Group plans to build solidarity with trip to Philippines
In the basement of St. Anthony Church in Anchorage, a group of young adults from a handful of parishes has been discussing global solidarity, what it means to be part of one human family. The gatherings are preparing some of them, along with Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz, to visit the people of Butuan on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
The 10-day trip planned for this winter is part of a larger process to establish a "global solidarity partnership" between the Archdiocese of Anchorage and the Diocese of Butuan.
Sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, the partnership program links U.S. Catholics with people the relief organization serves in other countries.
The idea behind the program is that getting to know one another is essential to building solidarity between people of different countries and cultures.
Faith-sharing, education, project support and exchange visits help people in partnered dioceses "reach across borders and other kinds of boundaries," Doug Ryan, Catholic Relief Services’ representative to the Philippines in Manila, wrote in an e-mail interview with the Anchor.
"Filipinos and Alaskans will be working to understand each others’ realities, what motivates them as Catholics, what each other’s central concerns are as communities, and how each can nourish and enrich the other," Ryan wrote.
American visitors are introduced to the work of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas aid agency, in their partner diocese.
Through a parish in Mindanao, Catholic Relief Services helps farmers improve food production and maintain the health and ownership of ancestral land at risk of degradation or exploitation, usually by international logging companies, Ryan wrote.
Relief workers also support refugees who have fled violence between the armed forces of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Islamic group has been fighting for an autonomous Muslim state in Mindanao for decades, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in the process.
Catholic Relief Services facilitates a peace and reconciliation project in Mindanao that promotes peace building between Christians, Muslims and Lumads — the island’s indigenous peoples.
Archbishop Schwietz, a Catholic Relief Services board member, has been preparing for the Anchorage-Butuan partnership with archdiocesan leaders for months. When he suggested that it involve the archdiocese’s young adults, Father Fred Bugarin, pastor of St. Anthony Parish, assembled a "very dynamic, very enthusiastic" group of young people for the project.
The "Alaska Young Adults for Global Solidarity" group gathers a few times a month.
Antonette Advincula, a 24-year-old St. Anthony parishioner, is one of several Filipinos in the roughly 15-member group.
A lesson Advincula learned with the group has become a motivating mantra, she said: Global solidarity is about "peace-building, advocacy and humanitarianism."
Fellow member RaeShaun Bibbs pointed out that the mere existence of a young adult group working together for social justice is unique. Most of her peers in their 20s are busy building careers or cultivating new marriages, she said, noting also that her age-group often "gets lost" in the stratification of parish life.
Participation in the young adult group has already reinforced Bibbs’ sensitivity to how seemingly insignificant consumer decisions may impact another region’s economy and environment, she said. "There’s a connection with everything."
There’s already a connection between the Anchorage and Butuan dioceses. St. Anthony’s Father Bugarin was born in the Philippines and raised there until his family immigrated to Alaska when he was 14, he returned to his native homeland as a priest and spent eight years with Maryknoll missionaries in Mindanao.
Also, three Filipino priests on loan from the Butuan Diocese are currently ministering in Anchorage.
Angela Liston, director of the Anchorage Archdiocese’s Department of Justice and Peace, said the current state of world affairs makes the partnership and Catholic Relief Services’ peace and reconciliation project in Mindanao all the more significant.
"What better time in world history to be talking about peace and reconciliation between Muslims, Christians and indigenous people than now?" she said.
For more information about the global solidarity partnership call Angela Liston at 297-7731 or visit the Web site www.peaceaction.org/AYAGS.