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 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/

That's me showing a workshop participant how to use the mouse by playing a GCompris game.

Gawad Kalinga volunteers have not only built homes for the poor in Paradise Heights, they have also organized the community for a series of trainings. One of these trainings is a computer literacy program for adult women. I volunteered to be one of the facilitators of the said program.

The age range of the 17 computer workshop participants is from 23 to 55. Their organizer told me that most of them are former garbage scavengers. On the first day of the workshop, the participants made it clear to me that they’ve never held a mouse nor a keyboard before. So we spent the first Saturday playing GCompris – a collection of free and opensource games engineered to teach users how to utilize the mouse and keyboard.

As expected, they found it hard to keep the mouse pointer steady and hit the mark. But four hours of practice, patience and perseverance paid. I was happy to see them making double right-clicks at the end of our first session. So that they wouldn’t forget the assigned keys for each finger, the participants traced their hands on paper and wrote the corresponding keys on top of each illustrated finger.

A workshop participant practicing her newly-acquired skill. Take note of the drawing as her guide. Click the image for bigger size.

During my second session with them I taught them how to use OpenOffice.org Writer, a free and opensource word processor. I started by explaining to them the basics of word processing and then asked them to type “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” After four hours they were able to encode paragraphs and effect basic formatting such as bold, italics and underline all by themselves.

In response to popular request, I taught them how to navigate the world wide web during our third session. Something as everyday as websites for people reading this blog appears so out-of-this-world to the Paradise Heights women. I made an effort to slowly explain to them how to visit websites, how to search for virtually anything using google and yahoo, how to play educational games, and how to watch videos and listen to music online. I also taught them how to open an email account and send/reply/forward electronic messages. By now, almost each participant has an email account.

The participants helping each other to create their very first email accounts. Notice the smile and the excitement on their faces. Click the image for bigger size.

You can only imagine the joy I experience as their facilitator. Women who used to pick rubbish from dumps are now empowered individuals who navigate the internet and eventually, I hope, encode their stories and make their voices heard all over the world through online media.

The three Saturdays I spent with them taught me that it is never too late to learn anything new. It has also taught me that a garbage dump can become a “paradise” when residents envision and believe it to be so. Through their desire to be computer literate and their willingness to practice what they’ve learned from the training, I can say that in time they will take their “paradise” to new heights.

The Collaborative Way of the Cross is in PDF format and you can download it for free by clicking here. If you find the download slow, you may email me at stephencuyos@gmail.com so I can send you the file as an email attachment. This was first posted on this site on 06 April 2007.

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._.·´¯).

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.

___________________

Dearest Jun (Lozada),

We have met when you came over to Cebu last March 17. I saw the pain in your eyes when you asked where have all the priests of Cebu gone, is there no one willing to say Mass for you which you said is the source of your strength? I guess you can imagine the pain Christ suffered when in the garden of Gethsemani, when he was going through the most difficult moment of his life, yes more than on the cross, because here what was going to happen still he already saw in his mind and he sweated with blood (Mt. 22:44). Here, all his imagination, his fears, his anxiety, doubts, were all mixed up, while on the cross it is just plain suffering and our body has a way of shutting off some pain automatically if they become too much to bear. Here, all he asked was for some of his apostles, his chosen few, to keep vigil and give him company. But every time he returns to them, they were all asleep. And he asked, echoing your question: Is there no one to stay awake for me?

Now you can undertand why the Sisters follow you like doting mothers wherever you go. I could not have imagined it myself until I saw with my own eyes how solicitous and protective they are of you. No, it is not only because of the story you are going to tell. There would be enough time for this. It is first and foremost because they found you. Just like the prodigal son who was lost but was found. The father clothed him with the finest clothes (just as the Sisters clothed you with their delicate embrace reserved only for Christ their beloved spouse); He gave him a ring (the Sisters gave you their most precious possession: time – the time they could have spent in prayer, time doing charitable work, time being with the students entrusted to them, the time which they have vowed to give only in the service of the Kingdom.)

You ask why? It is because you have answered (partly) a question they must have been asking all these years: Where have all our graduates gone, the product of Catholic Education, the minds and consciences that we have molded according to the values of the Gospels? Thousands, perhaps even a million of you have joined government service. What have become of you? Have you all become “team players”, swallowed by the system which is now considered the most corrupt in Asia? You are luckier, and I saw your great elation that late in the day, two priests were found (I was one of them) who were willing to say Mass for you. But the poor Sisters, so far, after all these years, have only found one: you. (You see, while we priests may have our Parishes, Sisters have only their Catholic Schools.) Of course, they want to hear your story, to know whatever happened to all the nurturing, the sacrifices they have made for all of you, including the scolding if you just forget to say your prayer, etc. But that can wait. All they want to show you is how grateful and appreciative they are you have returned. The rest will be history.

