Lead credible, righteous lives, CBCP president urges youth

The leader of the influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) called on the Filipino youth yesterday to lead credible, righteous lives so they could carry the country to a better future.

CBCP president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, of Jaro, Iloilo, said establishing credibility would be "the challenge we give to our new generation of leaders who will rise to lead our country to the path of justice, honesty, truth and freedom."

Lagdameo explained that by living a credible life, the youth would be able to follow the path of God: "God is credible simply because He truthfully says what He does and faithfully does what He says. Jesus Christ is His witness to this: to prove His testimony, He did not back out from it in spite of difficulties, trials and the passion that He was made to undergo."

The prelate believes that the country has been under a "crisis of credibility since we find it difficult to believe in one another or to believe in our leaders."

"When a leader says one thing and acts differently from what he had said he would do, that is a failure of credibility. And we are created in the image and likeness of God, who says what He does and does what He says. To be credible then is to be an image of God," Lagdameo emphasized.

Lagdameo likened such failures of credibility to the instances "when Judas betrayed our Lord, when Peter denied Him, and when the disciples failed to follow Jesus along the way."

The CBCP head gave this message ahead of the Catholic Church’s celebration of the 21st World Youth Day on April 9, Palm Sunday.

In his recent homily delivered to graduates of Colegio del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus in Iloilo, Lagdameo reiterated the importance given by the Church to "the formation of young women and men who will become carriers of moral values in our complex, crisis-ridden globalized society and from whose group will rise up a new generation of leaders which our country today urgently needs."

Echoing a message of Pope Benedict XVI, Lagdameo said the youth are at risk as they "are often held captive by the current ways of thinking which are contrary or opposed to God’s way of thinking."

"They may think they are free but they are being led astray and become lost amid the errors and illusions of aberrant ideologies," Lagdameo stressed in describing today’s youth.

Lagdameo said the Church has vowed to continue its commitment to guide the youth and inspire them to become good leaders of the country.

"If we lose the young, we lose the hope on which our future hangs. This is the reason why, for the past quarter of a century, the Pope and the Church have been calling for the celebration of World Youth Day to continue rekindling the flame of hope that the world has for the youth," the prelate explained.

The Pope has already issued his message for the World Youth Day as he passed on to the youth the biblical mantra, "Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119 [118]: 105)," as the theme for the celebration this year.

The Pope likewise presented a program for young people of the Third Millennium that encourages young people to read the Bible, to study and meditate on the Word of Christ, and to learn to talk with God through prayer.

"The more we pray to Him, the more we realize He is a friend and a Father, and vice versa. Finally comes the living attention to the presence of God and Christ in our lives like ‘a lamp shining in a dark place.’ These are the stages to become doers of the Word and not merely hearers," the Pontiff said in his message.