to all believers in one God – whom we acknowledge as Creator, Father, or Transcendent Being. Together we can help bring about the order in society that God has willed for all of us.

2) The truth about God enables us to know “the truth about man.” Despite our differences in creed, culture, and socio-economic class, we all share the same origin and destiny from God as well as the same nature as human beings. It is this realization of our common humanity that enables us to regard everyone as our brother and sister.
Every human person is endowed with intelligence and free will, and created in the image of God. From this basic human dignity flow our rights and corresponding duties to enable us to attain our natural and supernatural ends. These human rights and duties are therefore universal, inviolable and inalienable.

3) How then do we build peace in our land? Pope Benedict XVI recalls the four pillars of peace outlined by his predecessor, Pope John XXIII, in his landmark encyclical, “Peace on Earth” (Pacem in Terris). These pillars are: truth, justice, freedom and love – principles and human values that are rooted in “the universal moral law written on human hearts.” This innate voice of conscience impels us to work for the integral development of the person and to promote the human rights of every person in society.

It impels us also to work for the common good which is the “the sum of social conditions that enable persons to achieve their full human potential.” Public officials, in particular, are expected to work for the common good, not their private good. Indeed, the common good is the reason that political authority exists in the first place (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 168).

4) As Christians, we proclaim the “Gospel of Peace.” We attest that “Jesus is the truth which gives us peace.” Jesus was averse to every form of falsehood; he was completely transparent in his dealings with others; and he opened the paths for forgiveness and reconciliation. Through his life of compassion and caring for the poor and the despised, we too are asked to serve everyone, but especially the least of our brethren.

5) Peace is ultimately a gift of God. Yet it is also a task and a responsibility for all of us. “When we hear the Gospel,” Pope Benedict reminds us, “we learn to build peace on the truth of a daily life inspired by the commandment of love.” Through the example of the Holy Family in Nazareth may we begin to build this peace first in our homes and communities and in our province. And may it be a peace that reaches out to all persons and to all warring groups in our land.

III

As we strive then to live out a spirituality of public service, we can make Solomon’s prayer for Wisdom our own (Wisdom 9:1-6, 9-11):

God of my fathers, Lord of mercy,
you who have made all things by your word
and in your wisdom have established man
to rule the creatures produced by you,
to govern the world in holiness and justice,
and to render judgment in integrity of heart:

Give me Wisdom, the attendant at your throne,
and reject me not from among your children;
for I am your servant, the son of your handmaid,
a man weak and short-lived
and lacking in comprehension of judgment and of laws.

Indeed, though one be perfect among the sons of men,
if Wisdom, who comes from you, be not with him,
he shall be held in no esteem.

Now with you is Wisdom, who knows your works
and was present when you made the world;
who understands what is pleasing in your eyes
and what is conformable with your commands.

Send her forth from your holy heavens
and from your glorious throne dispatch her
that she may be with me and work with me,
that I may know what is your pleasure.

For she knows and understands all things,
and will guide me discreetly in my affairs
and safeguard me by her glory. Amen.

____________________________________________________
* Homily at Ecumenical Service, Opening Program, 5th Araw ng Zamboanga Sibugay,
Capitol Hills, 17 February 2006.

2006-02-24T19:13:00.000+08:00

Mainstreaming Natural Family Planning in Ipil Prelature

During the first weekend of February 2006, I joined a training seminar on natural family planning methods in Roxas City. This was sponsored by the Archdiocese of Capiz which was interested to know more about our All-NFP program for Responsible Parenthood in Ipil Prelature. Hence, three trainors from the prelature teamed up with two Manila-based trainors from the Institute for Reproductive Health to give the intensive 2½-day seminar on all NFP methods. In all, there were 62 participants representing 29 of the 33 parishes of the archdiocese.

Some participants had already been teaching the Billings Ovulation Method in pre-Cana seminars. Only a few, however, had heard about the Standard Days Method. And no parish at all had a monitoring system to follow up actual users. Everyone agreed that much more needed to be done to mainstream NFP and to reach out to as many couples as possible. It is in this light that the Capiz parishioners were interested to know more about our pastoral experience in Ipil Prelature in promoting an All-NFP program over the past 3½ years.

I. Pastoral Situation

From a national perspective, the latest Philippine demographic and health survey indicates that only 33% of currently married women are using modern contraceptives, 16% are using traditional methods, and less than one percent are adopting modern NFP methods. Conversely, 51% of all couples do not have any family planning method at all.

Despite more than three decades of government-sponsored promotion of practically free contraceptives, the question can then be raised why only one-third of all couples have accepted contraceptive use. Is it because the other two-thirds of Filipino couples are still looking for a family planning method that is safe, reliable — and natural?

On the other hand, a similar question can be raised why less than one percent of currently married women are adopting modern NFP methods. Has the government – as well as the church – failed to promote NFP? Or are the earlier NFP methods too difficult to adopt?

From our pastoral experience in Ipil, we realize that the majority of couples today have three felt needs:

They want family planning – i.e., to plan the size of their family and to space births;

They prefer natural family planning, if given adequate information on fertility awareness and NFP methods; and

They want to choose among NFP methods – to suit their own circumstances and preference.

Our biggest challenge then may not be to confront government or an international conspiracy but rather to address the felt needs of thousands of married couples in our rural and urban poor neighborhoods. For the most part, these are couples who are looking for and are ready to adopt any of the NFP methods that we can show them to be safe, reliable, inexpensive, and practicable.

II Vision and Pastoral Guidelines

This then is our vision: to mainstream NFP by reaching out to the majority of Filipino couples who are looking for a family planning method that is effective, suited to their own circumstances, and in consonance with the Church’s moral guidelines.

