CARDINAL ROSALES “Action, Not Words”

Newly elected Prince of the Church, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, is challenging all Filipinos, especially Christians to prove their “integrity” through action and not words.

This Palm Sunday is declared Alay Kapwa Sunday with the theme: “Integrity: A Challenge to the Church and to the Filipino People.” In his Pastoral Letter, Cardinal Rosales said “…we are called to manifest our faith. Can we say we love God if we turn a blind eye to poverty and have deaf ears to cries of injustice? ‘Love not in words but in actions and truth’”

The Cardinal and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has ordered through its Alay Kapwa Program that all collections from all parishes and Catholic institutions throughout the country this Palm Sunday will be gathered to fund services for the poor and the marginalized, and sustain the initiatives of the different social action centers nationwide and their programs on peace advocacy, democratic governance, ecology, sustainable agriculture, and disaster management.

The Cardinal and the Bishops through Alay Kapwa’s theme is challenging all Filipinos to live a life of integrity and concern for the common good and instructs the entire Church to lead in the restoration of uprightness. The Church holds that lack of integrity is the root cause of our political and social crises. Dishonesty and moral deterioration is quite evident and our high tolerance for wrong doings magnifies our degenerated moral values.

In his Palm Sunday Pastoral Letter, cardinal Rosales stressed that “ Alay Kapwa means offering (alay) to our neighbor (kapwa) who we are and what we have as an expression of our solidarity with our neighbors especially the poor. We look around and there is so much that moves us to tears – widespread poverty, social injustice and moral degradation.”

Alay Kapwa this year is asking Catholics to give a little more, and include what they were able to save on fasting, during the love offering on Palm Sunday’s Mass. In the Archdiocese of Manila, Alay Kapwa collections and donations will be used to fund Church’s Scholarship Program for 5,000 poor but deserving students, operation of 13 parish health clinics and Feeding Program for 5,000 malnourished children, conduct of job fairs and livelihood programs, micro-finance and cooperatives, paralegal assistance and values formation for prison inmates, relief for victims of calamities, advocacy on AIDS prevention and assistance to persons living with HIV-AIDS.

Cardinal Rosales also explains that in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI stressed the important role of Caritas and the Church’s programs in responding to the needs of the poor. We are called to support these programs. Caritas is the Latin word for Charity or Christian Love – love in its perfection.