Pope ordains Bacoleno to priesthood

As the election campaign enters the homestretch, I should be paying more attention to what is happening all over the region rather than cast my eyes elsewhere.

However, I was riveted to the SkyCable Channel EWTN (the Vatican channel) yesterday which televised live the ordination of 22 young men to priesthood at the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI personally presided the ordination rites with several prelates in attendance. Among those ordained were two Filipinos – one was from Cebu and the other from Bacolod. The Bacoleno is John Michael de la Cruz, son of Moises and Marlene de la Cruz.

Most of those ordained yesterday graduated from the Redemptorist Mater seminary and the Gregorian University of Rome. They belong to the so-called Neo-Catechumenal communities and represent the new cadre of priests.

Mike de la Cruz, a member of the 2nd Neo-Community of Bata Parish in Bacolod, belongs to the cadre of servant-shepherds dedicated to walk and serve Christian communities.

The Philippines has a Redemptoris Mater seminary in the Manila Archdiocese. It houses several seminarians from as far as Spain and Latin American countries.

Little has been said about this seminary but these seminaries have served as a counter-revolution to the drop in priestly vocations. The Redemptoris Mater seminaries have already churned out more than a thousand priests in the past 10 years. And there are several more being put up. Among the latest were those in Ukraine and Siberians in the Soviet Union.

The students are usually products of Neo-catechumenal communities. This is a movement which re-introduces baptized Christians to the faith, i.e. a gradual maturing process through small communities not exceeding 50 per community.

In the primitive Church, catechumens, as the prospective converts were called, had to undergo two to four years of "walking" or testing to determine whether they had understood the faith and lived it.

Only after their catechists certify their level of understanding of the faith were they baptized by the Bishop.

This practice fell apart with the conversion by Emperor Constantine to Christianity and everyone wanted to join the Church. This phenomenon of a stampede of conversion eventually led to the introduction of baptism of children, wiping out the catechumenal movement.

More than 30 years ago, the Pope has encouraged the Neo-Catechumenal movement which tries to gradually re-shape baptized Catholics into "mature Christians."

In Panay, Iloilo leads the dioceses where the movement has made inroads. I had mentioned earlier Archbishop Angel Lagdameo having attended the rite of the "reditio" in Molo. This represents a public acknowledgement by a faithful on how God had intervened in his life and changed its course – all because God loves him and wants him to enjoy the fruit of Redemption and also to become an effective evangelizer.

De la Cruz is not the first product of the Neo-catechumenate communities of Bacolod. There was Fr. M. Sedonia from Iloilo. He had completed his studies in Brazil’s Redemptorist Mater seminary a few years back and was assigned to a struggling parish in Brazilia where he is happily engaged in "service to the people."

I don’t know where Fr. De la Cruz will be assigned. Usually, they are under the Diocese where the seminary is. For example, a graduate of the Manila Remptoris Mater seminary will fall under the jurisdiction of the diocesan ordinary.

One of the advantages these new priests enjoy is that they had undergone evangelization missions in other countries sans money nor the comforts of life.

We are not sure where Mike will be assigned. Most likely it will be in the Rome Diocese whose bishop is Pope Benedict XVI himself.

Our neo-community can only hope that the Pope will later dispatch him to the Philippines to help organize itinerant catechists who can help evangelize other parts of the country.

Competition for Negros votes

Senatorial bets of Team Unity and the Genuine Opposition acknowledged over the weekend that Negros Occidental’s votes are among the richest in the country. Actually, second only to Cebu in the Visayas.

Last weekend, Richard Gomez and GO senatorial bet Francis Escudero, Sonia Roco and Loren Legarda met with sugar leaders and later joined the Pasalamat Festival in La Carlota City.

From Team Unity Mike Defensor and Cesar Montano also came with Mrs. Gloria Angara, the beautiful wife of Sen. Ed Angara. "Tol" was accompanied by his wife Julie who went around shaking hands like a veteran.

So fast-paced were the activities of the senatorial bets plus those of the local candidates that there was hardly time to cover all of them.

The highlight of Defensor’s local sortie here was the induction of the officers of the Negros Press Club, the country’s oldest press organization. He was also the guest speaker.

Later, Cesar Montano, accompanied by Rep. Monico Puentevella, a former NPC president, also came into the Skyroom of the Bascon Hotel and went around shaking the hands of the members of the local media.

Later, after Defensor had left, former NPC president and Bacolod City Mayor Bing Leonardia also arrived and took a late dinner.

Earlier, I attended a dialog of Defensor with sugar leaders at the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations (Confed), Negros-Panay Chapter.

Escudero also met earlier with sugar leaders led by Manuel Lamata of the Unifed.

Defensor, like Escudero and other senatorial bets, had pointed out that they were against the extension of CARP without first undertaking a comprehensive review of what the Agrarian Reform Program had achieved in terms of uplifting the lives of the average tiller of the soil.

But during his dialog, Defensor pointed out that he is not just advocating a thorough evaluation of the program but also calling for a moratorium during the examination of CARP’s implementation by DAR.

Defensor stressed that the Left, as he classified both the revisionists and the rejectionists, had managed to establish their propaganda machinery and presented successfully to the people the image of landowners as greedy and loathe to part with their landholdings and the poor as marginalized population who must be rescued from poverty.

But we just cannot plunk in good money to prop up a program that had only succeeded in impoverishing more of our agrarian reform beneficiaries than it had originally been intended, Defensor said.

Later in the evening, he and his entourage attended a meeting with Bacolod barangay officials at the Bacolod Pavilion of BREDCO president Sammy Palanca.

Later, Defensor, Montano, Mrs. Angara and his party motored to La Carlota to attend the Pasalamat festival where they must have met Loren Legarda, Sonia Roco and Escudero of the GO as well as Richard Gomez.

ADDENDUM. The hotbed of political tensions – Pulupandan town – landed again in the front pages of local dailies when the police on Saturday brought in for questioning 26 supporters of Pulupandan mayoralty candidate Magdalen Peña. They were picked up from the house where gunshots were heard in Barangay 6. Meanwhile, SPO1 Wennie Espinosa was ordered jailed by Senior Superintendent Rosendo Franco on charges of illegal possession of firearms. He was found in possession of a firearm not issued to him at the house of Dr. Hedy Gonzales, a Pulupandan councilor, and supporter of Peña. Meanwhile, the family of "Magsi" as Magdalen is called, descended on Pulupandan Saturday together with his live-in partner, Plinky Recto. Their purpose was to campaign for Peña’s rival, Mayor Samson Mondia. Peña’s mother Lina, brother Bonifacio and Plinky Recto arrived in Pulupandan and urged local residents to support Mondia. Gretchen Cojuangco, wife of business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco, arrived later. She said she had been invited by her first cousin Lina Peña. Lina said even she had turned against her own son." I know what kind of person he is," was her statement. But "Magsi " remained unfazed that his entire family was against him." I never thought I would merit so much attention. I am flattered," he said.

Well, that’s politics for you.