On the premise that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ and is therefore, a living church; I am writing here the feast days of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who up to this present time continues to be a messenger of the Holy Spirit to teach the complete Truth in the end of times through her many apparitions.

Filipinos, especially those in Batangas should not feel so bad about how church authorities handled the Lipa Apparitions in 1948. In fact, in India, there is the case of Our Lady’s apparitions which were neither authenticated nor decided upon either by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith or under its new name, Dicastery of the Doctrine of Faith. When Paul III established the original Sacred Congregation of Universal Inquisition in 1547, the events in the small town on Coromandel Coast by the Bay of Bengal, Tamil Nadu state, should have been investigated but we do know how limited communication was during the advent of Renaissance was. In fact, the 1948 apparition in Lipa which happened already in modern times and the authorities still failed in dialogue and transparency which led to confusion of the Filipino faithful. But the lessons of faith in Velankanni eludes intrigues and politicking by church officials and we are only happy to explore them in spite of the fact that they only involved legends which lent to credibility and therefore, faith. Not that we are espousing belief in Medjugorje, as it was found to teach heresy but this is a matter of how we discern spiritual fruits.

During the start of the EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) revolution, February 22, 1986, the forces under Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile gravitated in Camp Rafael Crame with the Commander in Chief’s forces ready to pounce on them. During that time Enrile, the Secretary of national defense was divulging that the alleged ambush attempt on his life was just staged in order to justify the imposition of martial law just as in the case of the so-called “Light a Fire” Movement. On the night of the break-up as Ramos and Enrile did not want being arrested, Jaime Cardinal Sin asked the people to bring food to the soldiers in Crame and if possibly protect Ramos’ group. On the next day multitudes of people came to answer the archbishop of Manila’s call.

It must have been a very charitable stance for the Catholic Church when its Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith came down with Fiducia Supplicans signed by its prefect, Victor Manuel Fernandez and fully-approved by Pope Francis. This doctrine presupposes that couples, even when living in sin, have the right to be blessed by any willing priest and that the priest concerned is doing them an act of charity short of the sacrament. We however, find this doctrine, although their lame excuse is that it is only pastoral, to be very dangerous as it has made sacramental blessing quite a simple commodity. Perhaps, it has somehow made the priest licentious in a “bless all you can” stance.

The Holy Spirit has given an insightful lesson on the practice of humility through nature. The Jordan River in Israel is the lowest body of water in the world. It is also the site where St. John, the Baptist baptized his cousin, Jesus Christ, our Lord during the start of His messianic ministry.

Each civilization or culture is endowed with examples of feminine supernatural powers. Egyptian and Greek civilizations are replete with goddesses of different shapes and orientations from where the people get their inspiration. In fact, some of them have crossed cultural currents in order to continue with the next set of people or generation. For instance, The Greek goddesses from Olympus simply acquired new names when they were adopted by pagan Rome such that Aphrodite simply became Venus, the goddess of love.

The anecdote on Bishop John Shojiro Ito’s meeting with the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger concerning the Akita apparitions while the latter was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith had a compelling message, in itself. Bishop Ito, Bishop of Niigata was the one who pronounced that the apparitions were worthy of belief and was seeking for higher approval from the Congregation. Even as he was just approaching, the future Pope Benedict XVI had to stop him curtly because he said there was no need any more to discuss the matter concerning the Akita apparitions. Even before he could protest being stopped however, the Cardinal told him that the apparitions were already approved because the messages from Akita were essentially the same as those of Fatima.

"In Athens, Socrates was a victim of a pure democracy, a passive submission to a pagan authority; In Russia, the family of Czar Nicholas II, was a victim of pure communism, an explosive subjugation from a godless revolution. Which is a better ideology? Any political entity would fail the people it serves when it is without God. And yet, perhaps one would ask, why in Jerusalem, under the Roman puppet kingdom of the Herod Agrippa, Jesus Christ was crucified or why in the Hejaz, in the Arab wasteland of the Nomads; Mohamed, the greatest prophet of Allah and his band were killing tribesmen; both in the name of God."

Ricardo B de los Santos
Principal, SAID, -July,1984
“Leadership Training”, LPMHS