How do the Filipino cardinals see the Church’s future?
How past, and future, inform the Philippines' hierarchy
The Catholic Church in the Philippines currently has a record five members of the College of Cardinals.
In the 21st century, five cardinals — Gaudencio Borbon Rosales (appointed 2006), Luis Antonio Tagle (2012) , Orlando Beltran Quevedo (2014), Jose Advincula (2020), and Pablo Virgilio David (2024) — have strengthened Filipino Catholicism’s voice in the global Church.
The rise in the number of Filipino cardinals reflects the Philippines’ position as the country with the world’s third-largest Catholic population after Brazil and Mexico. The Philippines’ global influence is heightened by the 15 million-strong Filipino diaspora, concentrated in North America and the Middle East.
Tagle, David, and Advincula — the three Filipino cardinals under the age of 80 — bring distinctly Filipino perspectives on being Catholic to the Sacred College, informed by their experience of the Church at the national, continental, and world levels.
In the Philippines, the three are broadly regarded as taking up both in the synodal style advocated by Pope Francis, but with the missionary and pedagogical approaches modeled by his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who appointed them bishops.
Before considering these cardinals’ visions for the Church, it might be helpful to recall briefly the history that shaped them.
From empire to ‘People Power’
In the four centuries since 1521, when the first documented Mass was celebrated in the Philippines, the local Church has undergone many transformations. It swung from serving as a structure to pacify natives and help consolidate Spanish rule, to being a sporadic check on the abuses of Spanish civil authorities, to precipitating the Philippines’ 1896 revolt against the Spanish Empire.
Anti-Spanish and anticlerical sentiment persisted in the Philippines long after Spain sold the country to the United States for $20 million in 1898. This change prompted the Holy See to appoint American and Irish bishops to Filipino sees, and eventually to hasten the admission of Filipinos to seminaries and religious orders.
In sum, more than three centuries passed before Filipinos started to be appointed to the local Catholic hierarchy. From 1903, the Manila archdiocese, the country’s primatial see, had American and Irish archbishops. Only in 1949 did the archdiocese begin to have Filipino archbishops. The country had an Irish archbishop leading a diocese until as late as 1988.
Amid the Filipinization of the hierarchy, the Church in the Philippines made a strong showing at Vatican Council II. The Filipino delegation consisted of a cardinal, 10 archbishops, 37 bishops, and a lay observer. Twenty-eight of the bishops attended all four sessions from 1962 to 1965.
Shortly before the council ended, Ferdinand Marcos was elected Philippines president. During his increasingly dictatorial 21 years in power, he drew on American military assistance, which was offered to prevent the country from falling to communism during the Cold War.
Church workers were among the victims of the Marcos regime, which killed, disappeared, tortured, and imprisoned thousands without warrants.
Tagle, David, and Advincula were young men during the latter days of the Marcos regime. They would have been aware that the country’s bishops criticized the regime for its abuses, even as they battled the discontent of some religious and priests who chose to join the communist armed resistance. In response, Marcos had several clerics, including three bishops, arrested. David joined demonstrations against the regime in his student days.
The Manila archdiocese, which Tagle and Advincula would go on to lead, played a decisive role in toppling Marcos, in the Edsa People Power Revolution.
Cardinal Jaime Sin, then Archbishop of Manila, urged Filipinos in February 1986 to shield two military camps where rebel soldiers were holed up. With rosary beads, crucifixes, flowers, and prayers, throngs resisted Marcos’ loyalist soldiers deployed to end the uprising.
The civilians knelt in front of tanks and guns, and peaceably confronted Marcos’ soldiers to win them over. Marcos and his family fled to the U.S. aboard a military helicopter.
Their experiences have given Tagle, David, and Advincula a solid grasp of the advantages and pitfalls of intercultural interactions, an awareness of issues of justice, peace, and care of creation, and a commitment to nurturing people’s sense of stewardship of the Catholic faith.
From the Filipino Church’s maturation during Vatican II and its forging in the crucible of dictatorship, the three cardinals are likely to have awareness of the importance of keeping the universal Church attuned and responsive to the pastoral needs of the times, compassionate toward the oppressed, and prophetic against oppressors.
