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MANILA, Philippines—The 9th plenary assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC) drew to a close yesterday with a call to the clergy to return to the traditional homily and the Eucharist to address the dwindling number of priests, inter-religious marriages, and the reported persecution of Christian minorities, among other problems in the region.
In his own homily at the close of the assembly, Arinze told Asian bishops to base their homilies on Holy Scripture, lamenting the use of the pulpit often in “political discussion” and “collection of money.” [Maybe the cardinal is regularly "updated" of the situation here in the Philippines.]
The bishops urged priests to promote “unity in diversity” and make the Eucharist, the sacrament of communion, a “transforming event.” [Uhh. Think this may become another dubious term that liberals would want to interpret according to their own terms. Remember the term "active participation"?]
“We cannot celebrate the Eucharist and at the same time maintain, practice or tolerate discrimination based on religion or race, culture or language, caste or class. If we are grafted into the Eucharistic Lord, we will reach out and become bridge-builders in a world that is becoming increasingly divisive,” the bishops’ message said.
At the same time, they called on the faithful to cherish the Word of God and the Eucharist as “life-giving solutions to uncertainties and sufferings hounding the world.”
“With both these gifts we shall discover, like the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the deeper meaning and the divine call to hope in the midst of all that we go through in life: sudden economic chaos, increasing global warming, natural disasters, persecutions, untold sufferings of people everywhere, especially of women and children, refugees and of those deprived of freedom in different countries of Asia,” the bishops said.
Stressing the call to return to the basics, Arinze said that if these directives were followed, the local Church would “be spared questionable or downright mistaken innovations and idiosyncrasies of some enthusiastic cleric whose fertile imagination invents something on Saturday night and whose uninformed zeal forces this innovation on the innocent congregation on Sunday morning.” [Now that clear things up. For a minute I thought we will be reading something the liberals would be trumpeting for their "creative liturgies". But the question remains the same, "How will the bishops police the priests down to the parish and even seminary level when it comes to ars celebrandi and ars credendi? The seminary, most especially theological schools, are breeding grounds of liturgical abuse!]
During the plenary session, several Asian bishops called attention to the decreasing number of priests in their respective countries. [What could be the cause? Hmm... I wonder. Why is it that
At a press conference held on Saturday, Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias attributed the dwindling number to the secularization of societies and the low number of children among Christian families.
Pakistani Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha, for his part, cited the economic crisis as the cause, saying, “It is difficult to make ends meet. It is difficult to have a vocation. It is a big sacrifice (for families) to give up their young son. There are more girls entering the convents than boys entering the seminaries.”
Cotabato City Archbishop Quevedo Orlando said the problem lay with “mortality,” saying, “There is a long time of study. Sometimes they (seminarians) fall in love.”
He added that many Asian priests were also lost to overseas recruitment. [Which is very true for the Philippines! Our number one export is people! We export teachers, nurses, engineers, priests, sisters...Name it, the country will export it! In fact it is the remittances of overseas Filipino workers that keeps the country running.]
“We have a good number of priests who go abroad because of calls of bishops in Europe and the United States asking for priests from us. A great number of religious sisters go to Africa, South America, Europe and the US. We export vocation,” he said.
He pointed out that the current ratio in the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, is one priest for every 10,000 Catholics.
On the declining homily skills of priests, the bishops said this could be due to lack of preparation.
“It is a big issue that priests do not prepare their homilies very well,” Quevedo said. [Not just that. But because most priests, Filipino priests, tend to make the Mass THEIR SHOW. Trying to make homilies "more entertaining". Spending thousands of pesos for "liturgical creativities" such as "liturgical dance" "liturgical one act play", yeah, it goes on and on. It's not because of the homily. It's because some want to glorify themselves in their homily. I knew some who'd spend half an hour telling the people what a great parish priest he is and the projects he has done for the parish. And the need for more fund drives to fund more projects. Indeed, you shall know them by their fruits. Some priests have an identity crisis. They act as if they are CEOs or town mayors. They find more time governing rather than being priests who are ordained to offer the Sacrifice. You shall know the priests who have a deep prayer life with the homilies they deliver. Truly, one can.]
This problem, he said, was also discussed in the synod of bishops in Rome in October last year. “In fact there was one comment that sometimes homilies were like the sword of constant time, long and flat. But this is (a problem) worldwide,” the Cotabato City prelate said.
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