CITY OF NAGA (PHILIPPINES)
Radio Veritas Asia [Quezon City, Philippines]
April 2, 2008
By UCA News
Prepared for Internet by Radio Veritas Asia, Philippines
The role of prayer and trust in God was emphasized at a seminary graduation ceremony in the Philippines.
Naga City, Philippines (UCAN PL04753.1491 April 2, 2008) – The head of an archdiocese with many ordained priests has advised newly graduated seminarians to pray unceasingly while the country is in a “state of unrest”, trusting and relying on God.
Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi of Caceres gave this advice to 43 seminarians who graduated from the Rosary Major Seminary and Rosary Minor Seminary in Naga City, Camarines Sur province, 255 kilometers southeast of Manila.
He preached the homily on March 10, 2008, at the Good Shepherd Chapel of the major seminary, as 20 seminarians graduated from the only theological school in the Bicol region, in the province of Camarines Sur. The next day, 23 seminarians listened to the same homily at their university graduation Mass at the Caceres Cathedral, near the minor seminary.
“Pray for everyone every day,” the prelate advised both groups of seminarians, quoting from Pope John Paul II’s 2004 book Arise, Let Us Be On Our Way.
“John Paul II spoke of establishing, maintaining and nurturing an attitude of reverence for the world, of letting the world inform us rather than letting us define it first,” the archbishop noted. With such a perspective, he said, “everyone is important, everyone is a subject, no one is an object, everyone is valuable, everyone is a brother or sister, a child of the one God.”
He also said the graduation ceremony was taking place “while we are experiencing what is considered a peak of social unrest”.
Critics of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are urging her to resign amid corruption allegations involving her husband and cabinet members.
Archbishop Legaspi also cited a “cycle of poverty, ignorance and classlessness” that pervades Philippine society. The Dominican prelate said various factors were to blame, including war, foreign oppression, cultural decadence, electoral fraud and corrupt politicians.
According to him, leaders “from all sectors of society,” including the Church, are responsible for this unrest. Moreover, the passage of new laws, elections or even “civil rights” cannot transform society if social institutions lose credibility. Prayer and trust in God are the “best way” to avoid the current despair, he said.
The Archdiocese of Caceres oversees Camarines Sur province, where 97 percent of the 1.28 million people are Catholic, according to 2006 archbishop statistics.
Father Peter Berina, rector of the minor seminary, told UCA News that of the 20 seminarians graduating from the theology course, seven from Caceres will be ordained deacons, and each will serve in two parishes before being ordained as priests next year. Five are from the Bicol region of the Society of the Mother of God the Trinity (SOLT), and two are from Papua New Guinea.
The rector said 16 of the 23 university graduates are from Caceres and seven are from SOLT. Thirteen will continue their theological studies, two will take a year off and one has left the seminary.
Father Augusto Angeles, executive secretary of the bishops’ Seminary Commission, estimates that Caceres has had an average of six to 10 priestly ordinations a year over the past five years. He ranks the diocese among the “leading dioceses” in terms of the number of priestly ordinations each year.
His Daet Diocese, which oversees Camarines Norte province northwest of Caceres, ordained three priests this year and “hopes to have 24 priests ordained in the next five years,” Father Angeles told UCA News in late March 2008.
The Archdiocese of Cebu, in the central Philippines, and the Davao region in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, also have “a lot” of priestly ordinations each year, the priest said. The St. Francis Xavier Regional Seminary in Davao City, 965 kilometers southeast of Manila, hopes to ordain 12 priests this year for eight southern dioceses and two religious congregations.
Manila’s San Carlos Seminary hopes to ordain eight priests. Two are for Manila, four are for other Asian countries, and two are for two dioceses in the northern Philippines. Seven priests are to be ordained at the Jesuits’ San Jose Seminary for Diocesan Priesthood, while the Dominicans’ Santo Tomas Seminary has 10 seminarians from various Philippine dioceses preparing for ordination.
At the 2004 National Clergy Conference near Manila, Bishop Luis Tagle of Imus told reporters that there are about 8,700 priests serving some 65 million Filipino Catholics.
UCA News