The church here and there

Media

Part of Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas

Title: The church here and there
Language: English
Source: Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas XLII (473) August 1968
Year: 1968
Subject: Catholic Church; Christianity
Rights
Abstract: [This article contains discussions pertaining to Christianity and to different churches, locally and internationally.]
Fulltext: URCHtoekL Local BISHOP PEDERNAL IS INSTALLED The Most Rev. Godofredo P. Pedernal, D.D. was installed on June 18, 1968 as second Bishop of Borongan succeeding the Most Rev. Vicente P. Reyes, D.D. who was recently transferred to Cabanatuan. Officiating at the installation rites were Archbishop Julio R. Rosales of Cebu and Rt. Rev. Mario Perissin. secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature, re presenting the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, the Most Rev. Carmine Rocco. D.D. Other bishops present were Msgr. Cipriano Urgel of Calbayog, Msgr. Teotimo Pacis of Palo. Msgr. E sifanio Surban of Dumaguete and Msgr. Ma riano Gaviola, secretary general ol the Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. Scores of priests, nuns and laymen trom the diocese of Lucena and from the neighboring dioceses of the Visayas were on hand to congratulate the new Bishop of Borongan and wish him well in his first bishopric. Some close members of Bishop Pedernal's lamily witnessed the solemn event. In his primer address to the diocese Bishop Pedernal said that he has come not to be served but to serve, not to be on-a-p?destal administrator but on a plain level collaborator. Referring to his motto “To uplift the needy from their misery’’ he said that in every way possible he will also help amel iorate the conditions of the poor so that they would have more of the world’s goods and less of material anxiety. Earlier at the civic reception in Guiwan he accepted the symbolic key with the hope and prayer that the kev will open the great door of under standing, love and cooperation. I he same key should shut out rancour, selfishness and indifference. Prior to his episcopal appointment Mons. Pedernal was actively engaged in rural development in the diocese of Lucena. He was one of the moving executives during the last national congress for rural development held at Manila, Los Banos and Cagayan de Oro. He was at one time assistant secretary general of the Philippine Bishops' Conference and assistant national 604 director of Catholic Action. His longest assignment was as seminary rector which lasted 17 years. The diocese of Borongan regarded as an economically depressed area is expected to profit from the rural upliftment know-how of the new bishop. It was gathered that government agencies are more than eager to cooperate with him in arriving at some objectives of the social action year proclaimed by the president of the Philippines. POPE APPOINTS FIRST BISHOPS OF TWO NEW DIOCESES His Holiness, Pope Paul VI has deigned to create the two new dioceses of Maasin and Masbate, and to appoint the Very Rev. Vicente Ataviado as fitst bishop of Maasin, and the Very Rev. Msgr. Porfirio Iligan as first bishop of Masbate. Father Ataviado of the diocese of Sorsogon was born on October 27, 1929 and was ordained priest on April 3, 1954. He obtained the licentiate degrees in Philosophy and Theology at the UST Central Seminary. He had served in several parishes in Sorsogon and for seven years the diocesan chan cellor and oeconomus of the diocese. He is at the present the parish priest of Masbate. He has two sisters, a Carmelite nun and a Daughter of Charity. Monsignor Iligan was born on September 14, 1922 and was ordained priest in 1948. He obtained his licentiate degree in Theology at the UST Central Seminary. After several assignments in the parishes, he was ap pointed economus of the archdiocese of Caceres and holds other important offices. The diocese of Maasin comprises the entire civil province of Southern Leyte and will be a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Cebu. The diocese of Masbate will be a suffragan of the ecclesiastical province of Caceres. It comprises the entire civil province of Masbate and will be the episcopal see of Monsignor Iligan. AID TO RELIGIOUS MEET OK’D Justice Secretary Claudio Teehankee ruled that government funds may be used for a conference convened by a Roman Catholic bishop aimed pro moting the educational, social and economic welfare of rural inhabitants. Teehankee’s legal opinion was in reply to a query from Auditor General Ismael Mathay whether or not a proposed financial assistance of P2,000 of Sorsogon province to the Diocesan Congress for Rural Development would violate Section 23 (3), Article VI of the Constitution. 