December 31, 2004 - Issue #26
Local News | Opinion/Editorials | Letters to the Editor
Filipino tradition comes to Alaska for the first time
For the first time, natives of the Philippines in the Archdiocese of Anchorage celebrated a centuries-old Filipino tradition in the parishes of their adopted Alaska home.
"Simbang Gabi" (pronounced "sim-BONG guh-BEE") is a novena of Masses offered on each of the nine days before Christmas and accompanied by celebrations that include traditional Filipino foods and music.
"I feel like we’re pioneers here," said Marijes Apostol, who grew up in the Philippines and transported elders to the Anchorage Masses. "This is something we can pass on to the kids, and hopefully some day each parish will have their own Simbang Gabi."
A Mass offered by Archbishop Roger Schwietz on Dec. 16 at Holy Family Cathedral kicked off the novena of prayer and festivity, which moved each evening to different churches and one chapel in the Anchorage Bowl.
The archbishop delighted the crowd of 300 people when he spoke a few words in Tagalog, one of the main dialects spoken in the Philippines.
After the Simbang Gabi Masses, revelers enjoyed a potluck banquet, called a "salo-salo." Traditional Filipino foods such as "bibingka," or rice cakes, and "puto bumbong," rice steamed in bamboo tubes, were served at the events. The churches were filled with the sound of Christmas carols offered in native dialects, and the traditional five-point star, called a "parol," adorned each altar.
In the Philippines, Simbang Gabi is such a major part of liturgical life that the Southeast Asian country’s bishops publish a special missalette for the celebration, according to Father Ron Licayan, parochial vicar at Anchorage’s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish. Father Licayan came from the Philippines in October.Father Licayan, who grew up in a rural area, remembers the early-morning music and bells calling the people to Mass. Simbang Gabi, he said, is traditionally celebrated in the wee morning hours to accommodate the farmers and fishermen on their way to work.
The tradition has adapted to U.S. culture by moving to the evening, but the spirit of the festivities remains the same, Anchorage Filipinos said.
After the morning Mass, Father Licayan recalled, everyone would enjoy the food and then go right to work or school rather than returning home for breakfast.
"This celebration is very much in the blood and bones of the Filipinos here," said Peter Zografos, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Evangelization, which sponsored the event in conjunction with Filipino groups in Anchorage.
George Kingsteele, a Holy Family parishioner who has been in the United States since 1977, said his grandmother still sings in the choir for Simbang Gabi in the Philippines. He said having the celebration here "will hopefully unite all Filipinos in Alaska. We look forward to many more years."
Zografos said he also hopes that unity results from the event. He said his office got involved and helped spread the word about Simbang Gabi because "liturgy is an evangelizing event, and evangelization and liturgy begin with hospitality."
Parishes hosting Simbang Gabi were, in addition to the cathedral, St. Benedict, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Anthony, Providence Hospital Chapel, St. Patrick, Holy Cross and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Simbang Gabi participants returned to their home parishes for the final night of the novena, Christmas Eve.
The tradition of Simbang Gabi dates to the 16th century, tracing its roots to Mexico where the first outdoor Masses at dawn were held for peasants who had overflowed the churches.After Spanish friars introduced the custom to the Philippines, the people adopted it enthusiastically. It fit culturally with other nine-day festivities that celebrated occasions such as good harvests.
Awakened as early as 3 a.m. by bells ringing throughout the town, people would gather before farmers set out for their pre-dawn treks to the fields.Kingsteele remembers that in his hometown, bands playing carols would often stroll through the streets in the darkness waking people for the celebration.
The Anchorage Archdiocese is home to five priests from the Philippines. Father Luzvimindo Flores, the eldest of the group and a chaplain at Providence Alaska Medical Center, took a leadership role in Simbang Gabi. Others who participated in the novena include Father Licayan, Father Fred Bugarin, pastor of St. Anthony, and Father Vincent Blanco, parochial vicar at Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Father Nelson Marilag, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Kodiak, is also from the Philippines.
