MANILA (LiCAS News): “Pope Francis has now returned to the Father, but his legacy as a supreme pontiff—that is, as bridge-builder—will never be forgotten by the Church,” said Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David, the bishop of Kalookan and head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said on April 21, on the death of Pope Francis. The cardinal called on the faithful to pray for the eternal repose of Pope Francis as well as carry forward the late pope’s call to become a “missionary synodal Church.”
Cardinal David, one of three Filipino cardinals created by the late pope, said that he was a “shepherd who walked with his people, often choosing the dusty road toward the peripheries rather than the comfort of the center.”
He recalled Pope Francis’ key messages in his apostolic exhortations and encyclicals, citing Evangelii Gaudium [Joy of the Gospel, 2013] and Fratelli Tutti [On Fraternity and Social Friendship, 2020] where he called for a more welcoming Church amid complex challenges faced by the
“[He] reminded us that the heart of the gospel beats most strongly where pain, poverty, and exclusion dwell. He invited us to be a listening Church—one that opens its ears to the cries of the people and its heart to the stirrings of the Spirit,” said Cardinal David.
In Laudato Si’ [Praise be, 2015] and Laudate Deum [Praise God, 2023], Pope Francis “taught us to see the earth as our common home, entrusted to our care, especially for the sake of the generations to come,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal David, who played a prominent role in the recent Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, said that “through his vision of synodality, Pope Francis challenged us to rediscover the Church not as a fortress, but as a field hospital—welcoming, healing, and journeying together.”
The cardinal also recalled the late pope’s tribute to the Filipino diaspora during a milestone event in the Philippine Church —the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in the islands in 2021.
“And with his characteristic wit and warmth, he once called our Overseas Filipino migrant workers ‘contrabandistas de la fe’—smugglers of the faith—reminding us that the witness of simple, faithful lives can cross borders and touch hearts where formal missionaries cannot go,” he said.
Noting that the pope’s death occurred at the beginning of the Eastertide, marked by the joy of Christ’s resurrection, Cardinal David again recalled the late pope’s words to Filipinos: “It is okay to shed tears of sorrow during this joyful Easter Octave. After all, it was he who reminded us that ‘we can only see more clearly through eyes washed by tears.’”
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
This was the pope’s moving response to 12-year-old Glyzelle Palomar’s query about why God allowed suffering in the world, during a meeting with 30,000 young people at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila near the tail-end of his historic 2015 apostolic visit to the Philippines.
Cardinal David, along with Jose Cardinal Advincula of Manila, is expected to travel to Rome to witness the pope’s funeral and join Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, the highest-ranking Filipino in the Vatican Curia.