And the experience of dictatorship, with its restrictions on free speech and murders in response to dissent, are at the root of their allergy to one-way communication and their emphasis on dialogue.
The Filipino experience of Catholicism, extricated from colonial powers, spoken and heard in the Christian world at the Second Vatican Council, suffering in the Marcos years and liberated and beginning anew at Edsa in 1986 all distilled into the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines — PCP II —which is widely seen as a watershed moment for the generation of Church leaders with whom Tagle, David, and Advincula matured.
Indeed, it seems clear to most Filipinos that if you want to understand the country’s cardinals, the importance of PCP II to their formation — evangelical, missionary-focused, and Christocentric — can hardly be overstated.
Held in 1991, PCP II drew deeply from Vatican II, becoming as it were the Filipino attempt to appropriate and apply in subsequent decades the teachings of the universal council. In fact, while PCP II documents recalled pivotal moments in Philippine Church history, its theme was “Church renewal and evangelization in the spirit and vision of the Second Vatican Council.”
By most accounts, PCP II’s message decidedly followed a “hermeneutic of continuity” vis-a-vis Vatican Council II and the interpretive lens of John Paul II’s papacy.
As the delegates — many of whom mentored today’s Filipino cardinal electors — said, “The Council was not intended to be a forum for vested interests to prevail nor was it meant to be an exercise in authoritarianism or legalism. It was to be a venue for a meeting with Christ.”
“The Council’s thrust is toward a New Evangelization, based not on human expectations and wisdom, but on the preaching of Christ Crucified,” the PCP II delegates said, lamenting that “there are still those who have little inclination to live in the light of Christ's teachings, which for them is foolishness.”
Cardinal Tagle’s vision
Pope Francis called Cardinal Tagle on to the global stage in 2019 by naming him prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples — traditionally called “the red pope” around Rome for the historical importance of the role.
Following an overhaul of the Roman Curia in 2022, Tagle now has the rather less snappy title of pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s section for fundamental questions regarding evangelization in the world, but he’s no less influentially placed.
The pontiff has appointed Cardinal Tagle, formerly Bishop of Imus and Archbishop of Manila, to serve as a member of seven Vatican dicasteries.
The cardinal is also a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (the Vatican’s asset manager), the commission of cardinals supervising the Institute for the Works of Religion (known as the Vatican bank), and the Council of the Section for Relations with States and International Organizations of the Secretariat of State.
Tagle, who wrote a doctoral dissertation at Catholic University of America on the evolution of the notion of collegiality since Vatican II, caught the attention of Vatican-watchers when he spoke at the 2012 Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization, in a speech that seemed to outline his pastoral vision for the Church.
He argued that the Church must become “the ‘space’ of a faith encounter,” where Christ and those who seek him can find each other, echoing Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium which called the Church “a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race.”
For that to happen, he said, the Church must learn humility from Christ, imitate his respectfulness for every human being, and discover the power of silence.
“The seemingly indifferent and aimless societies of our time are earnestly looking for God,” Tagle said. “The Church’s humility, respectfulness and silence might reveal more clearly the face of God in Jesus. The world takes delight in a simple witness to Jesus, meek and humble of heart.”
In his 2015 address at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, Tagle built on that framework — and the experience of Filipino Catholics, by outlining six paths to promote Jesus’ redemptive mission within the Church, which he described as a home for the wounded.
Tagle began by emphasizing that all healing originates with God, highlighting the divine initiative as the foundation of the process. He then explained that healing thrives best within a community — a family, parish, school, or group of friends — while also stressing the wounded individual’s active role in courageously pursuing healing and conversion through sacramental life.
Cardinal Tagle further urged Catholics not to shy away from confronting the darkness of wounds, embracing the Church’s role as a “field hospital,” a term borrowed from Pope Francis. He emphasized his view that healers must exude trust and positivity to be effective.
“I don’t know how those glum-looking people could even generate trust and healing. Smile please,” he said.
The cardinal concluded with a call for silence and presence in the face of deep wounds, acknowledging that sometimes words and solutions fall short. Instead, a loving, discerning presence can be the most powerful form of support, he argued.
