blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The Pope last October 20 announced a scheme to bring in disaffected Anglicans (Episcopalians in the USA and the Philippines) into the Catholic Church while allowing them to maintain their ecclesial traditions. The Pope's moves comes as an Apostolic Constitution called Anglicanorum Coetibus or in my rough Latin to English translation means "on groups of Anglicans". Apostolic Constitutions are Papal Bulls since they have an importance that concern the universal Church. I have a keen interest in Anglicanorum Coetibus since we have Anglicans in the family and I was raised as one attending services at Cathedral Heights as a child. The Anglican Communion has been dealing with issues on female priests and bishops, episcopal authority, the ordination of non-celibate gays and now the blessing of gay unions. It seems that the last two issues are the two last straws the broke the camel's back. Conservatives in the USA have split from the Episcopal Church (TEC) and formed the...

Mike Tan wrote something about a little known church in the Philippines. The Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) is the Anglican Church in the Philippines. The Episcopalians ("Piskies" is a term of endearment) run one of the best hospitals in the country (St Luke's), the best weaving school (Easter's in Baguio), a college now a university with a good track record (Trinity),and the oldest international school (Brent). For a church with just about 200K members, the ECP has influenced education and ecumenism far beyond its size. Its reason for existence in the Philippines is the key. The first bishop in the Philippines, Charles Henry Brent declared that the church won't build an "altar over another altar".This was during an unecumenical time. When the Americans came, Protestant missionaries divided the country for their mission to preach "the true Christian religion" to a country that is majority Catholic Christian. Brent gave the Philippine...

GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) just ended with conservative bishops declaring their stand against the liberalism of the First World (read as US Episcopal Church) church in this statement . For those not very familiar with the Anglican troubles, the Anglican ethos of doctrinal comprehensiveness was sorely tested when the US church ordained its first openly homosexual bishop. This was followed by the Canadian church blessing same sex partnerships in church. The church is still very divided on women priests. Some dioceses and provinces have refused to ordain women. The Anglican churches in Africa,South America, Asia and Sydney had enough. So GAFCON was convened in Jerusalem. The Guardian reports the formation of the Fellowship of Conservative Anglicans (FOCA) as a result of GAFCON. This is a de facto schism. Evangelical Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney says the move would "order a situation of turmoil" and help to deal with "the chaos caused in the Anglican c...

The media buzz was probably so irritating to the Vatican that L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican blurb had to make a press statement that the Pope doesn't wear Prada. That started when almost right after his election, the Pontiff was spotted by the fashion savvy wearing red loafers presumbably made by the Italian fashion house. Here's what the Telegraph says about it all. The Pontiff brought back red accessories, the medieval camauro, red copes, red vestments and of course the red Saturno cap. Papal watchers said that these fashion accessories were not worn since John XXIII was on the papal throne. In a visit to an orphanage at Christmastide John XXIII was mistaken for Santa by the poor kids. The Good Pope chuckled and never corrected the error! But for Benedict, only the extremely myopic can mistake the Professorial Pope for Father Christmas. Succeeding Pontiffs Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II were not fashion icons. John Paul II needed only his face to be T...

Today is the movable feast of Philippine Independence. Back in the good old days, Queen Gloria decided in several executive orders to move national secular holidays to the nearest Monday. The idea was that with a longer weekend, people would have time and money to spend, thus adding gas [pun intended!] to the consumer driven economy. Her Majesty was able to convince Congress and this became law. But people still consider June 12 as the real Independence day. But that was when people had money to spend. Today we see " Pilipinas kong mahal" posters all over Manila , even in front of the NFA offices and warehouses where the poor line up for hours for cheap rice. So it is no wonder that today is Paghihirap holiday for a lot of people. The government has said that it can't do anything to stop the fuel price increases. People have very little to look forward to this Christmas. Gas can end up at 75 pesos or more per liter. BTW, The Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts-Schori , Presi...