CBCP APRIL 15 - 28, 2019, VOL 23, NO.Monitor 08
[email protected] PROTAGONIST OF TRUTH, PROMOTER OF PEACE Abp. Soc calls priests to be ‘real witnesses amid threats By Roy Lagarde PRIESTS are called to face “these dreary times of darkness” by being “real witnesses” amid “an angry disbelieving society,” a church official said on Holy Thursday. Those priests, said Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen- Dagupan, should also not be afraid to die or be killed for the Lord. “Brother priests, make friends with death. Let death not threaten you,” Villegas said in his Chrism Mass homily at the St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Dagupan City. “The call to the priesthood is a call to die. It is clear. There is no priesthood without victimhood,” he said. To drive his point, the archbishop said that there’s nothing surprising with priests being threatened with death. In the first place, he said that priests should not have accepted ordination if they were afraid to die or be killed. “Death is not a threat. It is our destiny,” said Villegas, who is also a former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. Archbishop Socrates Villegas embraces a priest as he celebrates the Chrism Mass at the St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Dagupan City April 18. COURTESY OF SABINS STUDIO Witnesses / A6 Pampanga’s old churches PH bishops condemn Sri Lanka attacks closed after earthquake CATHOLIC leaders in the Philippines joined the international community in condemning a series of blasts in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on April 22 offered Mass at the Manila Cathedral on Monday for the victims of the bombings that killed almost 300 people.