Catholics in some quarters have criticized Tagle’s famously unassuming approach to evangelization. His supporters say he’s been misunderstood — that when he said in 2015, for example, that the Church’s “harsh words” on homosexuality were regrettable, the cardinal was not echoing the call of some European cardinals to change the Church teachings on sexual morality.
Instead, supporters say that approach too needs to be seen in a Filipino context: a reflection of his pastoral experiences in a country where people identifying as gay can be violently bullied from childhood, including by Catholics.
Tagle has also been criticized following media reports claiming that his criticism of reproductive health legislation in the Philippines was less impassioned than those of other Filipino bishops, such as Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who said “contraception is corruption.”
But his defenders point out that Tagle had issued a letter read in all Masses in Manila criticizing the bill as it was being debated and called the law “unfortunate and tragic” after it was enacted.
At the Philadelphia meeting, Tagle received resounding applause after he recounted a conversation with a boy from the Philippines, where the children of overseas workers invariably grow up without one or both parents.
Tagle meant to use the story to explain how the Church can love people in difficult circumstances — but it might also be seen as an apt illustration of the Filipino people’s love for the cardinal himself.
“One boy approached me and said: ‘Last year, I had my shirt signed by you, bishop,’” he recalled.
“I said, ‘Oh, yes, I remember.’ He said, ‘I have not washed the shirt.’”
“But, he says: ‘Every night, I fold it, I put it under my pillow. I have not seen my father in years. He is working abroad. He has not been home. But with that shirt, and your signature, I know I have a home. I know I have a father.’”
Tagle’s vision of the Church, his supporters would say, has a marked emphasis on Christ-like humility, respect, and moments of silence to more effectively minister to a wounded world through the Gospel, while recognizing the severe hindrance to evangelization posed by clerical sexual abuse.
But does his stance against sexual abuse withstand scrutiny?
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and the advocate group Nate’s Mission recalled recently that Tagle, then Caritas Internationalis president and other leaders of the organization had been informed in 2017 that the priest Fr. Luk Delft, Caritas director for the Central African Republic was convicted in 2012 by a court in Ghent on two counts of child abuse and forbidden to have contact with children for a decade. Delft had also been reported for child pornography possession to his Salesian congregation.
Following a CNN report, Delft had been removed from his post in 2019.
Snap and Nate’s Mission point out that Cardinal Tagle ought to have immediately removed Delft in 2017 and reported him to Belgian authorities.
According to Snap: “During Tagle’s tenure in the Philippines as Bishop of Imus and Metropolitan Archbishop of Manila, in the world’s third largest Catholic country, there are no known cases in which Tagle directly dealt with known offenders, however a recently published database by BishopAccountability.org of publicly accused priests with ties to the Philippines indicates that there may have been abusive priests working in or near Tagle’s dioceses under his leadership.”
The Pillar’s review of the database found that five priests listed as credibly accused were associated with or present in the dioceses during Tagle’s administration. One was facing prosecution as of 2017. Another had fled to Manila in 1980 from the Vancouver archdiocese, receiving many appointments and dying in 2019. The Vancouver archdiocese reached settlements over three cases with his accusers.
Three were associated with Tagle’s dioceses as consecrated men under the direct responsibility of superiors in their respective religious orders (one was acquitted and two others died — in 2020 and another in 2023).
Among the others listed as credibly accused, whether Filipinos, Americans, or Irishmen who had ties with the Manila archdiocese, its suffragans, or Imus diocese, 11 were associated with the dioceses in periods that ended before Tagle became the ordinary. Many had died long before Tagle was ordained a bishop.
SNAP and Nate’s Mission also argued that Cardinal Tagle was negligent in response to allegations of cover-up made against Auckland Bishop Emeritus Patrick Dunn.
The organizations alleged that Tagle failed to respond to the complaint, which they said Cardinal John Dew, Wellington’s archbishop emeritus had forwarded to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples under Tagle as prefect.
One of the letters attached to the complaint shows that the issue was raised to New Zealand’s bishops in July 2021. Cardinal Dew had assumed responsibility for the case and had replied that it had been in progress as of January 2023.
According to the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, it is the duty of the metropolitan archbishop to give the “competent dicastery” regular updates about any investigation.
Which dicastery is in fact overseeing the case? Vos estis lists six departments as having possible competence in an abuse case.
So does the buck stop with Tagle? Possibly.
