Cardinal’s death leaves vacuum in Church, says bishop
Jun 29, 2005
The death of Jaime Cardinal Sin has left a vacuum in the Catholic Church and the man who will take his place has yet to be born, according to Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz.
(Inquirer News Service, June 24, 2005) Speaking with members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap) at the Manila Hotel, the outspoken prelate said he had once told Sin his observation. "To me, that is true up to now," he said yesterday.
Cruz, who is waging a crusade against "jueteng," had been compared to Sin even when the latter was still alive.
He may not have Sin's charisma and overwhelming presence, but like the cardinal, he can be brutally frank and has no qualms about clashing with the rich and powerful, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Earlier, he said jueteng had become a P13-billion-a-year industry under the Arroyo administration.
Like Sin, Cruz respects the separation of Church and State, but does not hold back whenever the situation calls for the guidance, if not the concrete participation, of the Church.
"A Church that keeps quiet when things are wrong, when social issues are serious, when human rights are under siege, when people are starving, when the poor are being taxed more in order to serve them, when freedom of speech is being curtailed, and when the truth is being covered-I don't want that Church. You can have it," he told Focap.
But Cruz told the Inquirer that he could never measure up to Sin, with whom he worked in different capacities in the past.
"I can never be like him," he said. "The man was big. He was bigger than life."
Bataan Bishop Socrates Villegas said the cardinal was both "ecclesiastic and patriotic," and unique in Philippine history.
"I don't think we will have [another] man of his stature, courage and heroism right away," Villegas told reporters at the Manila Cathedral on Wednesday night. "In our lifetime, we were lucky to have met Cardinal Sin."
But Villegas said that "for all of [Sin's] political activism, he was always hesitant in his involvement in politics. It was not a joy for him."
The reluctance brought Sin much closer to prayer, and "that is why his positions on corruption and politics ended up always blessed by the Lord," Villegas said.
"The cardinal's involvement in politics went beyond political tactics and science. It was grounded in prayer and discernment," he said, adding that his mentor "perfectly combined prayer and activism."
Cardinal’s death leaves vacuum in Church, says bishop