Ricardo Tito Jamin Cardinal Vidal, native of Marinduque and for three decades Metropolitan Archbishop of Cebu, will forever be remembered in our Philippines of epic encounters between church and state.
Cavite priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora earned unceasing recall by becoming emblems of revolt after execution under Spain.
Manila’s Jaime Cardinal Sin sealed his legacy in galvanizing Catholics towards the peaceful overthrow of two presidents. Cebu’s Vidal, who died on October 18, 2017 at 86, worked in relatively penumbral but no less fertile light.
At 40, he was named bishop, a post that Catholics call the fullness of the priesthood, by Pope Blessed Paul VI who appointed him Archbishop of Lipa in less than two years.
Pope Saint John Paul the Great made Vidal Cebu archbishop in 1982 and cardinal in 1985, thus giving the prelate a voice in the governance of the global church.
Yet while Vidal held several positions in the Roman Curia — the papal cabinet — and the Pope called him to Rome for several synods — meetings of the world’s bishops — his heart stood devotedly with his homeland, diocese and ministry.
As then-president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Vidal released nine days before the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution the pastoral statement that urged Filipinos to respond nonviolently to fraudulent and bloody snap elections.
But foremost a shepherd, the cardinal did not hesitate to fly to Hawaii to visit Edsa’s deposed and dying Ferdinand Marcos. Vidal administered to him the church’s sacraments despite malicious rumors swirling that the church prince was traveling to ensure his share of the Marcos loot.
Though his heart had long been stricken with illness, the cardinal was a man behind many good causes, and is well loved. In disputes between workers and managers as well as between rival fraternities, he offered to be a mediator.
Well before climate change became a staple of news discourse, he backed reforestation and water conservation. When the leaders of Cebu threatened to smash the province into smaller fiefdoms for them to rule, he placed himself squarely against balkanization.
The cardinal’s advocacies spoke of his desire for the flourishing of a good society. With his blessing, Cebuanos established the watchdog Cebu Citizens’ Involvement and Maturation for People Empowerment and Liberation to help maintain the integrity of elections.
Through him, stakeholders inaugurated the Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards to nurture excellence in communication and media, and cultural leaders opened the Cebu Archdiocesan Museum to preserve the church’s historical treasures.
His passing provokes grief across the country today, and more tears will be shed in the coming days as we pray for the good cardinal’s soul and lay him to rest. But for certain, now and after we mourn, as the faithful will hold, he lives in eternal dwellings and in the hearts of everyone he touched.
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