The reorganization of the Roman Curia under the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium took effect in June 2022, with Tagle repositioned as a pro-prefect of one section of the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples and with the Congregation for Bishops exercising oversight of Vos estis cases — unless they are referred to the disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Given a relatively tumultuous rollout of the policy across the Church, it is not immediately clear whether Tagle’s office has responsibility for Vos estis lux mundi petitions in missionary parts of the world, and dropped the ball, or if the process of deliberation is unclear. But the question will likely need to be answered, as victims’ advocates continue to raise it.
SNAP and Nate Mission also lament that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines appears to have no child protection guidelines on its website notwithstanding the bishops’ letter containing instructions that has been accessible since 2016.
For his part, Tagle discussed seven areas for a pastoral response to the sex abuse crisis at a 2012 symposium at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University,.
Pastoral care, he said, should be extended to victims and their families, the hurting community, the priest offender, the priest-offender’s family, non-offender clergy, superiors and bishops. He said the formation of seminarians and the ongoing formation of clergy constitute the seventh area of response.
“Pastoral care encompasses justice for them, compassion for them, protection for them, and even restitution in some cases,” he said, referring to abuse victims and their families.
He added: “The pastoral care of victims and their families resonates with cultural and religious traditions of Asia that put high value on compassion for the suffering.”
Cardinal David’s vision
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the Bishop of Kalookan and president of CBCP, served on the information commission of the 2023-2024 synod on synodality in Rome, and was elected to the XVI Ordinary Council by fellow participants.
Last month, he was chosen to lead a new Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) commission promoting synodality across the continent.
The added assignment, on top of his membership in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, makes David responsible for encouraging the Church in Asia to follow what the synod on synodality’s final document calls “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.”
It’s a job David’s supporters say he is well-suited for: the cardinal has a deep-rooted conviction that the Church must become more synodal.
He shared his reflections on how that can be achieved in a homily at the end of the national synodal consultation in the Philippines in 2022.
For Western readers, it’s worth noting that synodality as a concept does not in the Philippines carry the same relativizing connotations, or ecclesiastical-political baggage, as it does in some other parts of the world — possibly because bishops have mostly correlated the idea of synodality to empowering lay people for evangelization.
A truly synodal Church, David said, is characterized by lay people who are fully conscious of being partakers of the common priesthood of the baptized and live their everyday occupations with a missionary perspective.
The Catholic laity is empowered, he said, when priests resist or let go of the mindset that only those who receive holy orders are shepherds, while everyone else in the Church is a sheep to be led.
That change of mindset, he said, is conditional on bishops remembering they are successors of the apostles, especially in nurturing apostolic communities.
“This will never be realized if our laity are conditioned to think of themselves permanently as followers, or worse, as onlookers,” he said. “They will never take part in the Church’s corporate mission of shepherding the last, least and lost in this world if we, the ordained, define ourselves as the shepherds, and them as flock.”
He proposed, instead, a missionary paradigm, assumed by both the laity and ordained ministers in a “servant Church” that focuses on responding to society’s need for Christ.
“Mission is about the Christian community consciously getting out of itself to heal, to give life, to liberate from the evil one,” he said. “In short, to proclaim a good news that empowers and gives hope. It is what it means to evangelize, but all in the name of Jesus, and always consciously prioritizing the ones Jesus himself would prioritize.”
He said that Church ministries should be reoriented because “what indeed makes the Church deteriorate [is] when every form of service or ministry is intended to serve [only] the Church.”
“We have Catholic lay people deployed in secular society and all over the world as service-providers, as professionals, as artists, as educators, as scientists, etc,” he noted. “Can we not organize and form them to consciously carry out their professions as their vocation to participate in the Church’s evangelizing mission in the world?”
“We have all sorts of leagues, like Catholic Women’s Leagues, serving the Church. But do we put up Catholic politicians’ guilds formed in the Catholic social teachings who will serve, not their pockets but the common good of society?”
“Can you imagine if all our Catholic laity became conscious participants in the Church’s mission to make a little difference in society through the forms of service that they can do best — as farmers, laborers, caregivers, social communicators, businessmen, etc?”
Setting the example for a socially responsive Church, David steadfastly opposed the authoritarianism and killings of the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, Philippines president from 2016 to 2022.
