The life and times of Jaime Cardinal Sin
Jun 25, 2005
The times were dynamic and from accounts, the life of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin was no less so. His birth and that of his living siblings preceded by parental grief, and growing to adulthood and the priestly life during World War II, he was tested by fire and emerged sharp, stern and outspoken, but also full of humor -- and grace.
(Inquirer News Service, June 23, 2005) In the article "Grace in the House of Sin" (Celebrity magazine, Oct. 15, 1979), Abe Florendo wrote of disorder and early sorrow in the family living in the improbably named town of New Washington in Aklan province:
"The mother's milk was poisonous -- but the doctors didn't know it. Child after child died soon after birth. But the sorrowful and perplexed couple were unfazed; they kept on blessing themselves with babies.
"The irony of the mother's life-giving breasts was discovered finally after the sixth child was born. With renewed enthusiasm they produced the seventh child, and the eighth, and so forth until the 16th child.
"The seventh of the living children went on to become, in the profound ways God guides the destinies of men, a servant of His people and a prince of His Church, Jaime Cardinal L. Sin.
"Dr. Ramon Sin, the cardinal's younger brother, chuckled when told how Cardinal Sin described the mother's milk as "poisonous."
"That's what our yaya (nanny) told us," he said....
"There was a set of twins, named Pastora and Disposoria, who also died as babies.
"As you can see," says Cardinal Sin, taking up the tragedy of the mother's milk, "we were all brought up [on] Carnation milk ... That is a promotion!"
"He follows this sally with a laugh, childishly clamping one hand on his mouth, a characteristic way of his."
Ugly but loved
Florendo wrote of a misty-eyed Sin recalling how he was "really loved" by his mother among her nine living children.
"Then twinkling: 'Because I was the ugliest among them. I was asthmatic then, too. Is it not true there is one very ugly, very sickly child and he gets all the attention of the mother? That was me.'"
The young Jaime was gradually drawn to the priesthood. He served as altar boy to the cura parroco (parish priest), and, before he was 12, was taken to the minor seminary in Jaro town, Iloilo province.
Florendo wrote: "When war came all the seminarians were sent home because of the bombing all around. Going up the steps of their house, he was met by his mother, who gasped: 'What are you doing here?'...
"Go to Manila," she ordered, where the seminaries are open. When a priest prevailed, cautioning it wasn't safe in Manila either, the unrelenting matriarch decided Jim should stay in a convent in Kalibo, 10 km from New Washington.
Editor
"So for three years and nine months he stayed with Fr. Salvador Esmero (now a monsignor in Pototan, Iloilo). 'Mother wanted me to learn Latin from him so that when the war was over [he] could recommend me to a higher level,' [Sin says]. 'But the war kept us jumping from one barrio to another so I wasn't able to study. And so I became his cook, at the same time sacristan -- and editor of a weekly magazine.'
"It was a mimeographed affair called The Sunday Visitor (he was to also edit the seminary magazine).
"He pulled together all the young men in the locality, and 'we wrote stories about weddings,' he roars with laughter, 'because we could not get news about Japanese landings. But our editorials were scriptural messages -- beautiful, isn't it?'"
But the young man had asthma, and was always laid low by it.
Quoting Sin, Florendo wrote: "I wrote a letter to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and I said, 'If I am sick and become a priest I will be a burden to society, to the diocese. If I am not cured I would prefer to leave the seminary. I give you a deadline.'
"The Virgin beat him to the deadline. 'I got cured, I don't know how. I forgot all about my sickness. The asthma has not returned [since then].'"
Politics
As a cardinal facing the "many issues that confront him and the Church, [Sin] is at once decisive and controlled, pertinacious and prudent. It would be all wrong to mark him as a moderate right or a liberal left: His politics is no more or no less than that of a man of God."
"The Holy Father said we should not interfere in [politics]," Sin told Florendo. "I would put it this way: There is a morality in politics as there is a morality in boxing...
"For example, if I denounce those who committed anomalies during the election, am I engaged in politics or am I not doing my duty as priest by correcting my people? I'm a priest and I'm supposed to perform my ministerial duties. But then I should not be confined to the sacristy..."
Baptism
Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines and now chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front, said he never met Sin personally but knew the cardinal as "a good priest and moral leader through close friends and relatives."
In a "personal homage" to Sin sent to the Inquirer, the Netherlands-based Sison wrote:
"He was close to my uncle, the late Archbishop of Nueva Segovia Juan Sison. They were often together on trips to Rome. After my arrest in 1977, Archbishop Sison sent my mother to Cardinal Sin to request him to intercede with [Ferdinand] Marcos to stop the tortures being applied on me.
"When my mother asked him to officiate at the silver wedding anniversary of my brother Dr. Ramon C. Sison and his wife Rosario in 1984, Cardinal Sin [said] he would like to baptize my son Jasm, who was born in the Army prison hospital in Fort Bonifacio in 1981.
Pride
"The Free Jose Ma. Sison Committee decided to make the baptism a meaningful event of the united front. Friends of mine like [the late] Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada, my lawyers Juan T. David and [now Sen.] Joker Arroyo and other prominent opponents of the fascist regime stood as godfathers of my son."
Former President Corazon Aquino once told the Inquirer that being considered Sin's best friend made her late husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., feel like "the proudest Filipino."
When Ninoy was severely weakened by his hunger strike in April 1975 to protest the Marcos regime's continued detention of political prisoners, the Aquino family requested Sin to tell Ninoy to end his strike.
Sin visited Ninoy in his prison cell but the latter refused to end the hunger strike. But he allowed Sin to administer the sacrament of the sick to him.
Prayer
On June 22, 2003, the already sickly cardinal called on the faithful nationwide to support and pray for priests, particularly those in distress.
It was during this period that the Philippine Catholic Church was in the news because ranking members of the clergy were being implicated in sex scandals.
In a statement, Sin said: "I enjoin the priests, religious and lay faithful of the Archdiocese of Manila to observe June 22-29 as a week of prayer for the sanctification of priests...
"To my beloved priests, let this period [of crisis] be a moment of purification and conversion. Let this be an opportunity to examine ourselves if we are truly configured to the image of the Good Shepherd...
"If we are united in prayers, we will be able to unite our sufferings with the Lord. And if we unite our suffering with Jesus, we will experience God's saving strength and consolation. Like the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we may be wounded and trampled, but we will emerge effective living agents of God's compassionate love."
Humility
Fr. Joey Faller, spiritual director of the Grotto of Healing and Purification of the Kamay ni Hesus Healing Miracle in Lucban town, Quezon province, has a vivid memory of his brief meeting with Sin:
"Four months ago, I was in Villa San Miguel, the official residence of the cardinal, attending a spiritual recollection. Someone brought me to his room, apparently upon his invitation. The cardinal asked me to pray for him.
"That short meeting was a very humbling experience for me. I couldn't help myself -- I cried after I prayed over him. Cardinal Sin is the epitome of humility." With reports from Delfin Mallari Jr. and Romulo Ponte, Southern Luzon Bureau.
The life and times of Jaime Cardinal Sin