How the PME Fathers face all coincidences

Following are realities in Mindanao and in the Philippines that have challenged the PME Fathers and will challenge the Diocesan Clergy:

1. The Various Minorities, the Tribal Filipinos: attemps are being made to Christianized them. However, with the influx of Christians from the Visayas and Luzon, the Tribal Filipinos must be able to participate in progress while at the same be able to maintain their self-respect and identity. The PME Fathers and the Diocesan Priests can help a lot in this process. Whatever they can do, specially in education, would be a great service of the Catholic Church to the Tribal Filipinos. Presently, the PME Fathers continue to do this service.
2. World 2: This was the first trial PME Fathers in the Philippines and in Asia. However, peace in Davao and Mindanao is blurred by sporadic conflicts among fundamentalist-separatist Muslims and progressive Christians and the government. The Catholic Church of Mindanao has opportunities to facilitate peace and workable multi-tribal relationships.
3. The influx of very regionalistic Christians. These are Filipinos from Bohol, Cebu, Negros, Iloilo, Tagalog, Pangasinan, Ilocos, Pampanga, etc. While these are one as Catholics or Christians, their regionalistic and tribal mentalities are divisive.However, there is hope among their children and grandchildren due to school acculturization and in inter-marriages in Davao and in the Philippines.
4. Folk and custom(cultural) Catholicism: the Catholic Clergy faces an enormous challenge for a genuine Christian spirituality among Filipino Catholics. There are elements of supersitions and cultural customs in the beliefs of many Filipinos as they participate in the celebrations of sacraments and worships. To me this a state of maturation in the historicity of the Filipino Catholicism at the moment. However, it shows the strong focus of the Filipinos for successes in their secular life while having equal strong experience of fatalism and hope for an eternal life. The challenges of the clergy in their preaching, teaching, and living witnessing is to strike a balance for the importance of a succesful secular life to an after-life concerns. Catholics, as they prepare for the next life must be active in the development of the secular world through the value of work and the morality of justice in the spirit of opennes and dialogue.
5. The proliferation of religious sects: While this demonstrates the deep religiosity of the Filipinos, the growth of other sectarian churches whose members come from among the Catholics should pause a question to the effectiveness of the individual leadership of the Catholic Clergy. While it is a truth of Faith that the Holy Spirit is unlimited in its ways to build the Church, each priest has to re-think its effectiveness as an instrument of the Holy Spirit. Ordinations give authority to priests to officiate the Sacraments, it is true also that the Seminaries have been created to train and educate them to be effective missionaries,preachers, and living witnesses of Divine love. It is suggested that priests continue to undergo lifelong learning in all the knowledges affecting human civilizations.

   The Seminary education has been questioned from time to time. In our times, it looked to be more scholastic and idealistic, and the priests appeared to have no touch of reality with the Christians. I sometimes doubt this thinking because the PME Fathers, who got the same training, are to me have been in touch with realities in Davao. They may claim to make mistakes, which to me were not mistakes, but weaknesses in decision making for lack of available information.

   But there was a time in the Seminary that Latin was almost eliminated together with Philosophy. To me , this was a reaction at the other extreme. The latest approach of the Seminary education is to strike a balance between the need of solid philosophical and scientific backgrounds and the need for strong pastoral expertise.

   I suggest that the Catholic Faithful be looked as customers or consumers (in the business lingo) who demand quality services from their clergy, and who would go to participate in quality services of the Church.

6. Rebels of the system: The Fathers have faced the quesions of how to help the poor and prevent continuous exploitations of peoples due big businesses and foreign Imperialisms of all sorts. The Clergy has come to terms to some radical ideas in Church in the Theology of Liberations, making the present secular life on earth meaningful for salvation. The Fathers have to facilitate understanding of these conflicts among the youth, and help them discern the value of the rebel's cause and the dramatics of adventurism. The Fathers have to discern the value of current high technologies as possible solutions to poverty and rebellions against corrupt institutions.
7. Corruptions in government institutions: The Clergy must go beyond preachings and pulpit talks to helping the government leaderships in designing and changing corruptible systems. Most of the government leaders are Christians, who seem to have another set of morality (double-standard) to survive in the secular world. "Change of Hearts' must be re-enforced with solid determinations to change systems that culture all kinds of corruptions.
8. The growth of ex-seminarians and ex-priests: The Catholic Clergy must have new and more positive looks at these other graduates of seminary life. To some extent, whether by intention or neglect this reality with the ex-seminarians and ex-priests is untapped by the Church. In fact, the Seminaries produce more of them than priests. There seem to opportunities with the ex-seminarians and the ex-priests for the Catholic Church in Davao and all over the world. Hopefully, the Ex-seminarians of Davao can initiate this kind of understanding with the Catholic Clergy of Davao.
9. Our world of amazing technologies: as in the past, the Church must continue to lead in Research and Development in its schools and universities. The Catholic Clergy must keep tune and understanding of these technologies (computers, internets, biotechnologies, etc.) to be able to communicate to the faithful of today.
10. Our world of new ideas: unlike in the past, The Catholic Clergy of today must be open to new ideas, new visions, and must be understanding to these visionaries. Our world and our God remain mysteries to be fully comprehended at one time. It seems the eternal meaning of the Gospel must be incarnated and re-incarnated in any new world of human history and civilization.
    
    
    

    The forces of former seminarians started, too, with the establishement of Saint Francis Seminary.They did not become priests.However, the seminary education has molded them unique personality , experienced only by very few men. This education in the fifties, in the sixties, and the seventies,is the best bargain they got by participating in the pioneering days of the seminary. They are never going to forget the learning experiences. The ex-seminarians and the ex-priests may be able to bridge the gap for a genuine christian understanding and witnessing of the temporal-secular world and the world of eternal life.

    
    The Agustinian Recollects and the Jesuits opened up Mindanao to the map of the Christian world. Nevertheless, the PME fathers were the developmental pioneers of the Catholic Church in Davao. After 50 years, this Church is new compared to the communities in the Visayas and Luzon.A new breed of Christian is developed in Davao, unique in the Philippines with the advent of technologies in Agriculture, Sciences, Computer technologies and big businesses in Mindanao.

    The Catholic Church has grown. The population has increased tenfold. So, also the proliferation of religious sects. A town in Davao could have as many thirty to forty diffferent religious sects. We will not see this many in the Luzon and in the Visayas regions. The bigger ones are the Iglesia ni Cristo, Aglipay Chruch, the American protestantism in the Baptist and Episcopalian churches, and newer Mormon Church. The Filipino cultures both Christian and Tribal demonstrate a very strong sense of religiosity among the Filipino People.

    (This is the sole opinion of JP Mercado:Updated by JP Mercado 4/30/2000)
    

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