phillippines

Ritche T. Salgado 11-17-2022
A group of Filipinos stand together, wearing masks and carrying signs that hold variations on the phrase "Defend Press Freedom"

Filipinos respond following the October 2022 killing of journalist Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid). At least 22 January 2023 journalists were killed in the Philippines between 2016 and 2022. / Lisa Marie David / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ritche T. Salgado, OCarm, is director of the Carmelite Center for Social Pastoral Communications in Quezon City, Philippines. He spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio.

BEFORE I BECAME a priest, I was a journalist. I was writing for an alternative news outfit, Bulatlat. They asked me to write about a priest who was killed in Central Philippines. I was inspired by [his] story, and I wanted to be a priest. The [Carmelite order] I entered has very strong journalist and media advocacy. In fact, our patron saint in the Philippines, St. Titus Brandsma, is the martyr of press freedom and free speech. I never thought that I’d be in a congregation so involved in the pastoral care of media workers. As a priest, I continue as desk editor for Bulatlat.

Naoko Iyori 5-07-2015

(Bruce Stanfield / Shutterstock)

I WAS just 15, and as the eldest I had to do something to help my family. When the captain of our local army squadron introduced a recruiter to my parents, I was ready to go anywhere. He made it sound so nice! I would go to Japan and work in a famous hotel as a professional dancer. It would mean lots of money to send home to my poor family in the Philippines. Of course, I would have to go to Manila first to be trained, and I would have to change my name to fit my new life.

Rose Marie Berger 2-25-2014
Philippine Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, via CBCP Online

Philippine Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, via CBCP Online

"The origin of the church is poverty," said newly minted Philippine Cardinal Orlando Quevedo at a press briefing in Rome last week. "And the journey of Jesus Christ was the journey with poor people. Today, the church has riches, institutions. But I would like to think that the only way the church can redeem these resources as well as its institutions would be to place them at the service of justice and of the poor for the sake of the kingdom of God."
 
Cardinal Orlando Quevedo has been a lead architect in the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, a body representing more than 100 million Catholics that has courageously pushed forward the values of Vatican II amid traditionalist backlash. According to an article yesterday in the National Catholic Reporter, Quevedo spoke of an Asian vision of church built on basic ecclesial communities with a collaborative leadership style. (Read more on Quevedo and the Pope’s new cardinals here).
 
What might that look like? According to Tom Kyle who has researched Asian Catholicism and in particular the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, there are certain identifiable characteristics in Asian Catholicism that should mark everything the local church does.
Austin Carty 11-22-2011
Kiko goats in Yazoo City, Miss. Photo by Cathleen Falsani.

Kiko goats in Yazoo City, Miss. Photo by Cathleen Falsani.

Some 15 years ago, my aunt and uncle gave me the gift of goat for Christmas.

Let me rephrase: They didn’t give me an actual goat, but they donated a goat — in my honor — to a village in the developing world.

At age 15, I was less than pleased. The plight of starving children and the needs of my indigent brothers and sisters around the globe were far too serious and far too abstract for my selfish teenage brain to wrap itself around.

Today, though, I find myself in the ironic position of wanting to buy goats, mosquito nets, and other items as Christmas gifts in honor of my own family members. This causes me to look back on my selfishness as a teen and see how blind I was to the idea of grace — to the beauty and significance of my aunt and uncle’s gift.

Dave Schrock-Shenk 8-01-1986

Repentance and Forgiveness in the Philippines

Joyce Hollyday 5-01-1986

It was an unusually difficult week.