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Our Actions are our Future. This year’s theme of the World Food Day Celebration couldn’t articulate more the significance and urgency of the need to address the increasing magnitude of poverty and hunger worldwide.

We, from the Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc., a network of civil society organizations, rights groups, peace and faith-based institutions hope that the 2018 World Food Day celebration manifest the very essence of it, particularly to effect change to the lives of Filipino people living in extreme poverty and hunger.

Our country is an agricultural country and as ironic as it gets, the people who are providing us food, our farmers and fisherfolks are among the poorest of the poor according to Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). PSA record shows that these sectors have the highest poverty incidence in 2015 at 34.3 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

The survey conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) from September 15-23, 2018 revealed that 13.3% or an estimated 3.1 million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months. While 821 million people or one in nine of the world’s population faced food shortage in 2017 according to a UN report.

These numbers are alarming and warrant urgent and strategic actions. However, our government either put aside the issue or address it in depraved way.

In the Philippines, farmers have been struggling to keep their livelihoods afloat because of debts they cannot repay for seeds and chemical inputs owned by business companies. This is on top of the concerns on the impact of climate change to agriculture, the emergence of genetically modified organisms (GMO) that threatens the very ecosystem, the lack of new farmer practitioners and thus further threatening food security. Likewise, the enactment of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act (TRAIN) exacerbates the condition of the lives of people especially those who are living in below poverty line.

Living a dignified life means having access to food, including the other basic needs like shelter and clothing. Unfortunately, not all people enjoy this opportunity thus, some poor people struggle more just to survive by collecting and eating leftover food. The food waste produced globally is so staggering that each year, 1.6 billion tons of food worth about $1.2 trillion are lost or go to waste, one-third of the total amount of food produced globally.

On this celebration of World Food Day, we highlight our grave concern on the emergence of GMOs. PMPI strongly opposes the looming field trials of golden rice in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija and San Mateo, Isabela. Golden rice variety poses a threat to environment, public health, and farmers’ livelihood. It is just another scheme by the agrochemical transnational corporations (TNCs) to control the sector of food and agriculture, which would later on making the farmers dependent on their patented genetically modified seeds and expensive chemical inputs.

We also want to highlight the threat on food security brought by large-scale, destructive mining. Below are some of the experiences of PMPI’s Sites-Of-Struggle (SOS)* Communities, incidentally, are also food producing areas, namely:

‘All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all’

October 14, 2018 11:49
Deborah Castellano Lubov

This morning in St. Peter’s Square, before a crowd of about 70,000 people, Pope Francis presided over Holy Mass for the canonization of the saints while the Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment is underway in the Vatican, Oct. 3-28, 2018.
He also proclaimed canonized saints Francesco Spinelli, Vincenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper, Nazaria Ignazia of Saint Teresa of Jesus, and Nunzio Sulprizio.

Pope Francis began recalling that today’s second reading tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two- edged sword (Heb 4:12).

“It really is: God’s word is not merely a set of truths or an edifying spiritual account; no – it is a living word that touches our lives, that transforms our lives. There, Jesus in person, the living Word of God, speaks to our hearts.”
The Gospel, he continued, invites us to an encounter with the Lord, after the example of the “man” who “ran up to him” (cf. Mk 10:17). The Pope pointed out that we can recognize ourselves in that man, as he asks Jesus how “to inherit eternal life” (v. 17).

“He is seeking life without end, life in its fullness: who of us would not want this? Yet we notice that he asks for it as an inheritance, as a good to be obtained, to be won by his own efforts. In fact, in order to possess this good, he has observed the commandments from his youth and to achieve this he is prepared to follow others; and so he asks: “What must I do to have eternal life?”

Jesus’ answer catches him off guard, the Pope said, reminding Jesus told him:“Sell what you have and give to the poor…and come, follow me” (v. 21). To you, too, the Pope noted, Jesus says: “Come, follow me!”

Seek Him Every Day, God as Meaning of Your Life

“Follow me: do not walk behind Jesus only when you want to, but seek him out every day; do not be content to keep the commandments, to give a little alms and say a few prayers: find in Him the God who always loves you; seek in Jesus the God who is the meaning of your life, the God who gives you the strength to give of yourself.”

“We cannot truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things. Because if our hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who will become just one thing among the others.” The Pope noted that where money is at the center, there is no room for God nor for man.

Local Sustainability Events Around the Globe

Religious and spiritual communities launch the global “Time for Living the Change” (7th October through 2nd December 2018) with a week of local sustainability events and celebrations around the world. Faith leaders and community members will make sustainable living commitments towards low-carbon lifestyles as part of Living the Change, an international, multi-faith initiative mobilizing people of diverse faiths to commit to sustainable lifestyles.

