Category Archives: Social Issues

Featured Short Film, Website and Pages

This week’s roundup includes the announcement of an app which will allow priests to celebrate Mass with an iPad instead of the printed Roman Missal. Another story of note is the endeavor to translate the Bible into 6,909 languages by 2025. The newly-elected president of the Philippines has named a religious brother as his administration’s DepEd (Department of Education) secretary. There is also the story about the unveiling of the world’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict in Peru.

The featured website this week is Catholic Underground and the featured short film is the award-winning “The Danish Poet”.

App for priests to celebrate Mass
AN Italian priest has developed an application that will let priests celebrate Mass with an iPad on the altar instead of the regular Roman missal. The Rev Paolo Padrini, a consultant with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said the free application will be launched in July in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.Read more…
Bible translators hope to have every language covered in 15 years
A Christian endeavor of almost 2,000 years could be substantially completed by 2025. Protestant translators expect to have the Bible — or at least some of it — written in every one of the world’s 6,909 spoken languages.Read more…
Religious brother appointed to state cabinet
The incoming Aquino administration has appointed a religious brother to head a crucial government post. De La Salle University president and Chancellor Brother Armin Luistro will be serving as the government’s secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd). In a statement, De La Salle said Luistro accepted the task with the permission of the university’s stakeholders. Read more…
World’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict to be unveiled in Peru
The world’s tallest Cross of St. Benedict will be unveiled on July 11 in the Lima suburb of Pachacamac by the monks from the Monastery of the Incarnation. According to the monks, the cross towers to a height of 42 feet and can be seen for miles. Read more…
People Must Know the Church Loves Them
When people doubt whether the church really loves them, they do not listen to her teachings. This was part of a message delivered by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the senior Vatican official for the global Pontifical Council for Social Communications. In two separate talks given June 4 at the Catholic Media Convention in New Orleans, he urged Catholic reporters, editors and other communicators to help create a space where the world can encounter the truths of the church without feeling condemned or denounced. Read more…

Featured Website: The Catholic Underground

URL: http://www.catholicunderground.com/

The Catholic Underground, Inc. is so named after some Germans dubbed a short lived comic drawn by Father Chris Decker part of the “catholic underground.” From that point forward (around 2001), the name stuck although catholicunderground.com went through a number of revisions and never actually appeared live on the web. Ideas originally included a network for priests to communicate, a repository of Catholic knowledge, an e-zine, and most recently, a simple blogging community.

Featured Short Film: The Danish Poet

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTef0HWbW_M

Can we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter?

The narrator of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper’s quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all.

The Church in Action: Sustainable Relief Efforts for Typhoon Victims

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This is the Church in action! Unlike other efforts reported in popular media, the Catholic Church in the Philippines is distributing sustainable relief packages to those hit hardest by tropical storm Ondoy. The CBCP news portal reports that the package includes “kitchenwares, family size mat, blanket and mosquito net, canned goods, two big towels, underwear, slippers, toiletries, plates, cups and saucers, and utensils, laundry detergents, and most importantly—one sack of rice.”The goal of this initiative is to help recipients sustain themselves for at least a month. Those living in profoundly stricken areas, such as those in the Dioceses of Malolos, Pasig, Antipolo, Laguna and Pampanga will receive the free packages.

The more than 30 million pesos needed to buy the items for the packages came from local and international donors and will be distributed by volunteers in their respective locales.

Needless to say, this is not the only relief effort initiated by the Catholic Church. Individual dioceses, parishes and even chapels are doing their part. Understandably these efforts are virtually nowhere to be seen on TV or broadsheets (not that the Church wants to be in the limelight) and I think it is because popular media tend to put the Catholic Church in their headlines only when clerics are involved in scandals (but that’s a subject for another blog post). And I think another reason is the Church’s tendency to “let not the right hand know what the left is doing”. Meaningful charity does not draw attention to the giver.

When I said “Church”, I did not just mean the bishops, priests and nuns. I also meant the lay faithful. In fact it is the lay faithful I was thinking when I said “this is the Church in action”. When a faithful donates to sustainable relief efforts, that is the Church in action. When a faithful reaches out to save another from drowning, that is the Church in action. When a faithful shares the little food that he/she has with a neighbor, that is the Church in action. When a faithful helps a family rebuild their house after the storm, that is the Church in action. When a faithful helps his/her community in cleaning up heaps of trash, that is the Church in action. When a faithful distributes relief goods to those affected by the typhoon, that is the Church in action.

