Sedos50-1-2-2021.qxp_47-2015 10/03/21 12:12 Pagina 2 Bulletin 2021 vol. 53, no. 1/2 - January-February 500 Years Christianity in the Philippines Editorial 1 A Beautiful Journey of Faith: Five Centuries of Philippine Catholicism James H. Kroeger, MM 2 Modern-Day Missionaries to the World Santosh Digal 17 50 Anni di PIME Gerolamo Fazzini 21 Duterte Contra Deus Margarida Santos Lopes 25 Prayer for the CICM Philippines Centennial Celebration 28 DOCUMENT: Laudato Sì in the Philippines 29 NEWS: Radio Veritas Asia 36 SEDOS SEDOS SEDOS Residential Seminar Program: Living Green Mission 38 Sedos - Via dei Verbiti, 1 - 00154 Roma SEDOS - Servizio di Documentazione e Studi sulla Missione Globale TEL.: (+39)065741350 SEDOS - Service of Documentation and Studies on Global Mission E-mail address: [email protected] SEDOS - Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Mission Globale Homepage: https://www.sedosmission.org SEDOS - Centro de Documentación y Investigación sobre la Misión Global Sedos50-1-2-2021.qxp_47-2015 10/03/21 10:19 Pagina 3 SEDOS (Service of Documentation and Study on Global Mission) is a forum open to Roman-Catholic Institutes of Consecrated Life, which commit themselves to deepening their understanding of Global Mission. It encourages research and disseminates information through its Bulletin, Website, Seminars and Workshops. Members of the SEDOS Executive Committee 2021 Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie, MCCJ (President) Mary Barron, OLA (Vice-President) Peter Baekelmans, CICM (Director) Biji Thomas, SVD (Bursar) Nestor Anaya, FSC Geni Santos Camargo, SFB Chris Chaplin, MSC Sreeja David, SND Rachel Oommen, ICM SEDOS BULLETIN 2021 Editor: Fr. Peter Baekelmans, CICM Secretariat: Sr. Celine Kokkat, CJMJ Translations: Ms. Philippa Wooldridge Printing: Tipografia DON BOSCO SEDOS Bulletin is a bi-monthly publication, and is free of charge for SEDOS Members (max. 3). The yearly subscription is: 30 in Europe, 45 outside Europe. For further information, advice, or change in subscription, please write to: [email protected] The digital version of the articles, and an English translation of some of most of the articles, can be found on the SEDOS website: www.sedosmission.org . The digital version can be received by email for free on a regular basis. Let us know if you are interested. Editorial Dear Readers, At the beginning of So, we are taking the occasion to join in the this year 2021, we take celebration of the different missionary the opportunity to Congregations that are active in the field. celebrate 500 Years of Already the last article concluded with a the Roman Catholic little note on the 30 years of Comboni Church’s presence in Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, MCCJ, in the Philippines (1521-2021), with a selection the Philippines, which they celebrated in of articles related to the Church and mission 2018. in the Philippines. Except for the first one, that SEDOS received from the author, we Then we come to the PIME missionaries selected some articles from the different (Pontifical Foreign Missionary Institute) who journals we receive at SEDOS, many from celebrated 50 years in the Philippines in our Member Congregations. It is the moment 2018. Gerolamo Fazzini gives us a rapid to make these valuable journals better overview of their pastoral contributions as known. well as their martyrs. The article appeared in their Italian journal, Mondo e Missione – La The opening article is by Fr. James Kroeger Rivista dei Missionari del PIME. briefly overviews the five centuries of Catholicism in the Philippines, its history We add by way of conclusion the Prayer for from the arrival of the Spaniards, wars, the the Centennial Celebration CICM different presidents and the revolutions it has (Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of known, as well as the challenges to a Mary) in 2007. It summarizes the genuine “renewed evangelization” ahead. feelings of the missionaries present in the Philippines today very well. The celebration of the 500 years of the Philippine Church cannot fail to recall all For our last article, we have chosen the those Overseas Filipino Workers, mostly document on Church and Ecology in the domestic workers, who give life to the Philippines that appeared in the French churches they attend with their smiling faces, journal of the Spiritans: Pentecôte sur le music, food, and above all their Christian monde in 2016. The ecological problem is faith. They are the modern-day apostles of still urgent in the Philippines and becomes evangelization. Santosh Digal highlights this more and more a recurring issue in the contribution in the English magazine World Philippine Church. The Document is made Mission. up of different short contributions. But the Philippine Church has also suffered a We close with some words about the lot of injustices on the political level. We important role Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) has take here the example of the present played: “sustaining and nurturing a sense of President Duterte. He does not accept any Catholic identity and spreading knowledge criticism, criticizes the Christian faith, and of Catholic moral principles” (EA, 48). expels the missionaries who stand up for a just social cause. Margarida Santos Lopes A Happy Celebration to all Philippine has written her article on this topic in the Missionaries, to all Missionaries in the Spanish journal Além-Mar perspectiva Philippines, and to all the Catholic faithful! Missionária. 