The objectives for our NFP program include the following:

To adopt a proactive pastoral approach to address the felt needs of couples for family planning;

To offer an All-NFP program by making available information on all modern, scientific NFP methods; and

To promote the value formation that is integral to our Family Life Apostolate and to enable couples to make an informed and responsible choice, based on the formation of a right conscience.

In the light of these vision and objectives, we have adopted four pastoral guidelines for our All-NFP program in the prelature (cf. Fig 2).

We are pro-life. This is our first principle. We are at the service of life from the moment of conception. Hence, we are against abortion, which is also proscribed by our Constitution.

We are for Responsible Parenthood. This is our goal – to help parents to be aware of their rights as well as their duties in the procreation and education of their children. Planning one’s family in order to adequately care for every child that comes into the world is the right and responsibility of Christian parents.

We are for Natural Family Planning. This is our recommended means in consonance with the moral teaching of the Church. NFP means the practice of periodic abstinence according to the natural fertility rhythm of the human body. Our promotion of NFP should include all modern, scientifically-tested NFP methods.

We are for enabling couples to make an Informed and Responsible Choice. Within the context of a secular and pluralistic society, the government’s focus is to refrain from coercion and to provide information on all family planning methods that it deems legally acceptable for couples to make an informed choice. On the other hand, the church’s focus should be to provide information on all NFP methods and to help couples form a right conscience so that they are able to make not only an informed but also a responsible choice.

For the majority of couples who are not using any family planning method at all, the question can be raised whether or not these couples are forced by circumstances to make uninformed and irresponsible choices in a matter that is crucial to their family life. Ultimately, neither the government nor the church can make this choice for couples. It is their inherent right and duty as responsible parents and citizens to have this freedom of choice for themselves. This is the goal of Responsible Parenthood that both Church and State subscribe to.

III Towards an All-NFP Program

Since the mid-70’s, the Prelature of Ipil, which was then a Jesuit Mission District of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, has been a pilot area for the earlier NFP methods – such as the Basal Body Temperature method (BBT) and the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM). However, with the dissociation of the church from the government’s family planning program and the end of outside funding by the mid-80’s, the NFP program reached a plateau and slowed down.

In October 2001, some of our prelature workers visited Impasugong, Bukidnon, where a new NFP method, called the Standard Days Method (SDM), was being piloted among small farmer couples. Because of its simplicity in teaching fertility awareness with the aid of a string of cycle beads, practically all the parishes agreed to include SDM in, what we now call, the All-NFP program for the prelature.

SDM is a new calendar-based method of family planning based on fertility awareness. It helps a woman know her fertile days by simply counting the days of her cycle, starting with the first day of menstruation. It identifies days 8-19 of the cycle as the fertile period when pregnancy may occur if there is intercourse. Days 1-7 and the rest of the days after day 19 are identified as non-fertile days.

SDM’s “fertile window” of days 8-19 has been standardized and is applicable only for women whose menstrual cycles range from 26 to 32 days. It is estimated that three-fourths of all women are within this cycle range. Hence, it is made clear from the outset that SDM is not applicable to all women. In this sense, despite its simplicity, SDM cannot be the exclusive NFP method for the local church to promote; but neither should it be the excluded method.

SDM was developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States. It is the result of an extensive research process spanning six years since the mid-90’s, involving pilot sites in Bolivia, Peru and the Philippines. It has been clinically tested with a high effectiveness rate of 95.25%.

To help women track the days of their menstrual cycle, IRH devised a necklace or cycle beads consisting of 32 colored beads, representing the day of menstruation (red), the fertile days (white), and the infertile days (brown). Hence, couples can easily know the days when they should abstain from intercourse if they wish to avoid pregnancy. Or they may also use the same beads to achieve pregnancy.

In July 2003, at the CBCP plenary assembly, the bishops passed a consensus vote 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 government’s total Family Planning Program for population control. [1] In effect, the bishops as a collective body gave their Nihil Obstat to SDM, but its Imprimatur was left to the local ordinary of each diocese.

IV A Five-Step Approach

Meanwhile in the prelature, All-NFP training seminars were conducted at the vicariate level and in some parishes. However, the approach was still haphazard, leaving the task of covering all the 19 parishes to a few prelature workers. After a series of consultations, by June 2004, the prelature designed a five-step program for each parish. This would systematize and decentralize the All-NFP program to reach every chapel community (kapilya) or barangay.

Fig. 3 delineates this step-wise progression from the parish to the kapilya and household levels. The five steps comprise: (1) an orientation talk on responsible parenthood and NFP for parish leaders and kapilya representatives; (2) a providers’ training on All-NFP methods for kapilya representatives; (3) an orientation talk on All-NFP for the kapilya community; (4) individual counseling of couples by the provider at the household level; and (5) periodic reporting from the kapilya to the parish up to the prelature levels.

In September 2004, our NFP parish coordinators underwent a four-day refresher course on all NFP methods, given by the staff of the Institute for Reproductive Health (Phil.), an affiliate of Georgetown University which had developed SDM and other simplified NFP methods. Starting with an overview of fertility awareness, the IRH staff went on to discuss the distinctive features of each method to enable the participants to have a comprehensive view of NFP. This has been the content of the providers’ training seminars being given at the parish level ever since. A total of 367 participants, including 68 couples, have taken the training so far. They are now servicing 182 kapilyas or 29% of the total number of 626 chapel communities.

V Progress reports

What then have been the results of our All-NFP program so far? Table 1 gives the breakdown of providers and continuing users in our 19 parishes. As of December 2005, there were 1,125 continuing users. Of these, 742 (or 66%) are SDM users, while 295 (or 26%) are BOM users. There are also 77 breastfeeding mothers, while eleven prefer the temperature method or its combination with the mucus method.

