August 12, 1993

To my dear People of God:

On this feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Mother, I as your pastor together with your Clergy, make an appeal to our faithful in the Parishes, the Religious, the Laymen and women and the youth to join us in organizing a COVENANT for LIFE in the Archdiocese of Manila.

We wish to organize and establish a FAMILY LIFE CENTER in every parish in the Archdiocese of Manila that would help our local Church to respond to a pressing need of our times, to honor and value LIFE. We need to call on generous parish volunteers from all walks of life to stand up and be counted in a Covenant for life.

What shall we do?

First, pray an extra rosary each day until September 8th for the blessings and the Gift of Life to our people. Ask our Blessed Mother, especially Our Lady of Guadalupe, under whose special protection is the life of the unborn, to intercede for us to her son Jesus for all of our needs especially in the warfare for the gift and the choice of life.

Second, register as a Volunteer for Family Life in your respective parishes and find time to attend the Family Life Congress that the Archdiocese of Manila is undertaking on Saturday, August 28th at the Pius XII Catholic Center. It would make me happy to celebrate my birthday in advance with you. The Congress will help us as the Archdiocese launch an important service program for the needs of our people by providing us the Theological underpinnings and the Moral Imperative for Family Life; also, the vision, framework of the Family Life program that will be undertaken in every parish. We call on the Parish Priest and the Officers of the Parish Council to lead everyone in the Parish to commit themselves to this Covenant of Life by first registering and attending the Congress. The appeal is made especially to the married couples, those who belong to the medical profession, those in the schools, the professionals and the youth and those in business establishments. Each of you has a role and a responsibility to carry out the work to preserve and nurture LIFE in our world today. Please come and make a difference.

Third, launch a FAMILY LIFE Center in your parish on September 8th, the birthday of Our Blessed Mother as our special birthday gift of the Archdiocese of Manila, and encourage your friends and relatives in the parish to be involved in helping bring its program into your homes. What better way can we celebrate the gift of life but in the Eucharistic celebration in every parish with all those who commit themselves to this Covenant for life.

We have invited family life organizations working in Manila to take responsibility in helping the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Vicars of the six districts of the Archdiocese to assist in the noble task of setting up the Family Life Center in the parishes. These are PRO LIFE and CARITAS MANILA, the BOMPHILS, the FERTILE MISSIONS, INC., and the BUKAS PALAD, the INTEGRATED RESOURCES FOR FAMILY DEVELOPMENT and the CANOSSA COMMUNITY. We wish the Districts to take the lead to provide the resources needed by the volunteer organizations who will participate and assist the parish-based centers.

To conclude, we wish to reiterate that this letter on the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption is in response to the great need of the Local Church to provide some answers to the problems besetting our people today in the warfare to Choose Life. We need you to volunteer and carry out an Archdiocesan response to encompass every parish in Manila that will establish a Family Life clinic to serve and help guide the faithful in the important issue of LIFE. It is significant that as we write you on our Blessed Mother’s Feast, we will be launching the Family Life Program on her birthday, September 8th as our Archdiocesan gift to her who is the Mother of Life. It will be a gift that would send us the blessings of Our Lord in real and concrete measures.

With every best wish, I remain

Devotedly yours in Christ,

(Sgd.) + Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, D.D.

Archbishop of Manila