Manila archbishop issues ‘mandatory prayer’ for faithful

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila has directed the faithful of the archdiocese to implore God to stop the heavy monsoon rains that have virtually paralyzed Metro Manila since Monday.

Archbishop Antonio Luis Tagle on Thursday issued an “oratio imperata’—Latin for mandatory prayer— for the faithful to recite after Mass.

In a statement, the Manila archbishop requested Catholics to “pray kneeling down the following Oratio Imperata in our Masses (after the Post Communion Prayer), Holy Hours, celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours and the praying of the rosary.”

Tagle’s prayer reads:” We have not been good stewards of Nature. We have confused Your command to subdue the earth. The environment is made to suffer our wrongdoing, and now we reap the harvest of our abuse and indifference.”

Msgr. Joselito Asis, secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the faithful should pray for good weather.

The prayer was first said in the Diocese of Legazpi in 2009 when the province of Albay was devastated by a series of super typhoons.