Beginning 1975 I lived in the Philippines as a Redemptorist priest for 16 years. My experience with the people, especially the poor in their struggle, transformed my life. It challenged my faith, my spirituality and my way of involvement with the struggle of the people as a church person.
Who will listen to our cryAs we lie abandoned at the edge of the abyssOur land takenOur homes demolishedOur children hungryWe wander as outcasts fromDenuded forest to polluted sea fromFlooded slum to slave factoryWill you listen to our cry We hear the multitude of words from Parliament and pulpit Barren rhetoric on the need for reform Blessings on the poor as the chosen of God But we are as a...
and all those who have disappeared Fr Rudy Romano was a Filipino Redemptorist Priest – and a colleague – who advocated on behalf of the poor. He was abducted by government agents in 1985. No trace of him has been found, no one brought to account for his death. Like countless others. As fruit from the tree of lifeYou were violently plucked in the dark hoursWhen evil stalks by the light...
The Children’s Rehabilitation Centre was established during the time of Martial Law in the Philippines to care for children traumatized by the violence of the military and pro-military groups. Many of these were orphaned, witnesses to the violent death of their parents. Blessed are the children They are mine says the Lord Created in the darkness of the womb To live in the light of freedom...
Eddie was a little boy I met on Smokey Mountain on Good Friday 1986. Smokey Mountain was the Manila garbage dump situated in barangay Tondo, Manila. All day, every day, garbage trucks unloaded their cargo of rubbish on top of the “mountain” and the residents scavenged among this garbage for their livelihood. In the hot months the mountain smoldered and little fires would break out because of the...
There are some specific September dates I find very easy to remember. September 11, 2001: The coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States. September 12 2014: The day our business in Rockhampton – Clear Waters Financial Planning – celebrated its final release from the Franchise Company Elders Financial Planning (aka The Crocodile...
Anak dagat Can you really study theology while living in a fishing village, in a small hut of four rooms, sleeping on mats, sitting cross-legged taking your meals, cooking on a charcoal burner outside the hut? Such was the situation of four young men studying to be Redemptorists when I visited them in barrio Anak Dagat (literally, Child of the Sea) in Batangas Province, Philippines. ...
Written in 1986 Leaving the Redemptorist Seminary on Mariposa Street in Cubao, Quezon City, you turn left and walk about three hundred meters to C Benitez Street. Turn right at the T-junction and you walk past a Buddhist Temple behind high cement walls. There are many high cement walls in this area. Three hundred meters past the temple the cement walls give way to high...
The Father had a dreama vision for all peoplewho live under the starsupon the earth by the seasa vision of life whereinharmony as a white riverflowed between hills of caredown valleys of justicea dream of prosperity forthe farmer who cares for his cropas a mother cares for her childa dream of abundance forthe fisherman who with courageand risk braves the uncertaintyof the watersto recover life...
For seven years – 1975 to 1982 – I lived as a Catholic Missionary Priest in the Bicol provinces of the Philippines, working almost exclusively in the smaller towns and barrios. As time progressed, I was confronted in an ever-deepening way by the poverty and injustice experienced by the people I lived among in these rural areas. This became a radical challenge to my faith: in a...
Written after the People Power movement in the Philippines removed Ferdinand Marcos as President and ended a long period of Martial Law The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to cast aside our ancient prejudices and build the future This reflection is a personal sharing of my own journey as I have been confronted by life and death, suffering and resurrection, hope and despair...