Simultaneous newsbreaks triggered the headline overload.
The anti-graft court suspended Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada for 90 days at the pork barrel scam trial. Detained senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Bong Revilla hold their breaths for similar suspensions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denies his fingerprints were on the SA-11 missile that killed 298 civilians (three Filipinos) aboard Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine. It was en route to Kuala Lumpur. Bodies, plane shards and children’s books splattered on towns of Sniszhne and Torez.
In Gaza, 47,000 Palestinians crammed into 43 United Nations shelters as Israeli troops blew up multiple tunnels that Hamas burrowed over the years.
Less dramatic but significant items are sidelined. Take the July Catholic Bishops’ Conference pastoral letter: “A Nation of Mercy and Compassion.” It confirms the early January 2015 visit by Pope Francis. Skip the ceremonies. The pontiff will instead meet with typhoon and earthquake victims in the Visayas.
Francis comes after a January 13 to 15 stopover in Sri Lanka. He is expected to re-stress that Catholics continue working for reconciliation between the government and the Tamil minority snarled in conflict. That reinforces his plea during an earlier ad limina call by the bishops of Sri Lanka led by Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.
His visit here is to a local church whose work is woven into the history of the people: schools, care for prisoners, leprosaria, sanctuaries to abused women, orphanages to, in the words of a soused Marcos ally, “those f****g nuns who guarded ballot boxes.”
Its emerging leaders are breaking away from brimstone excommunication threats, by a few, over single-barrel issues like reproductive health. Cardinals Luis Antonio Tagle and Orlando Quevedo are the face of this new generation. They focus on securing justice for slum dwellers to cooperation with Muslims and marginalized minorities. They also live austerely.
“Are we a church that really calls and welcomes sinners with open arms,” Francis asked earlier. “Or we are a church closed in on herself? Are we a church which is a house for everyone… the strongest, the weakest, sinners, the indifferent… Are we a church where one cares for another, where the face of God dwells?”
Becoming a people rich in mercy is the distinctive way to prepare for Francis’ visit, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Socrates Villegas wrote. “Let us make mercy our national identity.” He lists practical suggestions from sharing food with the hungry to simply refraining from harsh words.
Two short years ago, the church then was rocked by the first resignation of a pope in nearly five hundred years. Benedict XVI quit, citing failing health. The conclave instead elected a little known cardinal who’d already booked his return flight to Argentina.
“Buona serra” Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio told the crowd in St Peter’s Square—and stunned them by asking for their blessing first. He took the name of Francis, the mendicant friar from North Umbrian town of Assisi. The simple lifestyle of Francis and his followers is credited with recasting a 13th century church splintered by corruption.
From day one, Francis set the example. He waved aside the ermine cloak for a papal elect. “Wear it yourself if you wish, Monsignor,” he told the attendant. “But this carnival is over.” He shunned the Vatican apartment and lodges in a spartan Vatican hostel. He grounded papal limousines, tooling about in a modest car. He stood in line for coffee.
Pope Francis’ reforms vetted and closed out 3,000 suspect and unwanted accounts in the Vatican Bank, a New York Times editorial noted. And more important, he’s instituting reforms that rocked its governing bureaucracy, the Curia, mired in turf wars.
Reforms are tough but progressing, say two key cardinals: Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga and Oswald Gracias of India. They are among eight prelates Francis picked to spearhead his recasting of the church. None are Italians.
By December, this council should have submitted for Francis approval a new constitution for the Curia. It would replace “Pastor Bonus” the 1988 apostolic charter that now Pope Saint John Paul II promulgated.
The reforms proposed range from capping service in the Vatican to five years and bringing more lay people into the Curia. It would scrap automatic cardinal red hats for Vatican officials. More diocesan bishops with expertise will serve councils. Francis fired a German archbishop for creaming funds and took on the Italian mafia. These are jolting the Vatican.
Francis, meanwhile, named the 58-year old Rainer Maria Woelki as archbishop of Cologne, Reuters reports. Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper called him “the prototype of a new generation of bishops… not grumpy and dogmatic… These men speak of mercy and mean it. They’re open to people, even their critics to a point and have a heart for the disadvantaged. Still, they’re theologically conservative.”
Worldwide, Catholic population crested at 1.21 billiion end of 2011, says the latest “Statistical Yearbook of the Church.” Increases were in Africa (4.3 percent) and Asia (2 percent). Europe and the Americas kept abreast of population growth. The number of priests, religious and seminarians increased. In contrast, there has been a 10-percent decrease in the numbers of women religious since 2001.
Come October, a synod of bishops called by Francis will tackle issues not even visible in the horizon at the 1980 conference: surrogate parenthood to childless marriages. That will affect the Philippines, where the “Francis effect” is increasingly felt.