When Duterte was arrested in Manila on March 11 and transferred to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity, David reposted on Facebook six of his writings during the Duterte years condemning the extra judicial killings, disappearances, and warrantless searches and arrests of the regime, highlighting the plight of victims and survivors.
Among those who fell in the violence perpetrated by policemen and other assailants were three Catholic priests whom David held up before seminarians as martyrs of service to the Church and society.
Some seminarians who felt discouraged after the priests were killed had asked David for advice.
He told them: “If a priest is murdered because he defends human rights, like Fr. Marcelito Paez, or he speaks out for environmental protection like Fr. Mark Ventura, or he protects victims of rape and defends the Catholic faith like Fr. Richmond Nilo, and his death causes you discouragement instead of inspiration, then I advise you to forget about the priesthood and just leave the seminary as soon as you can.”
With his sensitivity to the situation in his diocese and across the Philippines, as well as his theological formation, David has helped to convince his fellow Church leaders of the merits of synodality.
In a 2020 address at a meeting of the FABC, David balanced a critique of Church governance with a defense of the indispensability of the people of God’s faithfulness to divine revelation.
He described Pope Francis’ promotion of synodality as a twin movement to the pontiff’s reform of the Roman Curia. These, according to the cardinal, were aimed at renewing the Church at its center and grassroots.
The curia, he said, has been “unfortunately more conscious of its political function of governance as a state than its pastoral function in observing the communion of the Universal Church.”
This curial disconnect from pastoral and Church dynamics, he argued, had led to problematic dioceses that are “sometimes run like mini-Vatican states, stifling creativity, hindering efficiency, and impeding the operations of subsidiary entities like vicariates, parishes, mission stations, and basic ecclesial communities.”
That critique is reminiscent of the ideal articulated in Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, the dogmatic constitution on the Church in the modern world, wherein Pope Paul VI wrote that the Church’s mission “requires in the first place that we foster within the Church herself mutual esteem, reverence and harmony, through the full recognition of lawful diversity. Thus all those who compose the one People of God, both pastors and the general faithful, can engage in dialogue with ever abounding fruitfulness.”
Just as the curia must refocus on making visible the communion of the Church, David said, bishops must also practice participatory governance in their dioceses to testify that the Church is a communion.
David said the Church should not fear synodality since it is a “refresher” on Vatican II, — “simply another term for conciliarity, with concilium being the Latin version of the Greek term synodos.”
Synodality or conciliarity, he added, does not mean departing from the Gospel to remodel the Church after what is fashionable in the world.
“Pope John XXIII called for the Council to be an aggiornamento, an updating or renewal,” he said, “but at the same time ensured that it was done simultaneously with ressourcement, a healthy return to the sources or an anchoring on the apostolic tradition.”
Cardinal Advincula’s vision
When Jose Advincula received the red hat in 2020, he was the Archbishop of Capiz. A year later, Pope Francis transferred him to Manila, succeeding Cardinal Tagle.
As archbishop of Manila, Advincula is the primate in the Filipino episcopacy, a historical role that has significantly influenced the course of the country’s civil and ecclesiastical affairs.
Advincula’s vision for the Church can be seen in his regular accompaniment of his flock in various pastoral activities. On April 5, for example, he will join Catholic representatives at the Philippines’ National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Manila for the Manila archdiocesan general pastoral assembly, known as Magpas, founded by Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales.
Advincula convened the Magpas several times each year, sometimes calling special sessions, making his archdiocese a model in the Philippines of regular communication between a bishop and the people under his stewardship.
In previous editions of Magpas, Advincula focused on catechizing Catholics about the jubilee year of hope, inspiring young people to be active members of the Church, promoting a spirituality based on the Black Nazarene, and teaching synodality.
This April, Magpas will focus on the second part of the synod on synodality’s final document, dealing with the conversion of relationships. This could not be more timely given developments in the nation’s capital that have strong implications on how Filipinos relate with one another.
The Philippines is the only state outside the Vatican where divorce is illegal, but legislation is underway in both chambers of Congress to legalize the dissolution of marriage. Teenage pregnancy is a nationwide problem but efforts to address it became controversial due to fears that it could be a Trojan horse using school systems to normalize sexual libertinism.
