Cardinal of catechesis
Apr 02, 2006
Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales received his red hat as a prince of the Church last Friday. Most profiles of our cardinal published in the secular mass media immediately take note of his work as an environmentalist and an outspoken activist for alleviating the plight of the poor.
(Manila Times, March 26, 2006) Rarely do the media talk about his deep piety and the priority he assigns to catechesis. (Catechesis is ecclesiastical action, work that leads both the community as a solidarity and individual members of the Church to become mature in their faith.) This means that our cardinal, who is visibly a social-action activist, promotes activities that will not only save the planet, make our air cleaner, reduce poverty and restore the dignity of those who have been dehumanized by poverty, but is also moving toward making every Catholic in his flock grow—in personal experience as another Christ, in the knowledge of doctrine and the Scriptures and in becoming a contemplative and prayerful soul.
Vision and missions
He has worked to make his flock—priests and lay leaders and through them the parishioners in the archdiocese’s hundreds of parishes—know and understand what the vision of the archdiocese is. And this vision is that of “A People Called by God, a People Called by the Father.” That means a people who all together as a community have a vocation (a mission assigned by God) and also a people who are each, as individuals, a person with a mission. And it is God the Father Himself who is giving the assignment to each of us who must deal with the Father as his children.
The secular media-projected image of Cardinal Rosales is one who, unlike the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, would rather meditate and work quietly than speak loudly about political matters. The fact is that while Cardinal Sin did speak out quite often about political matters—and always from the moral standpoint—Cardinal Rosales too speaks aloud to make it clear what the good Catholic’s position should be on certain issues.
Let’s just take some quotes from his homily on the 20th anniversary of EDSA People Power 1.
Do not forget
He made it amply clear that he is not for forgetting all about EDSA 1. He wants it remembered—but in the right way.
He said in that homily: “God’s reminder to the chosen people after they were freed from slavery in Egypt was this: Remember that you were once a slave in Egypt, carefully observe these laws” (Deuteronomy 16:12). People have a way of forgetting great events of the past. And when people and their leaders forget their history of weakness and sinfulness, they tend to repeat the same mistakes.”
And: “It is now sadly discovered that the opposite of tyranny does not necessarily mean freedom. Subjugation to ‘new idols’ can take over. The process leading to freedom is lifelong struggle within the human person in his or her experience of faith and infidelity, between worship (only God is good) and idolatry (there are lesser gods like money), between pride (I am the greatest, I am the best) and humility (the rest are the least).
“No. There is no easy way to freedom. God knows that the people and their leaders must first be tried. In Moses’ own words, ‘Remember the long years by which Yahweh your God led you for forty years in the desert before even reaching the Promised Land, to humble you, to test you and to know your inmost heart whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, He made you feel hunger, He fed you with manna which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that the human being lives not by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh . . . Learn from this that Yahweh your God was training you as man trains his child; and keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and so follow his ways and fear him.’ (Deuteronomy 8:2-5)
“To remember is not the same as to repeat!”
Become a noble people
And also: “Everybody—not only those present at EDSA 1—crosses the boundary between tyranny and freedom. EDSA cannot be the proud possession of only the 1986 protagonists on that great avenue. EDSA cannot be the exclusive ownership of only the reformists, the politicians, the opportunists, the military, the freedom-lovers, the poor and the middle class or not even of the Church. EDSA expresses the Filipino people’s primordial spirit longing to be free, to become a noble people wanting to be inspired by their elders which the dictator and his cohorts sadly misunderstood.”
And: “EDSA day is perhaps the best time to remind all the Filipinos, including those in uniform, that the principal source of problem in democratic Philippines is precisely military—the imposition of martial law and many more attempts after that. Military posturing of any kind, for any reason, severely risks our position among the family of honorable nations, sets the country back in its business competitiveness, work availability, the unity of people and sacrifices even the value of its currency. At its worst it is seen as the military grabbing the supremacy from the civilian.
Not military power
“Brothers and sisters, EDSA is not military. EDSA is people power. EDSA’s People Power is really civilian power. It is the place where people prayed to God so humbly, and where God removed hatred, envy and selfish ambitions from the hearts of an oppressed people. Not a gunshot was fired at EDSA. Yes, there were tanks and there were rifles, yet not a gunshot was fired at EDSA. It was that moment of grace in a holy place. God passed through that road leaving behind more than a million footprints. And yet it was not the number of people that made history. It was God who disarmed people of hatred and gave them the beginning of love, the sure path to peace.”
As a cardinal Archbishop Rosales is now among the brains and souls the Holy Father will consult. He will surely give Pope Benedict XVI counsel and suggestions that will help the Pope govern the visible Church with the wisdom of an old man and the clear eyes of an innocent child.
Cardinal of catechesis