605 The provision prohibits the use of public money for the benefit of any sect, church, denomination or sectarian institution. Teehankee noted that the rural development congress was convened by Most Rev. Arnulfo S. Arcilla, D.D., bishop of Sorsogon, June 14-18, in response to President Marcos’ appeal for a nationwide effort to uplift the socio-economic standards of the rural areas. The 500 delegates included national, provincial, municipal and barrio of ficials, Protestants, Masons, Catholics priests and sisters. Discussed were various economic problems like cooperatives, cottage in dustries and fanning methods. Upon instructions of the President, various government agencies, like the Presidential Arm on Community Development, Development Bank of the Phil ippines, Philippine National Cooperative Bank, bureau of animal industry, and bureau of agriculture, were mobilized to insure the success of the con ference. Teehankee averred that under these circumstances the Congress was indeed primarily intended to develop the educational, social and economic welfare of rural people. He noted it was not a project calculated to promote the ends of a parti cular sect or religious organization although called by a Roman Catholic bishop and participated in by some members of various religious groups. Therefore, the expenditure of public funds to finance the Congress did not violate the Constitution, Teehankee asserted. TOWARDS A COMMON BIBLE A month-long Bible Translators Institute held in Baguio, attended by Protestants and Catholics from Asian countries, has given a boost to the movement for Common Bibles that bring God’s Word to modern man in the living, current language of the people. The purpose of the Institute was to train translators who will produce Bibles that will be common in two ways. First, they must not be written in a highly literary or ecclesiastical language but in a language easily un derstood by non-college educated people. To understand a Tagalog common language Bible it should be enough to be an adult Tagalog. Yet the lan guage should be proper enough for liturgical services attended by all, including the college educated. It is presupposed that the text will not be a paraphrase but will faithfully convey, without addition or subtraction, the message origi nally written in Hebrew and Greek. 606 Secondly, Common Bibles must be acceptable to both Protestants and Catholics and produced by their joint efforts. It is now possible to work for such Common Bibles because the Executive Committee of the United Bible Societies (Protestant) and the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Chris tian Unity have reached agreement on a document entitled Guiding Princi ples for Intercburcb Cooperation in Translating tbe Bible. The Institute, lasting from May 6 to 31, was attended by more than ninety translators from Australia, Caroline Islands, Indonesia, Japan, Ma laysia, New Guinea, Taiwan, Thailand, Viet Nam and the Philippines. Be sides Tagalog, other Filipino dialects represented were Ilocano, Cebuano, Bicolano, Hiligaynon and about a dozen other minor ones. The Institute was organized by the United Bible Societies, a world-wide federation of national Bible Societies, which, until recent ecumenical develop ments, provided Bibles only for Protestant Churches. If the spirit of co-opera tion continues, the United Bible Societies will henceforth provide Bibles also for Catholics. A dozen Catholic priests, sent by their Bishops, took part in the Institute. Lectures were given by an international staff of experts headed by Dr. Eugene A. Nida, Translations Secretary of the American Bible Society. Dr. Nida is a well-known specialist in linguistics, anthropological studies, and the interpretation of the Christian faith. He has been working with missiona ries on translation problems for more than twenty years. Due to his work, he constantly travels throughout the world training and advising Bible trans lators. He is the audior of several highly acclaimed books. Other lecturers were: Dr. Noah S. Brannen. Dr. James Moorhead, Dr. Barclay M. Newman, Dr. John A. Thompson, Dr. William L. Wonderly. Fr. Efren Rivera, O.P., Bible Professor of the University of Santo Tomas, showed slides of the Holy Land. Workshops according to language groups were held in the afternoons, to put into practice what the participants learned in the lectures. As a result of the Institute, four Translation Committees composed of Protestants and Catholics are now working towards Common Bibles for Fili pinos. They are centered in Manila (Tagalog), Baguio (Ilocano), Dumaguete (Cebuano) and Iloilo (Hiligaynon). Similar Committees have been organized in other countries. India ABORTION HIT AS UNJUST TO UNBORN An American-educated priest-professor has condemned relaxed abortion law as discrimination against unborn children. 607 Speaking at a symposium on Moral Aspects of Legalized Abortion, Car melite Father Francis Sales, 63, also said liberalized abortion laws are “un constitutional denials of the equal protection of the law to a voiceless voteless minority.” Sponsored by “Fraternity”, an interreligious group that strives to bring about a greater harmony between the various communities of Kerala State, the symposium came against a background of moves by the central govern ment to legalize abortion of rape-induced and certain other types of pregnancy. Father Sales said that even in the case of rape-induced pregnancy the unborn child “is more helpless at the hand of abortionist than its mother was at the hands of the rapist. “The question is, therefore, always whether we should kill the child for a social end or seek a humane and moral path toward smoothing the way for the mother and child.” New York, U.S.A. CATHOLIC-ORTHODOX REUNION PREDICTED Dr. Charles Malik said here he believes the Orthodox Church is ready for reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. Lebanon’s