Although the number of NFP users is still a small percentage of the total number of couples, it is a promising figure for a program that has reached out so far to only about a third of the total number of chapel communities. Prelature and parish workers have also been advised not to fast-track the program – to make sure that seminar participants are properly trained to become service providers with values formation and that each couple receives adequate counseling.

Our All-NFP program has been greatly facilitated and sustained by our Basic Ecclesial Communities at the chapel and neighborhood cell levels. Indeed, our pastoral experience in Ipil Prelature indicates that natural family planning is a valid, viable, and vital option for a growing number of couples.

For more information, contact Sr. Ana Lea Pielago, FLA-NFP Coordinator:

Bishop’s Residence Tel.: (062) 333 2266
Prelature of Ipil Fax: (062) 333 2574
Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay E-mail: prelipil@zambo.ph.inter.net
Web: www.bishopledesma.blogspot.com
[1] CBCP, Selective Analytical Index, Plenary Assemblies 1945 – 2003, Manila, 2004, p. 62 & 131.

Solidary Humanism

2006-01-21T16:43:00.000+08:00

(From Gaudium et Spes to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church)

The year 2005 marked the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (or Gaudium et Spes). This document focuses on the Church’s relations ad extra –– i.e., sharing “the joys and the hopes” of the world. It synthesizes in contemporary accents the Church’s social teachings from the first social encyclical of Pope Leo XIII in the late 19th century to the encyclicals of Pope John XXIII in the 1960’s.

In its opening chapters, the document touches on recurrent themes such as the Church’s mission in the world, the dignity of the human person, and the challenges of modern-day atheism. In its second part, Gaudium et Spes focuses on problems of special urgency such as: marriage and the family, culture, socio-economic life, the political community, and world peace.

One concrete result of Gaudium et Spes was the creation of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace which was tasked by the Holy Father to carry on the Church’s dialogue with the world on the social issues of the day and to help guide the Church’s pastoral action in society. It was with this mandate that the Pontifical Council convened in Rome in October 2004 the First World Congress of Ecclesial Organizations Working for Justice and Peace.

There were two interrelated reasons for the congress: first, to prepare for the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Gaudium et Spes; and secondly, to launch the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which had just been published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. After five years of preparation that started under the PCJP presidency of the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the 525-page Compendium has finally come to light and offers “a concise but complete overview of the Church’s social teaching.”

In systematic fashion, the Compendium takes up once more the classical themes of Gaudium et Spes, this time expanded with citations from other ecclesial documents, particularly Pope John Paul II’s three social encyclicals and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994).

The Compendium contains three parts. Part One, comprising four chapters, discusses the presuppositions of the Church’s Social Doctrine: God’s plan of love for humanity; the Church’s mission and social doctrine; the human person and human rights; and the principles of the Church’s social doctrine.

Part Two, composed of seven chapters, contains an up-to-date examination of the traditional themes of social doctrine: the family, human work, economic life, the political community, the international community, and the promotion of peace. A noteworthy addition is a chapter on the environment.

Part Three, in a single chapter, contains recommendations for pastoral action in the social field and dwells in particular on the commitment of the lay faithful. The Compendium concludes with an invitation to the men and women of our age to build a “civilization of love” –– the over-arching motif of the entire document.

At the dawn of the third millennium, the Compendium is offered as a continuing work in progress not only for Catholics but also for brethren of other faiths as well as for “all people of good will who are committed to serving the common good.”

If Gaudium et Spes has been characterized by Cardinal Renato Martino, current PCJP President, as containing the “genetic code” for the Church’s social apostolate, the Compendium can well be viewed as the vademecum for today’s church worker in the social field – as bishop, priest, religious or, especially, as lay person. Comprising about a third of the Compendium is a valuable analytical index that provides cross references for the topical themes of the Church’s social teachings.

A papal audience for the delegates provided a high point for the world congress. In his brief message, the late Pope John Paul II forcefully remarked:

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has just been published as an instrument meant to help Christians in their daily commitment to make the world more just, from the perspective of a true solidary humanism. The social doctrine is ‘an essential part of the Christian message’ (Centesimus Annus, 5) and must be better known, integrally spread and witnessed to by constant and coherent pastoral action.

For the Church, there is no socio-pastoral action without a social doctrine; but neither can there be a social doctrine without pastoral action.

Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Bishop, Prelature of Ipil
Member, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

Natural Family Planning – the Untried Option?

2006-01-15T10:40:00.000+08:00

Ligtas Buntis, with its double meaning of “safe pregnancy” and “safe from pregnancy,” has been launched since February 2005 by the Department of Health as a nationwide campaign to “provide adequate and factual information on fertility and various medically safe and legally acceptable family planning services.”[1] At about the same time, Congress has been deliberating on House Bill No. 3773, which declares a national policy on “responsible parenthood, effective population management and sustainable human development.”[2] Consistent with their earlier stand, spokespersons for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines have registered strong opposition to both the reproductive health campaign and the proposed bill.[3]

But, even as the debate continues, both sides are agreed that natural family planning methods should be promoted as an option for couples. Indeed, DOH Sec. Manuel Dayrit has pointed out that health workers under Ligtas Buntis are first enjoined to discuss fertility awareness to enlighten couples that they are capable of practicing NFP even before discussing various methods of family planning. In effect, according to him, the campaign is “the greatest opportunity the country has ever enjoyed to promote Natural Family Planning.”[4] It is in this light, that our pastoral experience in the Prelature of Ipil over the past three years may offer some on-the-ground perspectives.

I. From BBT and BOM to All-NFP

Since the mid-70’s, the Prelature of Ipil, which was then a Jesuit Mission District of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, has been a pilot area for the earlier NFP methods – such as the Basal Body Temperature method (BBT) and the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM). However, with the dissociation of the church from the government’s family planning program at that time and the end of outside funding by the mid-80’s, the NFP program reached a plateau and slowed down.

