With permission from the Author, Carlos Antonio Palad, I am posting his article which appeared originally in Rorate Coeli. Hoping that this will help our friends understand the situation of the Traditional Catholic Community in the Manila and in the Philippines. Let us pray and include this in our intentions this Holy Week.
By Carlos Antonio Palad
The news from The Tablet is presently eliciting cries of joy and gratitude from the little community in Metro Manila of those attached to the Missal of 1962. Although we had been hearing rumors of an intervention from the Holy See, we had not seen any concrete signs of this, and up to last night (it is now morning of April 4 in Manila) the traditional faithful in Manila and the surrounding dioceses where still working on a formal appeal to Rome, with the encouragement of Una Voce International.
The traditional community in Manila is very small and must move very cautiously. There is one small group in the City of Manila itself (having a monthly TLM in its tiny, hidden chapel celebrated by an extremely aged monsignor who never stopped offering the Traditional Mass through the 1970's and 1980's, and who has to travel for hours every month to Manila, just to offer the Mass), and a much larger group of Catholic charismatics who had fallen in love with the old rite, based in the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong (Makati is the business district).
For reasons of the local ecclesiastical climate, it had been thought best to seek a reconsideration from the Arzobispado de Manila, before sending an appeal to Rome. A meeting was repeatedly sought by those who petitioned for the TLM with a representative of the Archdiocese; one was finally secured for March 30, but the representative did not show up. It was after this no-show that the faithful most affected by the Guidelines gave the signal for the appeal to be sent. Little did we know that last March 6, Rome had already denounced the Guidelines.
In the meantime, the support of two theologians of stature was secured for the appeal, and a very prominent canon lawyer from the USA kindly revised the draft of the appeal. Traditional Catholic faithful from all over the Philippines, including several priests, indicated their readiness to sign up for the appeal. Holy Week was indicated as the time to gather the physical signatures; indeed, even as the Tablet was publishing its report the final draft of the appeal was being encoded.
And now this news report. Deo gratias!
Still, caution is necessary. The past few months have not been easy for Summorum Pontificum in the Philippines. The sad story of how the Diocese of Malolos (suffragan of Manila) unceremoniously lost its Traditional Mass has been chronicled in this blog, in connection with the death of Monsignor Moises Andrade. In the meantime, the Archbishop of Ozamiz, Msgr. Jesus Dosado, declared that no TLM can be celebrated in his archdiocese without his permission, and the Archdiocese of Davao also lost its every-Sunday Traditional Mass, thus leaving the entire island of Mindanao (the southern third of the Philppines) without a single public Traditional Mass aside from those offered by the SSPX.
The only bright spot is Cebu, where Ricardo Cardinal Vidal has been very supportive of the TLM. Cebu now has two Sunday TLM's plus the FFI monastery there now has the TLM three days per week (but not yet on Sundays).
The appeal is temporarily "on ice", but it can be easily activated if the situation in Manila does not improve at all despite this direct command from Rome for the Archdiocese to actively promote the Traditional Mass.
I will come up shortly with a revised list of TLM's in the Philippines.
Thank you to all friends of Tradition all over the world, who have helped to publicize the situation in Manila.
Now, I think it is time to help the Traditional faithful in Jakarta, Indonesia and Davao, the southern Philippines. Let us do what we can to help the faithful in these places.
The traditional community in Manila is very small and must move very cautiously. There is one small group in the City of Manila itself (having a monthly TLM in its tiny, hidden chapel celebrated by an extremely aged monsignor who never stopped offering the Traditional Mass through the 1970's and 1980's, and who has to travel for hours every month to Manila, just to offer the Mass), and a much larger group of Catholic charismatics who had fallen in love with the old rite, based in the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong (Makati is the business district).
For reasons of the local ecclesiastical climate, it had been thought best to seek a reconsideration from the Arzobispado de Manila, before sending an appeal to Rome. A meeting was repeatedly sought by those who petitioned for the TLM with a representative of the Archdiocese; one was finally secured for March 30, but the representative did not show up. It was after this no-show that the faithful most affected by the Guidelines gave the signal for the appeal to be sent. Little did we know that last March 6, Rome had already denounced the Guidelines.
In the meantime, the support of two theologians of stature was secured for the appeal, and a very prominent canon lawyer from the USA kindly revised the draft of the appeal. Traditional Catholic faithful from all over the Philippines, including several priests, indicated their readiness to sign up for the appeal. Holy Week was indicated as the time to gather the physical signatures; indeed, even as the Tablet was publishing its report the final draft of the appeal was being encoded.
And now this news report. Deo gratias!
Still, caution is necessary. The past few months have not been easy for Summorum Pontificum in the Philippines. The sad story of how the Diocese of Malolos (suffragan of Manila) unceremoniously lost its Traditional Mass has been chronicled in this blog, in connection with the death of Monsignor Moises Andrade. In the meantime, the Archbishop of Ozamiz, Msgr. Jesus Dosado, declared that no TLM can be celebrated in his archdiocese without his permission, and the Archdiocese of Davao also lost its every-Sunday Traditional Mass, thus leaving the entire island of Mindanao (the southern third of the Philppines) without a single public Traditional Mass aside from those offered by the SSPX.
The only bright spot is Cebu, where Ricardo Cardinal Vidal has been very supportive of the TLM. Cebu now has two Sunday TLM's plus the FFI monastery there now has the TLM three days per week (but not yet on Sundays).
The appeal is temporarily "on ice", but it can be easily activated if the situation in Manila does not improve at all despite this direct command from Rome for the Archdiocese to actively promote the Traditional Mass.
I will come up shortly with a revised list of TLM's in the Philippines.
Thank you to all friends of Tradition all over the world, who have helped to publicize the situation in Manila.
Now, I think it is time to help the Traditional faithful in Jakarta, Indonesia and Davao, the southern Philippines. Let us do what we can to help the faithful in these places.
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