It was fitting that the youth should pay tribute to the late Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal on Saturday, half a decade after the church recognized the sainthood of a son of the archdiocese, Pedro Calungsod.
The relationship between the cardinal and young people culminated in his drive to gift them with the canonized role honored with a shrine in the Archbishop’s Residence and should edify spheres beyond the ritual and ecclesiastical.
His engagements with the young remind everyone that the future belongs to children and that every effort must be made to work for their benefit and involve them in forging brighter tomorrows.
The cardinal’s successor, Archbishop Jose Palma is doing much-needed work in continuing and building on his predecessor’s initiatives together with the archdiocese’s Commission on Youth.
The yearly local celebration of World Youth Day in the Archbishop’s Residence or in a Cebu town parish continues to give young Catholics a sense of belonging to a large family that prizes the practice of faith, hope and love.
This pre-Holy Week gathering with Cebu’s archbishop, when he responds with nuggets of wisdom to the young’s pressing queries counterweighs the division between generations prompted by facile labels like millennial and post-millennial.
Vocation jamborees organized by the archdiocese and various religious orders instill in participants a sense of mission and provide them with tried and tested means of discerning whether they should one day serve as lay men and women, clerics, or brothers and sisters with vows.
Church-based programs and networks with government agencies like the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority enable otherwise less fortunate kids to be schooled or to learn skills that improve their chances of finding gainful employment.
Chaplaincies and ministries in Cebu schools offer spiritual nourishment to students who have their whole lives ahead of them.
For those who knew him well, it will not be hard to picture the cardinal wearing his trademark open-mouthed smile when the P60-million center being built in the parish of Saint Joseph in Mabolo, Cebu City, starts hosting street children for the faithful to feed and to teach.
It is equally easy to imagine him saddened — as news outlets consistently reported when he shared his feelings about tragedy, strife and injustice — over the malnutrition of children in Moalboal town.
We can see him mourning the perishing of grade 2 student Sefury Walteros in a hole that got filled with rainwater in Talisay City, and of Helen Gingco, 25, and Jennie Rose Tormon, 27, after they were swept into the sea in Lapu-Lapu City.
Let us return often to the scene of the cardinal giving a crowd of children their first Holy Communion during the 51st International Eucharist Congress in 2016.
May it inspire us all to labor for a reality in which the young are empowered to realize their hopes.