In October 2001, however, some of our prelature workers visited Impasugong, Bukidnon, where a new NFP method, called the Standard Days Method (SDM), was being piloted among small farmer couples. The prelature followed this up with a seminar in February 2002 on Family Life and Responsible Parenthood for all our parish priests, religious sisters and selected lay workers.

Because of its simplicity in teaching fertility awareness with the aid of a string of cycle beads, practically all the parishes agreed to include SDM in, what we now call, the All-NFP program for the prelature. A team translated the training manuals provided by the Institute of Reproductive Health (IRH) of Georgetown University which had been developing SDM since the mid-90’s. These manuals were also complemented by our value formation modules for our family life apostolate.

In February 2003, during the prelature’s Family Day, held as an echo of the Fourth World Meeting of Families in Manila held the previous month, the prelature formally launched its NFP-SDM program. In July of the same year, at the CBCP plenary assembly, the bishops passed a consensus vote recognizing SDM as an NFP method, provided it was not combined with contraceptives.[5]

Training seminars were conducted at the vicariate level and in some parishes. However, the approach was still haphazard, leaving the task of covering all the 19 parishes to a few prelature workers. After a series of consultations, by June 2004, the prelature designed a five-step program for each parish. This would systematize and decentralize the All-NFP program to reach every chapel community (kapilya) or barangay.

Fig. 1 delineates this step-wise progression from the parish to the kapilya and household levels. The five steps comprise: (1) an orientation talk on responsible parenthood and NFP for parish leaders and kapilya representatives; (2) a providers’ training on All-NFP methods for kapilya representatives; (3) an orientation talk on All-NFP for the kapilya community; (4) individual counseling of couples by the kapilya-based provider; and (5) periodic reporting from the kapilya to the parish up to the prelature levels.

In September 2004, our NFP parish coordinators underwent a four-day refresher course on all NFP methods, given by the IRH staff. Starting with an overview of fertility awareness, the IRH staff went on to discuss the distinctive features of each method to enable the participants to have a comprehensive view of NFP. This has since been the content of the providers’ training seminars being given at the parish level.

Table 1 gives a six-month progress report on the service providers’ training in 13 of the 19 parishes. A total of 218 participants, including 53 couples, have taken the training so far. They represent 113 kapilyas or 18% of the total number of 626 chapel communities. A kapilya is usually coterminous with a barangay, although some large barangays may have two or three kapilyas. Not all the kapilyas were represented in the initial seminars either due to distance or lack of volunteers. A second round of seminars for clusters of parishes is being planned to reach out to the rest of the kapilyas.

What then have been the results of our All-NFP program so far? Table 2 gives the breakdown of starting and continuing users, including those who have dropped out. As of March 2005, there were 627 continuing users. Of these, 434 (or 69%) are SDM users, while 164 (or 26%) are BOM users. There are also 25 breastfeeding mothers, while four prefer the temperature method or its combination with the mucus method. The lack of thermometers, however, has been a problem for BBT users.

From the parish coordinators’ reports, 59 NFP users have dropped out for various reasons – e.g., wrong use of the method, lack of interest, pregnancy, etc. It is instructive to note, however, that only one or two users have ascribed their pregnancy due to a failure of the method itself. Two parishes were not able to provide their reports due to reorganizational difficulties.

Although the number of NFP users is still a fraction of the total number of couples, it is a promising figure for a program that has reached out so far to only a fifth of the total number of chapel communities. Prelature and parish workers have also been advised not to fast-track the program – to make sure that seminar participants are properly trained to become service providers and that each couple receives adequate counseling.

II. Objectives and Pastoral Guidelines

What are our vision and objectives for the All-NFP program in the prelature? These are based on the current situation we find in the prelature as well as perhaps in the rest of the country.

First, couples themselves have expressed a desire and felt need for family planning. This is verified by the parish priests’ interviews of couples preparing to get married. Invariably, couples want to limit the number of their children or space their births.

Secondly, many couples have expressed a growing awareness of the health risks of contraceptives such as pills or intrauterine devices. Indeed, many of our NFP users have shifted from the earlier use of contraceptives due to these health reasons. Husbands have also signified their concern over their wives’ health in this regard.

A third reason is economic: government health centers are no longer supplying free contraceptives. In contrast, NFP methods are practically cost-free or incur a one-time cost for purchasing a thermometer or a set of cycle beads. In the long run, NFP for rural households is more sustainable.

From a national perspective, the latest Philippine demographic and health survey indicates that only 33% of currently married women are using modern contraceptives, 16% are using traditional methods, and less than one percent are adopting modern NFP methods. Conversely, 51% of all couples do not have any family planning method at all (Table 3).

Despite more than three decades of government-sponsored promotion of practically free contraceptives, the question can then seriously be raised why only one third of all couples have accepted contraceptive use. Is it because the other two-thirds of Filipino couples are still looking for a family planning method that is safe, reliable — and natural?

On the other hand, a similar question can be raised why less than one percent of currently married women are adopting modern NFP methods. Has the government – as well as the church – failed to promote NFP? Or are the earlier NFP methods too difficult to adopt?

This then is our vision: to mainstream NFP by reaching out to the majority of Filipino couples who are looking for a family planning method that is safe, reliable, practicable, suited to their own circumstances, and in consonance with the Church’s moral guidelines.

The objectives for our NFP program include the following:

1. To adopt a proactive pastoral approach to address the felt needs of couples for family planning;
2. To offer an All-NFP program by making available information on all modern, scientific NFP methods – i.e., Basal Body Temperature (BBT); Billings Ovulation Method (BOM); Sympto-Thermal Method (STM); Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM); and Standard Days Method (SDM).[6]
3. To promote the value formation that is integral to our Family Life Apostolate and to enable couples to make an informed and responsible choice, based on the formation of a right conscience.

