Gaudencio Rosales: A cardinal for a green Earth
Apr 27, 2006
In an age of chronic political disunity, at a time when we have come to expect it play its hand in politics, the Philippine Catholic Church has a most silent prince at its helm.
(abs-cbnnews.com, April 20, 2006) But make no mistake; Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has fighting words for his homily. He has taken up the cudgels for a cause most dire.
At 6:30 a.m. on April 22, the Church will for the first time lead the annual Earth Day celebrations at the Parokya ng Muling Pagkabuhay [Parish of the Resurrection] in Smokey Mountain, Tondo—the infamous garbage-dump emblematic of the country’s endemic poverty and environmental neglect. Rosales himself will lead a homily for the Mass "Mea Culpa [My Own Fault]: A Call for Repentance and Atonement. Pontifical Mass for the Integrity of Creation."
The occasion’s missalette reads:
Devoutly to be wished: a healed Earth
If only . . .
. . .our churches would preach it.
. . .our schools would teach it.
. . .our government would prioritize it.
. . .our industries would respect it.
. . .our media would champion it.
. . .our armed forces would defend it.
. . .our people would love and care for it.
. . .our families would practice it.
. . .I would take responsibility for it.
He is a quiet man. Not a fiery preacher, he talks like your favorite uncle, with a voice better suited for explaining the morals of stories than for hurling fire and brimstone. His low gentle tone, besides bludgeoning the ears, resonates on one’s chest. "Lolo Dency" is how relatives and friends call the man who still insists on maintaining a mouche below his lips that has grown sublime with the graying of his hair.
He is not the gifted political activist that his predecessor Jaime Cardinal Sin was; his concerns are those of the people: housing and shelter, personal salvation and value formation. On his visits to inner city communities, his transport is a humble pedicab, its frame painted with a cardinal’s signature color of red, its vinyl seats a matching color, its tarpaulin hood emblazoned with the heraldic seal of the archbishop of Manila at the back, and its front grill festooned with bouquets of inexpensive flowers. Without prompting, mothers hand him babies to bless.
But make no mistake: this man is a fighter. For a decade beginning 1982, Rosales served as Coadjutor Bishop of the Prelature Diocese of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, in the killing zone for environmentalists and in the crosshair of loggers. And he braved speaking up. His words both bore results and cost blood.
In his own words, he recalls, "In Malaybalay, I accompanied the local Church of Bukidnon in its gallant struggle to fight unbridled commercial and illegal logging. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) declared a total logging ban for the province of Buchanan, perhaps the only logging ban declared for a province as a result of the efforts of the local Church whose priests and deacons were declared Forest guards with proper training from the DENR (1990). One of my priests, Fr. Nery Satur, was murdered by armed men in cahoots with loggers on October 14, 1991."
Rosales wrote a book on Satur, And the Church He Died For, published in 1997. True to his character, Rosales focuses on his late friend and casts very little light on himself. But in no uncertain terms, he states a deep insight into the root of environmental problems as well as a succinct declaration of his own beliefs:
"Clearly the Bukidnon local Church was fighting neither ideologies, nor philosophies, nor structures. No, it was against neither personalities nor their politics. What the priests and the religious, together with the laypeople and leaders were after was the purification of values."
"At the bottom of all conflicts was a scale of selfish and often unjust values. If people were to be helped, they would have to be liberated from such a frame of mind and the selfish craving of the human heart."
These words advocating personal responsibility and renewal echo the Earth Day Mea Culpa Mass’ message, whose introduction reads:
"Let us acknowledge our failures and shortcomings in preserving nature. Let us realize that it takes a little effort to segregate our waste so that it becomes resources again, and yet we have thus far neglected. . . ."
Of the Church’s commitment to Earth Day, Rosales reassures, "We’ll be there." But the soft-spoken man unflinchingly lays responsibility on the administration’s doorstep. He says, "We’ve done our job. It’s the government’s job."
It is with some symmetry that the idea of the Church leading Earth Day celebrations was first broached to Rosales by longtime environmentalist and Earth Day network convener, Odette Alcantara, in Smokey Mountain, two weeks before he was elevated to the College of Cardinals on March 24. "Only the Church has its credibility intact to lead it," she said to him.
Alcantara opines, "It is a spiritual problem requiring a deeper understanding of the problem and a spiritual solution."
She notes, "It is easy to see why not many clergy preach the environment; it is not in the curriculum in the seminars. There is no consciousness yet of these values." But she adds that a handful of committed clergymen have begun seeking the help of her organization, Mother Earth Philippines, for seminars on value formation. Most noteworthy of these are the Sisters of Saint Paul and Recoletos.
Now with Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales at the helm, the Church may finally have a voice in putting a stop to the terrible destruction to the environment that causes millions of Filipinos to lose their livelihood, their health and their heritage. This Earth Day, the Word is to save the Earth.
Gaudencio Rosales: A cardinal for a green Earth