1 James H. Kroeger, MM A Beautiful Journey of Faith Five Centuries of Philippine Catholicism Joyfully celebrating in 2021 half a Mindanao and Sulu is predominantly millennium of Christianity (1521-2021), the Muslim. Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines is There is evidence of human settlements in a major actor in this Southeast Asian island the islands as early as 20,000 BC. The small nation as well as within the wider Asian and black people, called Negritos by the Universal Church. While history continually Spaniards, were the first to arrive. Later they unfolds, this popular overview of the were driven into the mountainous interior Philippine Church seeks to trace pivotal when immigrants belonging to the brown- events through the past centuries. The piece skinned Malay race reached the islands. concludes with the year 2015, since this year Today one finds various hill tribes such as marks the fiftieth anniversary of the close of the Aetas and Ifugao of Luzon and the the Second Vatican Council (1965-2015) as Mansakas, Mandayas, and Bukidnon of well as the wonderful pastoral visit of Pope Mindanao; many of these peoples still Francis to the Philippines in early 2015. This practice their traditional religions. Malay presentation provides an opportunity to Filipinos occupy the lowlands, constitute the review both the history and the current majority of the population, and have become situation of the largest local Church in Asia. Christian. They form several distinct groups; Statistics in 2015 showed that the Philippine the Visayan, Tagalog, Ilokano, and Bikolano population has well exceeded 100 million. are among the most numerous. The five major religious bodies and their percentage of the local population are: Arrival of Spaniards Roman Catholicism (82.9%), Protestantism In March 1521 Ferdinand Magellan arrived (5.2%), Islam (4.6%), Iglesia Filipina in search of spices and converts for Charles I Independiente (2.6%), and Iglesia ni Cristo (Emperor Charles V); it was his son Prince (2.3%). The Philippines is the world’s third Philip, later King Philip II, whose name was largest local Church (after Brazil and bestowed on the islands by Villalobos in Mexico). Of Asia’s 120+ million Catholics 1542. Lapulapu, a native chieftain of Cebu, over 60% are Filipinos. These brief, yet resisted Magellan’s claim of Spanish signifycant, facts invite deeper exploration of sovereignty, and he was mortally wounded the multi-faceted Philippine Church. by Lapulapu’s spear thrust. In 1565 Miguel Lopez de Legazpi established the first Background permanent Spanish settlement in Cebu. In The Philippine archipelago is composed of 1571 Legazpi moved his headquarters to 7,107 islands and islets, of which the largest Manila, making it the capital of the colony. are Luzon in the north and Mindanao in the By the end of the century, most of the south. In central Philippines there are several lowlands were under Spanish rule, except for medium-sized islands known as the Visayan some southern islands which remained Islands. Stretching from the southwestern tip Muslim. of Mindanao toward Borneo is a chain of Islam had been introduced in the late small islands collectively known as the Sulu fourteenth or early fifteenth century. It Archipelago. The population of southwestern gradually exercised a strong influence and 2 helped develop a type of sophisticated policy. The early missionaries often sought political organization, semifeudal and to protect the natives from the abuses of the predatory, in Mindanao and Sulu and conquistadors and encomenderos; they had a initially in Manila. When the Spaniards vigorous leader in Fray Domingo de Salazar, encountered Muslims in the Philippines their OP, the first bishop of the Philippines. The hostile attitudes based on Muslim-Christian synod that he summoned in 1582 clarified encounters in Europe (the struggle for many difficult problems regarding the independence from Moorish rule in the conquest, settlement, and administration of Iberian Peninsula) colored their outlook and the country in accordance with Christian relations; these very negative attitudes were ideals and principles of justice. also transmitted to non-Muslim Filipinos. The Philippine Church of the sixteenth century certainly took sides, and it was not Systematic Christianization with the rich and powerful nor with their An organized program of evangelization of fellow Spaniards, but with those who were the Philippines was begun in 1565 by the oppressed and victims of injustice. Church Augustinians who accompanied Legazpi’s historian John Schumacher notes: “Skeptics expedition.