In the light of these vision and objectives, we have adopted four pastoral guidelines for our All-NFP program in the prelature (cf. Fig 2).

We are pro-life. This is our first principle. We are at the service of life from the moment of conception. Hence, we are against abortion, which is also proscribed by our Constitution.

We are for Responsible Parenthood. This is our goal – to enable parents to be aware of their rights as well as their duties in the procreation and education of their children. Planning one’s family in order to adequately care for every child that comes into the world is the right and duty of Christian parents.[7]

We are for Natural Family Planning. This is our recommended means in consonance with the moral teaching of the Church. NFP means the practice of periodic abstinence according to the natural fertility rhythm of the human body. Our promotion of NFP should include all modern, scientifically-tested NFP methods.[8]

We are for enabling couples to make an Informed and Responsible Choice. Within the context of a secular and pluralistic society, the government’s focus is to refrain from coercion and to provide information on all family planning methods that it deems necessary and legally acceptable for couples to make an informed choice. This should eventually redound to the common good of society.[9]

On the other hand, the church’s focus should be to provide information on all NFP methods and to help couples form a right conscience so that they are able to make not only an informed but also a responsible choice. For the majority of couples who are not using any family planning method at all, the question can be raised whether or not these couples are forced by circumstances to make uninformed and irresponsible choices in a matter that is crucial to their family life.

Ultimately, neither the government nor the church can make this choice for couples. It is their inherent right and duty as responsible parents and citizens to have this freedom of choice for themselves. This is the goal of Responsible Parenthood that both Church and State subscribe to.

III. Looking Ahead

What have been our learnings so far over the past three years in promoting a revitalized NFP program in the prelature?

First, natural family planning is not only a question of methods but more so of a way of life. Hence, the church’s value formation, starting with our understanding of the human person, is essential to motivate couples and to help them appreciate the integral soundness of NFP for their family life. Indeed, our NFP program is viewed as a ministry and part of our Family Life Apostolate.

Secondly, NFP methods require more time and patience to teach. This includes a basic understanding of the fertility rhythm of the human body, as well as the observation of the various natural signs related to ovulation. In this regard, NFP service providers have to be properly trained to provide adequate counseling for individual couples. This is in contrast to the “quick fix” mentality often associated with dispensers of artificial contraceptives.

Thirdly, there is a whole range of modern scientifically-tested NFP methods and approaches that are available today. Couples interested in NFP appreciate being given an overview of all the methods to enable them to choose a particular method suited to their own circumstances. Even as we take exception to the government’s “cafeteria” approach in presenting all methods, it is a pastoral imperative on our part to make available information on all modern NFP methods that could help couples make an informed and responsible choice.

Fourthly, among these various methods, our NFP promoters have found the Standard Days Method the most widely acceptable because of its simplicity. On the other hand, we have also noted that not a few NFP users have learned to combine NFP methods or have moved from one method to another (e.g., from SDM to BOM, or vice versa). Moreover, couples using a traditional rhythm method with their home-made formula of fertile and infertile days can readily shift to SDM without much difficulty.

It is for these reasons that we enjoin other dioceses as well as government agencies to recognize SDM as a modern NFP method that can more readily be taught to interested couples. There should be no mixing with contraceptives, and only women whose cycles fall within the cycle range of SDM should be counseled to adopt this method. Leaving out SDM from the “generic” family of NFP methods would likely exclude 70% of potential NFP users, based on our records.

Fifthly, much of our NFP promotion in Ipil Prelature has been done by resident volunteers – women, men, and couples – who view NFP as an integral dimension of their own family life. Except for the prelature and parish coordinators who receive minimal allowances, the day-to-day services and counseling are done by ordinary housewives and husbands without a fee. Along these lines, the NFP program has been greatly facilitated by our Basic Ecclesial Community structures at the chapel and neighborhood cell levels.

Volunteerism in this regard can be seen as both an asset and a liability – an asset because it highlights the sense of Christian altruism of many workers, but also a liability because there are few full-time workers, and logistical support for trainings, transportation, etc. is limited.

Sixth, if government is sincere in pushing for a responsible parenthood program that is sensitive to the religious sentiments of the majority of Filipinos, it should consider a two-track system for providing information and services for family planning. It could set aside public funds separately for local church communities or non-government organizations that promote an inclusive NFP program, which should not be seen as connected with contraceptive use at all.

In the prelature, we have noted that when barangay health workers of the government present all family planning methods together, there is a tendency for them to focus on “instant” contraceptives, or to adulterate NFP methods by suggesting contraceptives as a back-up method.

Finally, the advocacy of many church groups against the government’s agenda for reproductive health and population management could be reinforced and gain more credibility if it were matched by a concrete program for natural family planning at the local levels.

Indeed, at the 8th Plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops in Korea in August 2004, with its theme, “The Asian Family Toward a Culture of Integral Life,” the Philippine delegates strongly recommended that “responsible parenthood and natural family planning be given particular importance in all dioceses and parishes.”[10]

Notwithstanding the oftentimes acrimonious debates that are heard over family and life issues, much can be gained if church and government can enter into a working relationship to promote a comprehensive NFP program that no one is against – but apparently no one else has tried out either. Indeed, our All-NFP pastoral experience in Ipil Prelature indicates that NFP is a valid, viable, and vital option for a growing number of couples.

Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J.
Bishop, Prelature of Ipil

[1] “Ligtas Buntis 2005 campaign” information flyer.
[2] Summarized by Congresswoman Josefina Joson, Chair, Committee on Women, House of Representatives, at the Breakfast Dialogue on “Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act of 2005,” sponsored by the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development, Makati, 16 March 2005.
[3] Atty. Jo Imbong, Executive Secretary, CBCP Legal Office, “Reckless and Irresponsible, The Legal Implications of Population Control,” 25 January 2005; and Archbishop Fernando Capalla, CBCP President, “Hold on to Your Precious Gift,” Manila, 18 February 2005.
[4] Manuel Dayrit, Secretary of Health, Letter to Brothers and Sisters in Christ, 28 January 2005.
[5] CBCP, Selective Analytical Index, Plenary Assemblies 1945 – 2003, Manila, 2004, p. 62 & 131.
[6] Another NFP method that may be disseminated soon by IRH – Georgetown, after several years of testing, is the Two Days Method.
[7] “Christian parents must exercise responsible parenthood. While nurturing a generous attitude towards bringing new human life into the world, they should strive to beget only those children whom they can raise up in a truly human and Christian way. Towards this end, they need to plan their families according to the moral norms taught by the Church.” (Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, CBCP, Manila, 1991, no. 583.)
[8] “Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, are in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them and favor the education of an authentic freedom.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Vatican City, 1994, no. 2370.)
[9] “The state has a responsibility for its citizens’ well-being. In this capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children. In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law.” (CCC, no. 2372)
[10] Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, Chairman, Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, Report to the CBCP Plenary Assembly, 23 January 2005.

Natural Family Planning and SDM in the Local Church

2005-12-12T14:28:00.000+08:00

At the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in July 2003, two consensus votes were taken with regard to family planning. The first vote was a no to collaboration with the government’s total family planning program. The second vote, however, was a yes to the diocese’s use of the Standard Days Method (SDM) in its own program of natural family planning (NFP) — without any contraceptive component and without collaboration with government.

The first vote maintained the Church’s critical stance against the government’s population program, which was still perceived to be dictated by a contraceptive mentality. This apprehension among bishops persisted even if the present administration of President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo, a devout Catholic, had earlier indicated its preference for natural family planning methods.

Indeed, this preference for the NFP methods by government was heightened by the introduction of a new and simpler NFP method, called the Standard Days Method. Ironically, however, objections to SDM came not from government quarters but from several church-related groups, particularly those who were promoting the earlier-recognized NFP methods such as the Basal Body Temperature method (BBT), the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM), and the Sympto-Thermal Method (STM).

For them, SDM was suspect because it was being promoted by government, presumably with some back-up contraceptive methods; the research for SDM was funded by USAID; the method was not yet fully tested; and it was nothing more than the old calendar-rhythm method that had already been discredited as unreliable. Moreover, SDM could not be considered as NFP because it did not involve the daily examination of bodily signs and symptoms.

This then is the significance of the second vote at the CBCP assembly. Notwithstanding these objections, the bishops as a body recognized SDM in itself as a natural family planning method. Provided it is not mixed with contraceptives, is not seen as a government program with its cafeteria approach, and is accompanied with the proper value formation to avoid a contraceptive mentality, the bishops did not voice any objections to the inclusion of SDM in the local church’s program for natural family planning. Indeed, since the CBCP has distanced itself from the government’s NFP program, all the more should the local church promote its own comprehensive NFP program that includes SDM.

What is the Standard Days Method in the first place? SDM is a new calendar-based method of family planning based on fertility awareness. It helps a woman know her fertile days by simply counting the days of her cycle, starting with the first day of menstruation. It identifies days 8-19 of the cycle as the fertile period when pregnancy may occur if there is intercourse. Days 1-7 and the rest of the days after day 19 are identified as non-fertile days.

SDM’s “fertile window” of days 8-19 has been standardized and is applicable only for women whose menstrual cycles range from 26 to 32 days. It is made clear from the outset that SDM is not applicable to all women. In this sense, despite its simplicity, SDM cannot be the exclusive NFP method for the local church to promote; but neither should it be the excluded method.

SDM was developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States. It is the result of an extensive research process spanning sic years since the mid-90s, involving pilot sites in Bolivia, Peru and the Philippines. The concept of SDM was first validated through computer simulation of over 7, 600 cycles provided by the World Health Organization from its ovulation method trials. It has since then been clinically tested with a high effectiveness rate of 95.25% in the three countries where almost 500 women were followed up for 13 cycles.

To help women track the days of their menstrual cycle, IRH devised a necklace of cycle beads consisting of 32 colored beads, representing the day of menstruation (red), the fertile days (white), and the infertile days (brown). Hence, couples can easily know the days when they should abstain from intercourse if they wish to avoid pregnancy. Or they may also use the same beads to achieve pregnancy.

Currently, SDM is being introduced in 14 countries, including India, Turkey, and Egypt, and several smaller countries in Africa and Latin America. In the U.S. as well as in other parts of the world, the cycle beads for SDM are being sold over the internet. Following its mandate, IRH-Georgetown continues to test and develop other simplified NFP methods. Earlier, it had developed the Lactational Amennorhea Method (LAM), which is now widely promoted by both government and church agencies. It also continues to streamline teaching aids for BOM and STM promoters.

In October 2003, a training workshop for NFP-SDM providers was hosted by Malaybay Diocese and opened to other dioceses in Mindanao. Five dioceses sent participants. The majority came from seven pilot parishes in Bukidnon, including the parish of Phillips. Spanning three decades since the mid-70’s, Camp Phillips had hosted the interdiocesan training program on the earlier-known NFP methods. This was sponsored periodically by the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life.

In their sharing, the participants saw the usefulness and need for a simplified method like SDM to be included in the church’s NFP program—particularly for those who found it difficult to keep daily records of body temperature or mucus characteristics. This assessment of SDM was reinforced during their field visits to two pilot barangays where SDM had been introduced over the past two years with the help of a non-government organization.