Meanwhile, legislation that claims to shield people from discrimination based on sexual orientation, identity, and expression has divided lawmakers and their constituents.
The Filipino Catholic hierarchy teaches that it too opposes discrimination. At the same time, it urges Catholics to be on guard against what Pope Francis calls the “ideological colonization” that the bill may represent, encouraging lifestyles that are harmful because they digress from natural law.
Time will tell whether the Church’s teachings will influence the outcome of debates at the Philippines’ legislature. What is certain is that they are not the only matters that demand Advincula’s attention. In March alone, he has raised funds for the poor, visited people in jail, and given his blessing to a blood donation drive that has been a customary way for Manila residents to celebrate their archbishops’ birthdays.
When Manila’s Catholics gather for this month’s Magpas, they will practice the “conversations in the Spirit” used by synod on synodality delegates. This may well become an experiment in a new approach to evangelization that Advincula called for at Manila’s 2024 Walk for Life.
“We need to engage in more listening and dialogue. This is part of walking for life,” he said. “Yes, we are clear about our teachings on the different issues connected with life and family. But we also need to rethink our approaches, methodologies, and strategies.”
“How do we deal with the dilemmas and complexities of modern families, the irregular situations in the home, the diversity in understanding identity and personhood, the wounds caused and inflicted because of polarization even in the home?”
“Pope Francis has pointed us to the style of synodality so we can listen and discern together. It is important that all of us here in this walk must help each other to become a synodal Church in mission.”
The cardinal’s promotion of new approaches to evangelization dovetails with Vatican II’s decree on Ad gentes on the Church’s mission. That document partly states: “Closely united with men in their life and work, Christ's disciples hope to render to others true witness of Christ, and to work for their salvation, even where they are not able to announce Christ fully. For they are not seeking a mere material progress and prosperity for men, but are promoting their dignity and brotherly union, teaching those religious and moral truths which Christ illumined with His light; and in this way, they are gradually opening up a fuller approach to God.”
But Advincula also firmly taught that the Church does not compromise on right and wrong.
“We can and must judge the killing of the unborn and defenseless to be always wrong,” he said at this year’s Walk for Life. “We can and must judge the commodification of sex and the human body to be immoral. We can judge the technical manipulation of human procreation for the acquisition of babies as wrong, for a child is a gift and not a product to be procured under one’s specification.”
“We can and must judge the so-called ‘mercy killing’ of the weak, the disabled and the aged to be morally indefensible. We can and must judge the extra-judicial killing of the merely suspected and the addicts as evil and a violation of human dignity.”
He added: “What we cannot judge is the state of the person’s soul or the motives of the heart. We do not condemn the person who kills; rather, we call the person for conversion.”
An ecclesial laboratory
No matter what unfolds in Rome in the years ahead, Filipino cardinals straddle an interesting place in the Church’s life, with an agenda drawing from Pope Francis’ emphasis on synodality, and at the same time, a vision of Vatican Council II informed both by Pope St. John Paul and the pastoral experiences of their homeland.
Cardinal Tagle’s experience has led him to consistently stress the primacy of a person-to-person proclamation of Christ.
David, for his part, has been focused on a campaign for synodality, in the Filipino style. His encouragement of greater participatory governance in dioceses might seem only appropriate for Asian contexts where leadership styles tend to be inspired by family dynamics in which parents are the authorities who are owed filial reverence.
But David’s view is that synodality can be understood as a call elsewhere in the world, including the rapidly secularizing West, to bring back those disillusioned with or indifferent to the Church. In that sense, the synodal vision David promotes is nothing like initiatives in Belgium, Germany, and other places where pastoral projects clash with the Church’s teaching office.
The Manila archdiocese has long been a sort of laboratory for the ecclesial assembly that the Vatican plans to host in 2028. For Catholics worldwide, its regular archdiocesan assemblies, led by Advincula, will be worth watching.
That featured photo at the top of the article is AWESOME!
I don't know that I have anything insightful to say, but I am grateful that The Pillar has added Jason and his reporting on the Philippines to its roster. I also really enjoyed the format of this deep dive; I learned a lot!
This article just lifted my heart in deep gratitude to God-thank you!