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Liberating Our Country From "Unfreedoms"
MESSAGE
(To be read at the Inter-faith Prayer Rally at Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila; June 12, 2006)
We celebrate today the Philippine Independence Day with gratitude for everything that has been in our history. We honor the heroes big and small, known and unknown, who have worked for our liberation as a nation.
But while we succeeded in breaking the yoke and chain of Spanish, Japanese and American colonizers, are we succeeding in breaking the yoke and chain of fellow Filipinos? Ang masakit na karanasan ng mga Filipino ngayon ay bagamat nakalaya na tayo sa pang-aalipin ng mga banyaga, ay mayroon namang mga kapwa Filipino na umaalipin sa kanilang kapwa Filipino.
Gathered in the atmosphere of prayer, we invite ourselves to pray that we may be delivered from the many "unfreedoms" that we are experiencing.
From Death To Life
By Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo
June 7, 2006
Our Conference expresses deep appreciation for the June 6, 2006 decision of Philippine Congress to repeal or abolish death penalty. This decision is consistent with our long standing and on-going advocacy for the sacredness of human life whose Creator is God Himself. Human life, whose ever it is, is sacred.
Let Us Keep Human Life Sacred
Our national dailies for the past few weeks have been carrying news about activists, leftist-militants, journalists, defenders of the poor suspected as communists, and even police and army men, being killed or abducted. The latest, for example, is the killing of Sotero Llamas, identified as peace adviser, among several hundred others in the list. The total number is alarming. It is a sad commentary of our country and government which want to abolish death penalty.
IN TRUTH, PEACE
Philippine National Police
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo, May 15, 2006
The first message of Pope Benedict XVI for this year 2006 is entitled "In Truth, Peace." It expresses the Pope's conviction that "wherever and whenever men and women are enlightened by the splendor of truth, they naturally set out on the path of peace" (In Truth, Peace, 3). "If peace is to be authentic and lasting, it must be built on the bedrock of the truth about God and the truth about man. This truth alone can create a sensitivity to justice and openness to love and solidarity, while encouraging everyone to work for a truly free and harmonious family" (ITP 15).
HANDLING QUESTIONS PEOPLE MAY
ASK ABOUT THE DA VINCI CODE
N.B. This guide is an attachment to the CBCP Pastoral Statement on The Da Vinci Code.
I. GETTING TO KNOW THE DA VINCI CODE
Communion and Collegiality
An Address Delivered at the Opening of the 92nd Bishops' Plenary Assembly
January 28-29, 2006,
Pius XII Catholic Center, Manila
Your Eminences and Your Excellences:
At this our first encounter this year as a Conference, I would like to simply and briefly recall or review with you two aspects of our Episcopal Conference. I am sure you have reflected time and again in John Paul II1a Apostolic Exhortation on the Episcopacy Apostolos Suos (1998) and Pastores Gregis (2003) and the latest Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops Apostolorum Successores (2004). Add to these the book of our Bishop Chito Tagle Episcopal Collegiality and Vatican II.
Value Formation and Value Shift
A Talk given at the
Loyola House of Studies
February 4, 2006
All institutions, governments, and churches suffer from problems, crises and decline of some sort, big and small. Albert Einstein said The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. We will not solve our problem by insisting on doing the things we have been doing before, just because that is the way we have been doing things here.
Sowing Seeds of Hope Through Moral Values
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdemeo
(A Talk delivered at the Institute for Solidarity in Asia on February 28, 2006)
The Catholic Bishops of the Philippines have been issuing pastoral letters to provide a moral compass for the decisions being made or proposed for the common good of our people. We can not stop doing what it is our duty to do: to remind our people and those who purport to lead them that core values drawn from natural law and the eternal law should serve as the moral foundations upon which we further build our nation.
Transforming the Nation Through Servant-Leadership
Speech of Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo, CBCP President,
At the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, Inc.
December 7, 2005, Manila Hotel
Our gathering today occurs providentially as a response to the call of the Council of the Laity of the Philippines approved by the CBCP to make December 5, 6, and 7 National Days of Prayer, Penance and Fasting for our country. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo also has declared November 30 to December 7 a week of prayer for our country in multiple crisis. Today we have come in friendship in order to be united in prayer before God our common Father. Before this God we come as friends, as brothers and sisters, not as strangers to one another, not as enemies of one another, but as a people equally loved by God. It is then prayer, it is God, who unites us in order to pray for each other, not to pray against each other. I challenge you to pray that the Lord in his wisdom may answer the prayer of your neighbors, whoever they may be.
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