In one site, SDM was found to be widely acceptable not only among Catholics but also among couples of other religious affiliations. A notable number of couples had chosen to shift from the use of contraceptives to SDM. In the other site, a mother described how SDM was now being passed on to the next generation: her own 16-year old daughter was the one reminding her to move the cycle beads everyday.

Moreover, in other parts of Mindanao, Muslim couples have also expressed their interest in SDM as an NFP method. During the first quarter of 2004, two more training workshops for NFP-SDM providers were hosted by the local churches of Basilan and Sulu for their family life workers, including several Muslim women. The participants were enthusiastic about SDM as a practicable method that could easily be taught to both Christian and Muslim communities.

It is in this light that all these participants were perhaps simply reflecting the sentiments of Fr. Vicente San Juan, S.J., former ECFL executive secretary, and prime mover for many years of the NFP training course in Phillips. Although now in semi-retirement, Fr. San Juan had no qualms in endorsing SDM as a new NFP method, remarking that the principal criterion should be “what a method does to a couple’s life.”

In the Prelature of Ipil, we have included SDM as an added option in our natural family planning program under our family life apostolate. Even as we continue to promote the earlier-known methods, we note that the couples themselves have found SDM a much easier method to learn. “Why did you not teach this to us earlier?” has been a common reaction. We have also devised a less expensive string of “vertical beads” to help couples track the days of the menstrual cycle.

However, because the practice of NFP entails a way of life, our family life workers have made sure to include formation life values in the promotion of NFP-SDM. Part of this value formation is to enable couples to choose NFP as a truly human and Christian option, without combining it with other artificial contraceptives. The rule-of-thumb criterion for NFP is made clear: “no DIDO,” i.e. “no drugs, injections, devices, or operations.” Compared to the earlier NFP methods that our family life workers have been teaching over the past two decades, we find that the rate of acceptance of SDM in our pilot parishes over the past two years has increased markedly.

Indeed, couples themselves who have shifted from contraceptives to SDM tell us that the main reason they did so was SDM is natural. In this light, the prelature has included SDM in the array of modern NFP methods that we are making known to couples—first, as an added option for couples in their desire to follow the moral guidelines of the church; and secondly, as a pastoral imperative for the local church, to enable couples to make an informed and responsible choice with regard to family planning. Over all, in our 19 parishes, as of June 2004, our family life workers have tallied 366 current users of natural family planning methods: 261 with SDM, 102 with BOM, and one each with BBT, STM, and LAM.

“The future of humanity,” points of Pope John Paul II, “passes by way of the family.” The same thing can be said of the population issue confronting developing countries like the Philippines today. Population management cannot be done by government alone; ultimately it rests on countless couples exercising responsible parenthood through family planning. For Catholic couples, this means natural family planning. And the more NFP options we can make available to them, the more we can empower them to exercise responsible parenthood.

In commemorating last year the 40th anniversary of the encyclical, Pacem in Terris, Pope John Paul II reminds us his predecessor’s teaching that every human right involves a correspondingly duty. The same reminder can be made with regard to the whole area of family life. Couples should exercise their rights as well as their responsibilities of parenthood.

Going beyond structures to reach out people, the Holy Father invites us to engage in “gestures of peace” in our present-day world. Couples adopting NFP methods, including SDM, are hopefully among those who manifest these gestures of peace—and development—for the good of their families and the common good of their nation.

Natural Family Planning--Dream or Reality?

2005-12-12T14:25:00.000+08:00

Last September 2005 at the BEC National Assembly in Cebu, I shared with the participants “A Formation Program on Natural Family Planning for BECs in Ipil Prelature.” A number of delegates expressed their interest to adopt a similar NFP program in their areas.

To date, our Responsible Parenthood—NFP program has tabulated an encouraging total of 1,025 NFP users throughout the prelature. So far, we have covered a fourth of our 626 kapilya communities. A distinctive aspect of our program is that we provide information on all modern NFP methods, including the Standard Days Method. This is what we now call our All-NFP program.

CLARIFICATIONS

Unfortunately, there continue to be some apprehensions about SDM as an NFP method. At the Mindanao regional meeting of Family & Life coordinators in Malaybalay in mid-September, these apprehensions were raised once more. Allow me then to clarify some issues based on our pastoral experience in Ipil.

1. On SDM as a natural family planning method:

In our consensus vote at the CBCP plenary assembly in July 2003, we all agreed that SDM in itself was a natural method and could be included in the diocese’s own NFP program, provided it was not mixed with contraceptives and was not seen as part of a government program that promotes contraceptives. Archbishop P. Aniceto reiterated this CBCP stand at the Malaybalay meeting.

In the prelature, we have included SDM in our All-NFP program, even before government workers became aware of this new method. Integrated in the program is our value formation which advocates for abstinence and precludes any use of back-up contraceptive methods during the fertile period. As a rule of thumb, we stress to couples that NFP means no DIDO—i.e., no drugs, injections, devices, or operations. We have also adapted and translated our own NFP training manual, which includes modules on value formation.

2. On the effectivity of SDM:

Among our 675 SDM users, we have had only a handful of complaints regarding the failure of the method itself. This is expected since no method is perfect. Among starting users of any of the NFP methods that we advocate, there have indeed been some drop-outs, but these have been due mostly to the wrong use of the method, lack of interest, or planned pregnancy, and not principally due to the failure of the method itself.

On the whole, SDM users in the prelature have been adopting the method for one to three years now because they have found it to be simple, effective, and practicable.

3. On SDM as a “recycled rhythm method”:

The earlier calendar rhythm method was a customized method, based on the individual woman’s calculation of her shortest and longest cycles from six previous recorded cycles. This then involved some cumbersome computations to determine the first and the last fertile days of the next cycle.

