Monday, March 19, 2018

On the Resignation of Bishop Palang



The news on Pope Francis’ recent acceptance of Bishop Antonio P. Palang’s resignation came to my knowledge last Sunday, 5th Sunday of Lent. The official Pontifical action was released by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) and though I am now away from organized religion, the news made me reflect for a while and uttered a prayer for the spiritually-confined 71-year old and sickly prelate who is my employer since he was ordained bishop in May 2002 until my separation from the diocese’s social action apostolate in 2012.  

In John 12:20-23, the gospel that day, Jesus speaks about the grain of wheat that must fall (resign?) to the ground for its eventual fruition. The almost rotten seeds kept in a jar for a very long time ought to reach its true destination, which is the soil, to be truly productive and relevant. With this latest development in our Local Church, big social challenge is ahead of her.

Complete. The road we aim to tread must be complete as the important and divine events of the Holy Week: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday and Easter Sunday. We cannot allow one occasion of holiness and mystery be left behind. It is written, “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world. The old order has gone and a new order has already begun” (2 Cor. 5:17) for God is not a God of burned things and ashes but of renewed things, as I have written some years back.

Bishop David William V. Antonio was officially installed February 12, 2016 as administrator of Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose and now reappointed by Pope Francis to take full charge of the local church as mandated by the Roman Pontiff until the seat for the Vicar Apostolic is occupied.

Three years ago, Bishop Palang gained attention in the US when he issued an official statement in defense of his priest, Fr. Fernando Suarez, from a memorandum of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or USCCB alarming their local dioceses over Suarez’ healing masses there. The prelate protected him against the alleged “damaged caused to the reputation” of Fr. Suarez by the Conference in a statement he released April 20, 2015.

The vicariate’s pastoral nets must again cast into the deep sea of pressing needs, immediate concerns and urgent social questions via her pastoral and administrative thrusts. The seed’s falling is just a transition to a new life as emphasized in yesterday’s gospel. God aspire for a truly complete new life for our Church, His seed.

The Swiss critic and theologian Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet said centuries ago: “Resignation is the courage of Christian sorrow.” It is, indeed in this case...

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(Photo: Roderick Ignacio FB Account)


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1 comment:

  1. It is okey if he resigned voluntarily, but being forced to resign is tantamount to have been bullied by the CBCP itself. Church politics is worse than of the Government politics, at least in Occ. Mindoro.

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