former foreign minister, who is an Orthodox layman, said he bases his opinion on discussions he has had with Patriarch Athenagoras, Orthodox spiritual leader. A confidant of Patriarch Athenagoras, Dr. Malik talked at length about the reunion possibility in an interview during a visit here. “The Orthodox Church is prepared to take the steps to find the kind of relationship that existed with Catholicism in the first thousand years of Christianity,” he said. Dr. Malik, who has served as Lebanese Ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations, cited a slowly growing friendship between the half-billion-member Catholic Church and the 145-million-member Orthodox Church. Rome and Constantinople (now Istanbul) split in 1045 in what Chris tianity knows historically as the great schism of the East, he recalled. Now, Dr. Malik said, all Christian churches—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant—are becoming increasingly involved in a unity movement. Dr. Malik now professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut prefaced his comments by emphasizing he is “only a very humble Or thodox layman” who is a spokesman for no one, but simply voicing his opinion. However, he has in the past carried personal messages between 608 Patriarch Athenagoras in Istanbul and the late Pope John XXIII in Vatican City. Vatican City CANON LAW REVISION MAY TAKE FIVE MORE YEARS The new revision of the Code of Canon Law may yet be four to five years to complete, Cardinal Felici, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, told a press conference in the Vatican on May 17. The commission charged with the task of revision is anxious to issue the revised code as soon as possible, he aid; the delay is due to the amount of work involved. “We are anxious to produce the new code within a relatively brief period of time. The tempo of the world has greatly increased, as has the speed of communications. We do not want our code to be stillborn.” To give an idea of the amount of work involved in the revision of the Church’s fundamental body of law, the Cardinal said that between October, 1967, and May, J968, the 13 groups of consultors have met for a total of 21 sessions, each lasting about a week. This represents a doubling of time involved in the same period the year before, he said. The 13 study groups in seven months met in 209 sittings for a total of 627 hours. These statistics, he said, do not include the hours involved in preparation by each of the individual consultors for each of the meetings. On May 28, about 50 of the Cardinal members met in Rome for a week to study the systematic ordering and distribution of the various matters to be included in the new code. From May 20-25 the revision commission sponsored an international con gress of specialists in canon law, which had been expressly asked for by Pope Paul VI, to study and advise on the problems that were to be the working agenda of the plenary session of the commission during the following week. Upper-Volta and Niger RELIGIOUS, SISTERS AND CATECHISTS ALLOWED TO DISTRIBUTE THE EUCHARIST A decsion of the Bishops of Upper-Volta and Niger, which has been ratified by Rome for a period of three years, is as follows: 609 In general, in the absence of a priest, Holy Communion can be given to the faithful or the sick, even the Viaticum, by a deacon, subdeacon, a cleric in minor orders or who has received the tonsure, by a professed lay-brother, or by a catechist. The place for the distribution of Holy Communion is to be the Ciurch or supplementary chapels. The distribution of Holy Com munion will take place during the Sunday celebrations and on feast days in dicated by the Bishop. In partieular eases: The superior or superioress of a religious community, the religious headmaster or headmistress of a school, and religious directors of a hospital are allowed to distribute Holy Communion to their Brothers or Sisters, to the students, the boarders and other faithful present. The place for the distribution of Holy Communion is to be the chapel of the institute, and the time has to be determined by the local bishop. Germany CARDINAL FRINGS AND ARCHBISHOP SCHAEUFELE PROTEST AGAINST CATECHISM PUBLICATION In protest against the publication of a German translation of the Dutch Catechism without an imprimatur from the German bishops, Cardinal Frings of Cologne and Archbishop Hermann Schaeufele of Freiburg have withdrawn their sponsorship of a book on the Second Vatican Council that is to be issued by the German publishing house of Herder. In a joint statement, they said that, by facilitating publication of the translation by a Dutch publishing house, Herder had disregarded the “declara tions of the Council on the teaching authority of the pope and bishops.” They pointed out that the German bishops will give an imprimatur (per mission to print) only in agreement with the Dutch bishops. Cardinal Alfrink of Utrecht, the Netherlands, has refused to give an imprimatur for translations of the catechism, now undergoing revision. The Dutch publishing house of Dekker and van der Vegt of Utrecht published the translation provided by the German publishing firm of Herder, which had transferred the rights for the German translation until a German bishop gives the catechism an imprimatur.
pages: 603-609