So I say to the faithful who are helping Ondoy victims: you are the Church in action. You are being Christ to others. You are being faithful to the Father’s will. May the Holy Spirit give you more strength and guard you from any harm.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catholicrelief/3972332346/in/photostream/

Interfaith Manifesto for Peace

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This morning I attended the launching of “Sowing for Peace in Mindanao”, an inititiative calling everyone “to pray fervently and demonstrate Muslim-Christian and interfaith solidarity for peace in Mindanao and to call for the immediate cessation of hostilities which bring suffering to civilian communities”. Scores of people attended the event at the Bantayog Ng Mga Bayani Monument in Quezon City.

The cermony began with an interfaith prayer participated by representatives from different faith traditions (Islam, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and others.) It was heartwarming to see people of diverse culture and creeds coming together as one community and committing themselves to the healing of our country, the earth and humanity.

After the prayer, the participants read the Interfaith Manifesto for Peace. The following is the full text of the Manifesto.

________________________

Because we believe that PEACE IS POSSIBLE.
Because we acknowledge, at our present time, the opportunity to transform the culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and non-violence.
Because this transformation demands the participation of each and everyone of us from every sector, every religion, culture and ideology.
Because we feel the urgency to put an end to the decades-old conflict in Mindanano which has caused the loss of lives, homes and livelihood to Muslim, Christian and Lumad communities.

WE PLEDGE IN OUR DAILY LIVES, IN OUR FAMILIES, OUR WORK, OUR COMMUNITIES, OUR COUNTRY AND REGION TO:

1. “Respect all life.” Respect the life, dignity and sacredness of every human being without discrimination or prejudice to any gender, tribe, religion, culture or belief.

2. “Reject violence.” Practice active non-violence, rejecting violence in all its forms: physical, sexual, psychological, economic, social and political.

3. “Share with others.” Share my time and material resources with others and use our combined resources for non-violent, compassionate action to manifest love and justice among all beings on Earth.

4. “Dialogue and listen to understand.” Always choose dialogue and listening in appreciation of the richness of our cultural and religious diversity.

5. “Protect and heal our mother earth.” Promote consumer behavior and development practices that respect all forms of life and preserve the balance of nature on the planet.

6. “Strengthen solidarity.” Be sensitive to the suffering of others, especially the marginalized and displaced, and exert our full efforts to contribute to building peace in Mindanao where Muslims, Christians and Lumads can live together in harmony and mutual respect for each others’ rights.

WE STAND, UNITED AS BROTHERS AND SISTERS – MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS AND LUMADS – TOGETHER WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS AND FAITH TRADITIONS AND JOIN THE CALL:

For the immediate stop of hostilities in Mindanao.
For the protection of civilian communities.
For the members of the Peace Panel to go back to peaceful negotiation and dialogue to find lasting solutions to the issues and roots of the Mindanao conflict.
For all concerned sectors to participate in continuous dialogue to reach lasting peace in Mindanao the soonest time possible.

_____________________

Image credit: Jeff Bauche._.·´¯).

FOSS and Option for the Poor

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Christians worldwide are called to follow Jesus’ example of showing preferential concern for the poor. This means that as Christ’s followers, they are called to respond to the needs of all, especially the marginalized and the most vulnerable. The philosophy of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is based on cooperation, common good and mutual benefit, and is in many ways consistent with the Catholic Church’s preferential option for the poor

Option for the poor is rooted in the biblical notion of justice and common good, where God calls us to be advocates for the voiceless and powerless in society. It means that we need to look at the world from the perspective of the poor and to work for justice and equitable sharing in the world community. In the area of computers, it means that we need to break down an oppressive system that forces billions of people to use closed, proprietary formats and subscribe to sky-high licensing fees. It is both a matter of justice and common good that structures and systems be put in place to address the needs of the poor to have access to free software and open formats.

The use of FOSS can help poor people to empower themselves. This is because FOSS allows its users to learn how software works by providing both the binary and source codes as well as the freedom to run, copy, modify and share the software. Proprietary megacorporations, on the other hand, label it a crime to modify or make copies of their overly expensive software.

It is said that the moral test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. In the area of computers, the best way to treat the most vulnerable members of society is to share free and open source software with them and collaborate with them in improving old applications and developing new ones for the common good of all.

What can Catholics do to promote FOSS? The best answer to this question is found in the Manifesto of the Eleutheros project, which proposes, among other things, that Catholics should:

increase their awareness of the importance of Free Software and Open Formats and Protocols, as well as their ethical values
propose that only Open Formats and Protocols are used, by all Catholic Organizations to store or manage any kind of digital data
propose that, whenever it is possible, Free Software is used instead of proprietary software in all Catholic Organizations
request that, without exception, teaching of programming and basic Information Technology in all Catholic Schools and Universities is performed using Free Software

This is not an easy task, I know. But we will get there, one FOSS application at a time. As Christians we must never stop exploring and examining how software is developed and used, especially in terms of how they affect the poor.