PH flock starts marking five centuries of the faith

MANILA, Philippines — The Archdiocese of Manila on Saturday opened a series of activities celebrating the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines 500 years ago, with the Church leadership underscoring the need for charity and compassion during the pandemic and exhorting the Filipino flock “to get out of maintenance mode and instead be in missionary mode.”

“We have to adapt to the new realities if we are to survive. Let us not wait till things get back to normal, and the normal will not be where we are in 2019 and before. It will be something new,” said Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the apostolic administrator of the archdiocese, preaching to a masked, physically distanced congregation that included four Metro Manila mayors.

Concelebrating the Mass with Pabillo was Archbishop Charles Brown, the papal nuncio to the Philippines.

The pandemic, Pabillo said, “pushed the Church to the peripheries” where it helped in the distribution of aid among the needy, further discovering “many pockets of poverty” in the process. “To leave the comfort zone is difficult. We would rather stay in our cozy and familiar situations. COVID-19 pushed us out of our comfort zones, whether we like it or not.”

Resist being ‘antiques’

Now five centuries old, the prelate said, the Catholic Church in the country should resist stagnating as a mere realm of “antiques, museums, and artifacts, whose main concern is preservation and conservation.”

“That is why Pope Francis calls us to get out of maintenance mode. Instead, we should be in a missionary mode,” he said. “We cannot leave things as they presently are,” Pabillo added, quoting the pontiff.

Saturday’s service marked the 442nd anniversary of Manila’s elevation as a diocese as decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1579. It serves as the kickoff event for a lineup of activities commemorating the quincentennial of the faith in the Philippines, with the main celebration on April 4.

Manila’s pride, challenge

“All the dioceses all over the country came from Manila. The expansion of the church in the Philippines started from Manila. This is a source of pride for us but also a big challenge. So this is very appropriate that here in the archdiocese, we open our 500th anniversary of the coming of Christianity in the Philippines,” Pabillo said.

“The word expansion has a negative connotation. It smacks of colonialism. It brings in the idea of domination,” he said. “Yes, people accuse us of [being the] imperial Manila. It gives us the taste of accumulation of wealth, of prestige and even primacy.

“[But] we are speaking not of expansion itself but of expansion of the mission,” he said. —Mariejo S. Ramos