Surely, there are many more of you out there. They would like to think the consciences which they have painstakingly molded, the love they have showered upon all of you have not all been wasted but is still there, perhaps asleep, perhaps under sedation or confused by the values of the world. But surely they are there just waiting for their time to wake up. It has taken so long, but at least, finally, one came home and that is enough to give them hope that perhaps, just perhaps, others might come to their senses too and come home. I am very happy for you Sisters! Thanks Jun, for making this happen. You are still going through your Calvary but surely the Easter morn will come and shine upon you.

Sincerely,

Fr. Jesus V. Dumaual, MSC
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish
Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City

___________________

For the first time there is a growing interest for Truth among our people. It has become the star of the show. But there are people who are undermining such a quest. We hear remarks like: “It is politically motivated (everything is, nowadays), we know already the truth (that there corruption in the government), it is impossible to know the truth (in the presence of conflicting testimonies).” And particularly, “we do not want the truth of Lozada because he is only being used by people with political agenda (politicians will always do that, at least they can try) and he has engaged in corrupt practices himself (but were there not sinners in the lineage of Jesus too, like King David who got his most loyal soldier killed so he could steal the latter’s wife?), etc.” Such are the words we hear. There may be many kinds of truth. But truth by any form is still truth. Who are we to judge what truth is important, or more important than the others? Whether it is mathematical, scientific, moral, political, literary, etc. provided it is the truth we can surely have some use for it. We know already the truth: that there is corruption in government. But don’t we want to know the details of it? Would it not be easier to combat it if we do? Or we would rather just give in to it? Call it by another name: sop, commission, success fee, “bukol”, “tongpatz”, “meron tayong kaunti dito”, it is still corruption. That is the truth and it is driving people to grinding poverty. We cannot afford to be indifferent and complacent to it.

How do we know who is speaking the truth? Do we need evidences, collaborative testimony, due process, legal luminaries’ opinion, judges to make a judgement? Don’t we have a sense of the Truth just as we have the sense of the Faith?

Let us admit it, most people believe Eng. Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada – that he is telling the truth. That’s according to the latest survey (unless again, we question the survey). How do they know he is telling the truth? People heard and saw him on TV and for them that is enough: he is believable. They just know and there is nothing his detractors can do to change that. And they want to hear more from him and they are moved when they listen to him, while even our own parishioners fall asleep when we give a 10-minute homily.

There are people who are believable but do not speak. E.g. the CBCP (at least not enough). There are people who are not believable though they keep on speaking. E.g. the Government propagandists (at least regarding the latest controversies it has gotten into). There are people who are believable and they speak. E.g. Star-witness Rodolfo Lozada (finally!). But the official Church in Cebu says we do not need him to know the truth. (But we needed Cerge Remonde so he was invited to speak “his truth” in the clergy recollection recently.)

People use the truth for whatever reason. But this should not determine or influence what we intend to do, what we think is right. E.g. There are people using the search for the truth to oust GMA. Well, that is their right and their ranks seem to be growing. But that should not prevent us in our own quest for truth. We are going to search for the truth in season or out of season. If it will result in ousting GMA so be it. If not, so be it. Even if and when she is gone, and even if she finishes her term till 2010, we will continue searching for the truth. We will do it peacefully but we will be steadfast.

Can we eat the truth? No. But without the truth then we may be alive, but no more than slaves. We become slaves to people who can manipulate the truth by making us believe that it is beyond our reach, that we are not good enough to know the truth, that it does not concern us. If we ask a question and we do not have a way of knowing whether the answer is true or a lie, then why bother ask? We are human beings because we can ask intelligent questions, and we have a way of finding out whether the answer given us is true or a lie. As the saying goes: “You can deceive someone sometimes, and everyone sometimes, and someone all the time, but never everyone all the time.” Truly, we must not underestimate the intelligence of people especially in determining what is the truth.

Jun Lozada once said: it is no longer me protecting the truth; it is the truth protecting me. Mr. Lozada is no longer just a star-witness, no longer just a human being whose life is in danger right now, who has become dependent on the good will of others like the Sisters for his and his family’s security, who has to depend on “Piso para sa katotohanan” to survive. He has become a household name. In him truth has assumed a face (a Filipino-Chinese face). He has become a symbol – of truth. He need not say anything. His presence alone is a living witness to the power of truth to unite people, to mobilized people, to inspire people to believe, to hope, to care and to act – at least to the young people (who are his greatest followers nowadays). He has given them hope that truth can be found out, and acquire the energy to seek it. Thanks to Mr. Lozada, they have started believing again. We cannot take that away from them. He has provided them something which the Bishops, those in government, NGO’s and PO’s, political groups of the left and the right, religious affiliations of all denominations, could not and cannot provide them. That he has become the symbol of truth and not us religious and political leaders is a big question mark not on him but on us. We have no right to use it against him.