This will be a joyous occasion to come together as an international, interfaith movement for changes towards sustainable living.

We want to:

• align ourselves with our deepest faith values
• allow a future for all and take care of the Earth our home
• reduce greehousegas emissions and prevent waste and harm
• send a strong message to others in our communities and to decision-makers in business and government

Let us

• share and celebrate the changes we are able to lead in our own lives to allow a flourishing world for all.
• share our stories of change, transformation, and regeneration.
• lift up leaders and sustainable solutions in our own community.
• learn from one another.
• offer guidance around transitioning towards sustainable living.

And, most importantly, let us celebrate this together!

Please join GreenFaith and our global and national faith partners as we celebrate this milestone for our shared journey in Living the Change.

To learn more, visit the WLT website: https://livingthechange.net/global-week 

I, Andreas Choi Chang-mou, Archbishop of Kwangju, exercising this episcopal office according to the gracious concern and mandate of the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and thanking God always for His mercy and grace, promulgate, after serious reflection, the following decree for the unity and communion of the ecclesiastical community (Cf. Can. 391):

First, I judge that ‘those who believe in Julia Youn in Naju and all related phenomena’ no longer have the intention to be in unity and harmony with the Catholic Church, because they have not acceded to and have opposed archdiocesan notifications (on January 1, 1998 and on May 5, 2005) and pastoral directives (on May 5, 2001). When between March and August 2003 I and accompanying witnesses visited the place of Julia Youn Hong-sun and her husband Julio Kim Man-bok and talked with them, I asked them to lead a normal life of faith [to attend Sunday Mass at the parish, to receive the Sacrament of Penance and Holy Communion (Cf. Can. 920,989), and to donate the denarius cultus to the parish] and I presented directives (to submit records of fund raising and of all gifts and goods received). They, however, have ignored these requests and directives. Moreover, they have not acceded to the final warning of the archdiocese in February 2005. Instead they have continuously claimed that ‘Julia Youn in Naju and all related phenomena’ are a ‘private revelation’ or ‘miracles’. They have also raised money for the construction of an alleged ‘temple’. They have pretended to be recognized by the Roman Pontiff or the Apostolic See. Through printed materials and online media (such as public relations brochures, publications, newspaper articles, the internet, and so on), they have libelled the Archbishop of Kwangju, and the Korean bishops, and even the entire Catholic Church in Korea.

Therefore, I am led to the final conclusion that their actions and attitude are not in accord with Catholic practice and thought and that they are not promoting a sound devotion and cult.

Thus, I declare that the clergy, religious, or laity who preside over or attend the celebration of the sacraments or sacramentals, against my prohibition, at any alleged ‘oratory’ or the ‘hill of Our Lady in Naju’ incur a latae sententiae excommunication (Cf. Can. 1336,1364). In doing so they are disobeying the pastoral directives and judgement of the Ordinary and they are thereby breaching Canon Law (Cf. Can. 1369,1371,1373) and destroying ecclesiastical unity and communion. This decree binds all the clergy, religious, and laity in the Archdiocese of Kwangju as well as all the faithful in the Catholic Church.

Second, I confirm that Fr. Aloysius Chang Hong-bin, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kwangju, no longer has the intention to be in unity and harmony with the archdiocesan presbyterium, because he claims that ‘Julia Youn in Naju and all related phenomena’ are a ‘private revelation’ and ‘miracles’ and that following them is a matter of choice that the faithful make in accord with their ‘conscience’. Also on several occasions he has not observed the solemn promise of obedience to his Ordinary that he made at ordination. He has not changed and defended his opinion regarding ‘Julia Youn in Naju and all related phenomena’ in two meetings with the Archdiocesan College of Consultors (on June 1, 2007 and on January 15, 2008). Thus, he has shown himself as ‘one of those who believe in Julia Youn in Naju and all related phenomena’ rather than a diocesan priest who observes the obligation of obedience to his Ordinary (Cf. Can. 273,278).

Therefore, Aloysius Chang Hong-bin no longer possesses the title and rights of a priest of the Archdiocese of Kwangju, and all ‘common faculties attaching to diocesan priests in Korea’ previously bestowed by sacred ordination are revoked (Cf. Can. 194,1333,1336,1371).

07 October 2018
Daisy Arago
CTUHR Executive Director

Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) Served at SUMIFRU Srike for Economic Gains, Says DOLE: ‘Whose Economic Gains?,’ Workers Ask

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