Delegation begins partnership trip to Philippine parish
Editor’s Note: Anchor Writer Kelly DuFort is currently in the Philippines with the Anchorage Archdiocese delegation that is visiting the Archdiocese of Cotabato. She will be reporting on the trip when she returns.
As members of a universal church, Catholic people are called to live in solidarity with others as one human family that will cross borders to work for peace and justice.
That’s the thinking behind the global solidarity partnership program sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development agency. The agency links U.S. dioceses with partner dioceses in countries where Catholic Relief Services operates in order to foster relationships that go beyond the rich writing checks for the poor.
Seven people from the Anchorage Archdiocese departed Oct. 30 to travel with Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz and a Catholic Relief Services representative to the archdiocese’s new global solidarity partner, the Archdiocese of Cotabato on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
Last month, Archbishop Schwietz addressed members of the delegation traveling to Mindanao.
"We cannot forever see ourselves as a missionary diocese being helped by other people," he said. The partnership is "part of the process of growing up as a local church."
Last December, the archbishop and seven Alaska Catholics made an exploratory Philippines visit to the Butuan Diocese northeast of Cotabato City. They experienced the hospitality of the people of Mindanao, who, they said, flocked to roadsides and parishes to greet them with banners, feasts and ceremonious welcomes into indigenous tribes. Archbishop Schwietz continues to partner with Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos there independent of the new Catholic Relief Services partnership program.
What appealed to Archbishop Schwietz about beginning a global solidarity partnership with the Cotabato Archdiocese was, he said, the peace-building components of the Catholic Relief Services’ programs there in which Muslim, Christian and indigenous people work together in health clinics and through child-survival programs and peace and reconciliation projects.
Last year, he visited a Cotabato City medical clinic where Christian and Muslim staff and doctors treat patients in a largely Muslim region. Within the Cotabato Archdiocese, about 58 percent of 1.6 million people are Catholic.
"They’re very interested in trying to build up this culture of mutual understanding and cooperation," the archbishop said, adding that there’s a "very strong desire" of the people in the Cotabato Archdiocese to invite Alaskans to participate in peace-building efforts.
The Philippines, made up of about 7,100 islands, has a population of 86 million, about 83 percent are Catholic and 5 percent, Muslim. Mindanao, roughly the size of Indiana, is home to many indigenous groups and also the majority of the country’s Muslim population.
The last 30 years in Mindanao have been marked by intermittent violent conflict mainly between the Philippines army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a guerrilla group that has been fighting the Manila government since the 1970s.
Last year Catholic Relief Services workers drafted a report attempting to identify the "varied and complex" sources of conflict in Mindanao.
"Viewing the situation exclusively through the prism of religion generates a distorted and incomplete image of reality," the draft explains.
In Baltimore, Michelle Born, a global programs officer with Catholic Relief Services, is helping to organize the Anchorage-Cotabato partnership. She said programs in Mindanao have become "front-runners in a new wave of peace-building approaches."
Catholic Relief Services’ Web site explains that the organization is "promoting right relationships" between Mindanao’s diverse residents. The relief agency is also "working to address the economic issues that underlie the conflict, including Mindanao’s disproportionately high rates of poverty and chronically low levels of human development," according to the Catholic Relief Services Web site. "This dual focus reflects our belief that peace and development are inextricably linked."
The Alaska delegation, scheduled to return Nov. 9, will learn about the agency’s work in community health projects, promoting tolerance among Muslim, Christian and indigenous people and also sustainable farming techniques in the largely agricultural region.
Archbishop Schwietz told the Anchor that the solidarity partnership with the Cotabato Archdiocese provides an opportunity to learn more about Muslim people.
"I really think it’s important for us as Americans to try to get to know the Muslim culture better," he said. "We have a responsibility to try to understand where they’re coming from… , and beyond that — how they look at us as Americans. I think if we became a little bit more sensitive to how we come across to other cultures, we can be more effective in trying to help them," the archbishop said.
Currently, Catholic Relief Services has partnered at least 11 dioceses and regions in the United States with people in countries such as Cuba, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya and Nicaragua.