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With further advances in treatment techniques and counseling and rethinking of theological premises, hospitals’ pastoral care becomes even more critical in the lives of patients and families. Is pastoral care relevant in the contemporary scene? Absolutely!
The family has always been regarded as the nucleus of society, the “domestic Church” in the Catholic manner of speaking. Values, education, and how children eventually turn out in life depend on how solid a family is. These days, however, a new and evolving concept of the family is emerging, founded on the pretext of gender equality and human rights, and compounded by “new winds of doctrine”
or simply the erosion of traditional values. Recognizing the need to address the changing tide as well as the needs of Catholics who, although they may be in a situation deemed sinful, sincerely want to participate in the life of the Church, Pope Francis has convened the bishops of the world to find out how best to resolve these challenges – through the standpoint of doctrine and the eyes of mercy.
In an interview with WM, lawyer and agrarian reform advocate Christian Monsod gave an insight into the struggling farmers’ mind, what the farmers’ dreams, aspirations, and frustrations are, as the fight for land continues, amid the growing indifference shown by the government and influential landowners. As a constitutionalist, Monsod shared his thoughts on why
the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Act failed and, on a larger scale, why social reform programs in the country continue to fail, even after a dictatorial regime. Finally, as a fighter for freedom and justice, Monsod warned of possible upheaval and bloodshed if the farmers’ patience continues to be tested, and their rightful share of the land persistently withheld.
Man’s obsession with technology and advancements in food production, trade, and even how time is perceived, has made him seemingly detached more and more from nature and the environment he lives in. What used to be an integral part of man and his survival has now become an accessory which, more often than not, is rendered irrelevant to how life should be lived. Perhaps it would be best to revisit the rudiments of survival, look towards nature, and teach younger generations of its value and importance – before we lose a sense of who we are and what we originally stood for.
Early on in his papacy, Pope Francis made it clear that he wanted to visit Asia, something that his predecessor, Benedict XVI seemed to have overlooked. After the apostolic voyage to Brazil for World Youth Day in 2013, the Philippines and Sri Lanka figured prominently in Francis’ list of possible Asian destinations. All of a sudden, however, South Korea popped up on the papal radar out of nowhere, and emerged as the first Asian country that Francis will visit as the Bishop of Rome. Although the Pope’s attendance in the 6th Asian Youth Day and the beatification of scores of Korean martyrs are the official reasons disclosed by the Vatican for making the trip, many are speculating why Pope Francis made South Korea his first choice. An analysis of his decisions and pronouncements in the past few months, however, seem to collectively hint at the true reasons why the Holy Father decided to go to the Korean Peninsula.
Rice is a key resource and commodity not only among Southeast Asian countries, but in significant parts of Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. However, many factors, both natural and man-made, have impeded the free trade of rice between countries, as if rice has attained the stature of gold as an article of commerce. Aside from climate change, greed still seems to be the major obstacle in ensuring food security and rice sufficiency all across the globe. Time and again, the Church has urged the international community to work together to eliminate not only the structures that hinder economic cooperation but those that perpetuate the menace of hunger as well.
The internal conflict in Myanmar, the clashes between government forces and ethnic groups which lasted for many years, often made it to the international headlines. It also created one of the most prolonged refugee situations in modern history in the Asian region. An estimated 140,000 Burmese refugees had to flee from conflict areas and from human rights abuses and currently live in nine official refugee camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border. This number doesn’t include the thousands who have been internally displaced because of the conflict.
Fifty years after the landmark encounter between the heads of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Jerusalem, Pope Francis will revisit the Holy Land amid continuing tension in the Middle East and lingering roadblocks to Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.
Proclaiming God as Creator means, first of all, saying that He is the origin of reality, of the whole universe. He is the origin of life. We also say that God acts in history. He is not a spectator who enjoys to see how we fare in life and perhaps enjoys our troubles. No! God hears the cry of the poor, sends a Liberator, prepares the ground for incarnation, and sends His only Son.
The poor you will always have with you” is perhaps the most enigmatic line in the four Gospels. Too often, it is used as an excuse not to intervene in behalf of those who do not share equitably in the gifts of God’s creation. It is a fatalistic response if taken boldly. The main issue for all of humanity is found in the Kingdom prayer – “Give us this day our daily bread.” This enigmatic comment appears shortly before Jesus’ execution when He is a guest at the house of Simon, the leper, where Jesus’ feet are anointed by Mary (the fact that He is with a leper, a marginalized person in society, means that Jesus Himself is tainted by association). This account is told in three of the four Gospels, which underscores certain significance. Strangely, it is not mentioned in Luke’s, often referred as the Gospel of the Poor because of the centrality Luke gives to them. The thinking of Jesus’ time was that the rich were blessed or favored by God while the poor were viewed as responsible for their own dire straits. This is a view that has been threaded through history and embraced by many today. Yet Jesus upends this worldview when he said: “How hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” The disciples were astonished at this. “Who then can be saved?” Popular thought held the rich were saved, the favorite of God. Luke demonstrates the change brought by Jesus when he is quoted as saying: “Blessed are you, poor,” and “Woe to you, rich!” If “the poor you will always have with you,” is perhaps the most enigmatic line in the Gospel, the most cynical is Luke’s judgment of the rich as having such hardness of heart that even if someone were to rise from the dead, the rich would not be convinced to change their ways. Of the three Gospels, only John mentions the motivation behind why the price of the ointment was not given to the poor. “This he (Judas) said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and, as he had the money box, he used to take what was put into it.” The episode mirrors the fact that, often, the poor are used by those who are the bank for the needy but mainly serve themselves first. A critic of government aid programs, Graham Hancock, lambasted the bureaucrats managing them as the primary beneficiary of public monies, and called them ‘lords of poverty.’ He argued that governmental aid programs should be largely eliminated as they failed to put the poor first. To understand “the poor you will always have with you,” one needs to look at a larger context. An observant Jew would have understood this quote as a reference to Deuteronomy 15: 7-10. It admonishes the faithful to act in behalf of those in need, with an open-handed, not a hardhearted or tightfisted, attitude. The teaching emphasizes lending freely whatever
