Archbishop Socrates Villegas: Let glam go for Jesus to glow
COUNTDOWN Twelve days to go before the arrival of Pope Francis. Workers spruce up a street in Manila with posters welcoming Pope Francis who visits this predominantly Catholic country for the first time from Jan. 17 to 19. The Pope will share a meal with survivors of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) and the Bohol quake, and will celebrate Mass for the public at Rizal Park on Jan. 18. BULLIT MARQUEZ/AP
Do not fall in love with money, and live simply.
So said Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas in a circular addressed to the clergy.
“[The year] 2015 is [the] year of the poor. It is also [the] year of consecrated life for the universal Church as willed by Pope Francis. As our year opens, I wish to offer you some thoughts on living out the call to simplicity so that the gospel to the poor may better glow through us priests,” Villegas said.
There is much to be done in the year of the poor and first on the list is the simplification of the priestly life, he said.
“The renewal of the Church begins with the renewal of the priests. Let us take the lead in embracing the poverty of Jesus on the cross,” Villegas said in the circular “The Priests in the Year of the Poor,” posted on the CBCP website on Jan. 1.
“It is a scandal for a priest to die a rich man. We bring to heaven only what we give away on earth,” he stressed, adding that he was imposing all these challenges on himself first before inviting other clergy to embrace them.
Strict discipline
Villegas urged priests to impose on themselves strict discipline:
Avoid as much as you can foreign travel and frequent recreation in expensive tourist destinations.
“Even if such are paid for by friends and family, it is best to decline and choose austerity and simplicity. Rest is important but luxurious recreation is disrespectful to the poor who cannot even take a rest from their backbreaking jobs. Be more sensitive,” he said.
High-end cars and expensive vehicles smack of vainglory and luxury.
There is no excuse for any priest to have expensive vehicles, as these alienate the poor from the Church. Priests need vehicles to reach poor villages and bring to the residents the blessings of God, Villegas said.
Return to the clerical attire or clerical cross in public places as a form of witnessing to the poverty of Christ.
Signature shirts
“Loud signature shirts and pants are fashionable but we cannot let Christ glow unless we let our glamour go. To be simple is to be great in the eyes of God. The poor priest does not need to dress sloppily. We must give dignity to our vocation,” Villegas said.
It is a serious sin of omission for a priest not to have a regular poor person to help whether for education, health or livelihood.
“While it is morally acceptable to set aside some savings for future needs, it must be done with prudence. The money spent for the poor on earth are savings in the heavenly kingdom,” he said.
Be honest in reporting to the curia the true financial condition of the parish or the school.
Rates for sacramentals
According to Villegas, there are no fixed rates of offerings for the celebration of Masses, for confirmations, funerals, weddings and other sacramentals.
“What the archdiocese forbids, the parish priest must not circumvent. We are only temporary stewards, not chief executive officers. Our goal is ministry, not revenue upgrade,” he said.
Reexamine what we keep in our bedrooms.
“A priest’s room and a bachelor’s pad are exact opposites,” Villegas said.
Always give alms to the poor who come to you.
OK to be fooled by beggars
Villegas said priests should not be afraid to be fooled or to pamper beggars as they have no one to help them.
“If you have to make a mistake, make a mistake in being too charitable, in being too kind. There is no excess in kindness. We cannot outdo Christ in kindness,” he said.
Villegas said Pope Francis himself had laid out his thoughts on the danger of avarice and greed and materialism to the priestly vocation.
Quoting Pope Francis, Villegas said the “sickness of accumulating” material goods “only weighs down and slows the inexorable journey.”
He urged priests to return to their original reason for desiring to become priests.
“We were trained for a difficult life in the seminary. We seemed to be in a perennial food lack, remember those days? We deprived ourselves of the warmth of family life and contented ourselves with living together with brother seminarians,” he said. “We cleaned the seminary ourselves, maintained the garden and observed the rules. We wanted to be priests hence nothing was unbearable.”
Villegas said their ordination was their turning point as the Church entrusted her mission to them.
“We also receiv[e] in trust the money of the faithful, [who believe] that priests help so many poor people. They [give] us money to send poor children to school, to feed the malnourished, to help the sick receive medication, to defray the cost of burying the poor and so many more duties,” he said.
Quick change
But for some, Villegas said, the “sickness of accumulating possessed [them] so quickly” once they became priests.
“Money got stuck in our hands instead of sliding to the needy. The car became a status symbol even for the newly ordained when the chrism of anointing had hardly dried. The recreation became more sophisticated to expensive tourist sites unreached by the working class. We were no longer lacking in food; we were now choosing our food after being initiated into the palate of the filthy wealthy,” he said.
“It is bad for a priest to fall in love with a woman. It is worse if he falls in love with money. Ordination gave us access to church money but that money is not ours to enjoy,” he said.
“We priests can start touching hearts again if we talk less about our powers and instead expose ourselves more to the power of Christ to change us. When we demand integrity from public officials, can we humbly say, like Saint Paul, ‘Imitate me because I imitate Christ’? In this year of the poor, self-accusation must precede prophetic denunciation of social corruption,” he said.
Clericalism
If the young see priests who are more concerned with imitating Christ than accumulating money, they will stay with God.
“If we would be more focused on imitation of Christ before imposing fixed rates for the sacraments, we would see renewal. These times call for imitation before proclamation, imitation before teaching, imitation before mission, imitation before fundraising. Imitation of Christ before all else,” he said.
Villegas also warned of clericalism that speaks of privilege, prerogatives, entitlement and special treatment.
He warned that when priests lose humility, they lose perspective. And when they lose perspective, they become too reactive.
Jesus alone is our treasure
“When we become too reactive and possessive and materialistic, we become less effective and less credible as pastors. The loss of humility and the sickness of accumulation in Church ministry can be very costly. With materialistic clericalism laid aside, and Gospel-empowered humble shepherding taking its place, we might be able to see the rainbow of hope in the year of the poor,” Villegas said.
“Let us look at Jesus. Let us look at Him and let us be like Him. That is our only duty—to be Jesus and to give Jesus who alone is our treasure,” he said.
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