An ocean apart, 2 dioceses together
Archbishop Schwietz issues challenge to ‘reach out from our comfortableness
Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos heads a lush rural diocese on the tropical island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, but spent an autumn week in Alaska at the invitation of Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz. Though an ocean apart, the two men share a desire — to establish a "global solidarity partnership" that will link their dioceses for the mutual benefit of their Catholic people.
The partnership project is coordinated by Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development organization, which operates in Bishop Pueblos’ Butuan Diocese in Mindanao. Archbishop Schwietz is one of 12 bishops on Catholic Relief Services’ board of directors.
"For me, it’s a dream come true," Bishop Pueblos said of the partnership. It’s not just a First World service project in a Third World country, but rather a "journey together toward the building of that new heaven, a new earth … the kingdom of God," Bishop Pueblos told the Anchor at the end of his Oct. 6-13 stay in Anchorage.
"We learn from you, then you learn also from us — and that’s the concept of a church," he explained. "We need each other."
The bishop helped celebrate the beginning of the new partnership at a kickoff event called "An Evening in the Philippines" Oct. 11 at East Anchorage’s St. Anthony Parish.
He and Archbishop Schwietz concelebrated a Mass with Filipino American priest Father Fred Bugarin, pastor of St. Anthony, and three priests from the Butuan Diocese who are currently "on loan" to the archdiocese: Father Luzvimindo Flores, Father Vincent Blanco and Father Nelson Marilag.
That evening, Archbishop Schwietz challenged people in the pews at St. Anthony to "reach out from our comfortableness" to build a "relationship of mutuality with people of faith around the world."
Similar Struggles
Southcentral Alaska’s bustling Filipino community and the shared priests already form a natural bond between the seemingly odd-coupled dioceses, and Bishop Pueblos pointed out another similarity.
Mindanao, called the "last frontier" of the Philippines, is, like Alaska, a rural paradise that is rich in natural resources — timber, gold, copper and farmland. While that is a blessing, Bishop Pueblos said, the resources are also a point of contention between multinational corporations, indigenous people and the Philippine government.
"The investors will siphon everything and will just leave us with bones and skeletons," he said, adding that many indigenous people who have claimed the land for generations have been displaced by developers.
Bishop Pueblos told about a couple he married in Butuan years ago. He reconnected with them later in Manila and learned they had sold their farm and were living in an empty cargo crate with their three young children.
"I am convinced that peace will be achieved through development — and development first and foremost must be human development," Bishop Pueblos said. Otherwise, he said, economic progress is counterproductive.
Part of Catholic Relief Services’ commitment to the poor translates to engaging local people in decisions affecting the use of their resources, said Doug Ryan, Catholic Relief Services’ country representative in the Philippines. Ryan, who lives in Manila, joined Bishop Pueblos and Archbishop Schwietz in Anchorage to guide the partnership setup.
"You can’t have governments just making deals willy-nilly with all kinds of people coming in to take things out of the country. You have to get local people who are affected by the mining or the logging or the dam involved, and they have to set the rules of engagement with the companies," Ryan said.
Visit to Butuan
In December, Archbishop Schwietz, Father Bugarin, Most Precious Blood Sister Joan Barina and four Anchorage Catholics will take the next step in solidifying the partnership by traveling to Butuan. The Dec. 3-12 trip will take them to the northeastern part of Mindanao, a region that Bishop Pueblos said is "one of the most peaceful parts of the Philippines."
Elsewhere on the island, fighting continues between the armed forces of the Philippines and a rebel group that has been trying to establish an autonomous Muslim state on Mindanao since the 1970s.
Visiting and getting to know one another is key to the success of the global solidarity partnership, according to Ryan.
When a well-informed, active Catholic from the United States meets another Catholic living in poverty in a country very different from their own, he said, it cultivates a sense of communion between people and a new understanding of abstract concepts like common good and solidarity. U.S. Catholics often discover a "depth and texture of the spirituality of people — particularly the poor" that he said may be lacking in their own communities.
Bishop Pueblos added that the people of his diocese may not be materially wealthy, but that they still have much to offer their American partners.
When people rely on each other to be able to eat every day, individualism is replaced with a "strong sense of communion," the bishop said. "That is the beauty of Mindanao."
Youthful Energy
Ruel Binonwangan is a member of St. Anthony Parish’s "Alaska Young Adults for Global Solidarity" group. Since midsummer, the group of about 15 young adults has been planning fund-raisers and cementing their commitment to bridging the two dioceses.
With the help of Father Bugarin and the archdiocese’s Peace and Justice Office director, Angela Liston, the group put on the Oct. 11 kickoff event, "An Evening in the Philippines." Over 300 people attended the feast, which featured comments by the bishops and others and traditional Filipino dances.
Filipino American Binonwangan, a civil engineer in the U.S. Air Force, spent his childhood farming rice and corn in the mountains of Luzon, the main Philippine island in the North.
Though his family once was without electricity and running water he said he remembers the "upbeat spirit" of his homeland and said Anchorage visitors to Butuan can learn from that sense of community and happiness despite poverty.
Claudio Glooschenko, another member of the young adult group, is traveling with the archbishop to Butuan because Catholics in both places are "basically one huge family," he said. The Brazil native stood behind buffet trays for hours serving fried lumpia during the "Evening in the Philippines."
Glooschenko was encouraged to see people tasting traditional Filipino food for the first time and coming back for more, "so hopefully people will try other new things. You grow from that," he said.