Of course there is a risk involve here. What if he turns out, in the end, as a fake, as a mere tool of the political game, that he abandons us when the going gets rough, betrays our faith and confidence in him? Will Lozada be a suicidal Judas bringing us to perdition in the end or is he like Peter who repented after having denied knowing Christ three times? He has said it himself: I have already lost self-respect: I do not want to lose my soul as well. But we never know. But when will we know, how will we know? Again, can’t we just trust our sense of the truth, our people’s sense of the truth?

We need Mr. Lozada and we need him more than he needs us. He needs us for his security, okey, even fame and glory, if that is how you want to put it. But we need him – at least the young people need him – to continue believing in the Light. Mr. Lozada has said he has seen the Light and they believe him and they want to see the Light too. Can we say that as well, with conviction and convincingly, that we have seen the Light.

We are not the Light: we are just the bearers of the Light. Mr. Lozada has lighted one little candle. If we will just light our own little candle and we put all of them together, there will be more Light and the more we will be able see. Mr. Lozada is not the Truth: he is only witnessing to the Truth. The Truth might reveal the dirt on our own faces and the evil in our hearts. So be it. Sometimes the truth hurts. But it will set us free.

Cardinal Vidal is right. We do not need to invite Mr. Lozada to know the truth. What we need is for more people to tell us what they know and do not hide behind any “executive privilege”. They have only one privilege: not to tell a lie. Just say your piece and leave it to us to tell you if we believe you. We do not even need the Bishops to tell us the truth (with small “t”). They just have to speak and we will know if they are just playing safe. Politicians can also be allowed to speak even if they have already spoken so much. Leave it to us to tell if they are really interested to know the truth or they are just grandstanding. Everybody can continue to speak and they should. We are not giving any gag order.

But in the end, we who have been silent all these years, we who have been the victims of “immoderate greed” for power and money, we who are thought to be indifferent to the truth, we who were thought to be already tired of too much politics (yes, we are tired of bad politics but not of good politics), we, yes we, will someday – and for all you know that day has come – will rise up, and it will be our turn to speak. And you, our dear religious and honorable political leaders better listen. It will be our turn to tell the truth that is in our hearts, the truth that we have experienced in our day to day lives, the truth which is the fruit of our faith reflections, the truth we are ready to stand and die for. You better listen because next time the wind blows it might knock you down and out and you never know what hit you.

Yes, we believe in good governance and we have continued praying for it even without the request of Cardinal Vidal. Yes, we believe in reform which has always been spoken of but never quite done (puro ningas cogon). Yes, government projects that will benefit the majority, especially the underprivileged should continue. They are long overdue. Yes, indeed, there is a need for accountability – not only when there are whistle-blowers but from the first day in office. But without the Truth we will be just like that stupid man our Lord Jesus Christ referred to in Mattew 7:26: who built his house on sand. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!”

Let me end this by thanking (you) Mr. Jun Lozada, in behalf of the young for giving them something to believe in, in behalf of the young once (like us) for showing us the way. Our own Cardinal Vidal said we do not need to make you a hero. Perhaps he is right because deep in our hearts you are already a saint. Once again thank you and may your tribe increase. More power to you.

Fr. Jesus V. Dumaual, MSC
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish
Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City

In Vote4U, three teams vie for the ultimate prize, but not without being subjected first to a series of extreme tests and challenges. Something to look forward to is the paint ball challenge, where each team has to dodge a rapid string of shots while keeping the ballot box safe. Each team is composed of three young players who are mostly first-time voters. One of the players is a deaf-mute, but you will be surprised to discover what becomes of his team in the end of the game.

Vote4U is written and directed by Clodualdo del Mundo, the scriptwriter of such award-winning films as “Bayaning Third World” (2000), “Mulanay: Sa Pusod Ng Paraiso” (1996), “Kisapmata” (1982), and “Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag” (1975), among many others.

The first episode of Vote4U is now available on the CFA YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure. If you have a DREAM or DESTINY or UNICABLE subscription you can catch the show on these dates:

Episode 1:
May 7 – 8:39 AM, 8:50 PM
May 8 – 3:30 AM

Episode 2:
May 8 – 12:08 PM, 4:00 PM
May 9 – 2:40 AM

Episode 3:
May 9 – 10:44 AM, 6:47 PM
May 10 – 3:44 AM

Dream Satellite broadcasts the show on channel 21, Destiny Cable on channel 96 and Unicable Cebu on channel 17.