SDM on the other hand, is a standardized method, based on computer simulations of statistical probabilities which make it applicable to a large segment of the population—in this case, women with average regular cycles of 26 up to 32 days. Starting from the first day of menstruation, days 8-19 are identified as the fertile period. The effectivity rate of 95.25% has been validated through clinical field trials in three countries where almost 500 women were followed up for 13 cycles.

It is good to keep in mind that the original calendar rhythm method developed from the pioneering work of Ogino and Knaus is still recognized by the Church as a morally valid method. Pastorally, however, its reliability has been questioned because of the meticulous calculations involved on the one hand and the inaccurate popularizations of the method on the other.

It is this same principle of using a calendar that has been simplified in a scientific way in SDM to make it practicable and reliable for a wider number of women. In the prelature, we find that about two-thirds of NFP users prefer this standardized method because of its simplicity and ease of learning.

4. On SDM as a method that is “bound to fail and promote the use of contraceptives”:

One reason for our All-NFP program is to give couples the widest latitude in choosing the NFP method that for them is suitable, reliable and not “bound to fail.” Indeed, many couples tell us that they choose SDM because they themselves want to move away from contraceptives.

Several couples told us that the 12-day period of abstinence in SDM did create difficulties for them for the first few months. But they have eventually learned to cope with this. Not the least of the factors behind this is their understanding of sacrifice in a truly Christian marriage. What is also equally important for them is that now they are surer in determining the fertile and infertile periods. A number of “traditional rhythm” practitioners, using their own homemade formula of fertile and infertile days, have shifted to SDM without much difficulty. Moreover, in addition to SDM, almost a third of our NFP users are adopting the Billings Ovulation Method.

5. On the Billings method as the only NFP method to be taught:

For over three decades we have been teaching the Billings Ovulation Method, and continue to do so. However, our family life workers have found the acceptability rate of BOM to be limited, due to the requirements of daily charting and follow-up by a trainor for three to six months. Some women can hardly read or write. Others have expressed their cultural aversion to minute examination of the cervical mucus. We note that the more educated women, like public school teachers, are the ones more likely to stay with BOM. We also find that for many couples the choice is not so much between BOM and SDM, but rather between SDM and artificial contraceptives.

In this light, we find that an inclusive NFP program promoting all modern NFP methods is more acceptable to couples and can reach more households even in the most remote areas. Paradoxically, we have more BOM users today in our All-NFP program than during the time when BOM was being taught alone. It is left ultimately for the couple to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each method, with the help of individual counseling. Some couples also learn to combine methods, or shift from one method to another. This, we believe, is a more mature aspect of their value formation in responsible parenthood.

6. On the use of SDM cycle beads:

The cycle beads have variously been described as a necklace, a new kind of “rosary” or even as a “satanic” device. Simply put, the cycle beads are only an aid to measuring and identifying the days of the menstrual cycle; they are not the method itself. In the prelature, we have devised a less expensive string of “vertical beads” that serve the same purpose. Couples also tell us that the beads have helped them to communicate better with each other on a matter that is often left unspoken.

7. On the prelature’s promotion of SDM because of outside funding:

Ever since we started our revitalized NFP program three years ago, the Prelature of Ipil has depended mostly on its own limited resources. We have not received any funding from Philippine or foreign governments for our activities. We simply consider these activities part of our Family Life Apostolate to promote responsible parenthood through natural family planning.

We have received some assistance from private donors who believe in NFP to subsidize our training seminars. But we depend mostly on the volunteer services of hundreds of NFP providers in our kapilya communities to sustain and expand the program. This is why we feel optimistic that our experience could easily be replicated by other interested dioceses, particularly through our Basic Ecclesial Community structures.

OUR COMMON CHALLENGE

Whither then, NFP? Is there an urgent need to set up a concrete program for natural family planning in every diocese? From our pastoral experience in Ipil, we realize that the majority of couples today have three felt needs:

1) They want family planning – i.e., to plan the size of their family and to space births;
2) They prefer natural family planning, if given adequate information on fertility awareness and NFP methods; and
3) They want to choose among NFP methods – to suit their own circumstances and preference.

It is in this light that I would plead for openness and dialogue in our discussions and common concern over natural family planning methods. Let us come together to encourage, not disparage, each other’s pastoral program. There is no need for acrimonious debates when we should all be confronting the more urgent pastoral needs of couples. Let us not be afraid to innovate and take risks if we want to address the pastoral needs of a greater number of households.

Regardless of which NFP methods we wish to promote, at the very least, we should be ready to show the actual numbers of NFP users in our localities. For a program without numbers is not a pastoral reality; at best, it remains an advocacy dream.

In my own talks to CEAP educators and religious organizations lately, many have expressed their readiness to work closely with bishops in promoting a concrete NFP program in their localities. Catholic doctors, midwives, and even public health workers have also expressed their readiness to work with the local church in promoting NFP. Perhaps it is time to go beyond just saying “No!” to government programs and to say “Yes!” to our own NFP program.

Our biggest challenge today may not be to confront government or an international conspiracy but rather to address the felt needs of thousands of married couples in our rural and urban poor neighborhoods. For the most part, these are couples who are looking for and are ready to adopt any of the NFP methods that we can show them to be safe, reliable, inexpensive, and practicable.

On the part of the Prelature of Ipil, despite our limitations, may I extend an open invitation for any observers to visit our NFP pilot sites. We also have a training team on all NFP methods that is ready to give seminars upon invitation and to share our NFP pastoral experience in the prelature.

Hoping that you share this vision and this letter with your Family Life coordinators, and with my best wishes and prayers for a dynamic NFP ministry throughout the country.

welcome

2005-12-12T14:05:00.000+08:00

This is the new blog of Bishop Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ. Talks, reflections and articles will be posted soon.