Although it’s hard to pinpoint the number of Filipino Catholics in Anchorage, Victoria Garcia from St. Benedict, a member of the Filipino community, said there may be as many as 3,000.
Crowds averaged over 200 a night for Simbang Gabi, but Zografos said more publicity will probably raise attendance next year. And he plans to assist other ethnic groups in planning liturgical events that have meaning to their culture, he said."The intersection between liturgy and culture is where the sacred is found," he said.
Theology on Tap gains in popularity
At first glance, it looks like a typical group of 20- to 40-year-olds enjoying dinner and a beverage of choice at downtown Anchorage’s popular Snow Goose Restaurant.
A closer look, however, reveals another layer to the scene — the diners are all focused on a speaker discussing a topic not frequently brought up in such a place: Roman Catholic theology.
Welcome to Theology on Tap, the national program that brings young-adult catechetics to a favorite young adult setting: the pub.
Theology on Tap was introduced in Anchorage last December and has organized more or less monthly gatherings at the Snow Goose.
"We are all questioners; that’s part of knowing," said Stan Grove, November’s Theology on Tap guest speaker, covering the subject of St. Thomas Aquinas’ "Reason’s Path to God." "Faith is more than just reading the Bible, it’s a realization of what we know."
It appears that Anchorage’s young adult crowd is adhering to the guiding words of the saint, seeking greater knowledge of the teachings and history of the Catholic Church.
"There seems to be a real lack of young adult ministry (in Anchorage) and the Holy Spirit really works when there is a need not being meet," said Anastasia Kenney, a member of the planning team for Theology on Tap and a Holy Family Cathedral parishioner. "It’s very enriching to now have this communal support to live a more religious life."
Theology on Tap has brought in presenters to speak on subjects ranging from "symbolism and sacrifice" to "Christian feminism." Archbishop Roger Schwietz has also presented several times, addressing such hot topics as proposed liturgical changes and Catholic politicians’ responsibilities.Theology on Tap continues to grow and bring speakers. Starting a year ago with around 20 people — many who were on the planning team — Theology on Tap now regularly draws around 50 people each month.
"It’s appealing to the 20-plus crowd for sure," said Chris Hodel, who has been a regular at Theology on Tap since its inception. "It’s an easy-going, relaxing atmosphere to gain your knowledge from."
But there is serious learning going on, according to Hodel.
"I don’t want to be a superficial Catholic," he said. "I want to understand our faith, and I think you have to dig a little deeper to do that."
Arthur Roraff, who is part of the Theology on Tap planning team, said organizers rely on a network of people throughout the archdiocese to contact interested speakers. Some speakers and topic ideas have come from discussions with the Theology on Tap audience.
"There is a void in our in lives and we are trying to fill it," Roraff said. "Our faith is exciting, our faith is interesting, our faith is not a boring thing."
Kenney and Roraff agree that the growth of the event is the result of publicity in parish newsletters, word of mouth and a lot of prayer.
"We have spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God to guide us," Kenney explained.
The next step for Theology on Tap includes bringing more guest speakers from Outside, with long-term goals of holding a Theology on Tap conference with numerous speakers and topics.
"I’d love to see this turn into a form of young adult ministry," Kenney said.
Theology on Tap generally occurs the second Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Snow Goose.
Soldier bound for Iraq receives
Catholic battlefield ministry training
A young man who has already served a year-long tour of duty in Iraq will be taking a different kind of ammunition with him when he deploys again in 2005.
Army Spc. Ernesto "Jongjong" Tamarra Jr. has taken steps to become a "Catholic representative," a soldier who assists the battalion chaplain in ministering to his comrades’ spiritual needs and who can lead Catholic liturgies in the field when a priest is not available to celebrate Mass.
Tamarra, 23, recently completed the required ministry training course at Fort Campbell, Ky., but was told he needs to receive the sacrament of confirmation before he is allowed to carry consecrated hosts into battle.
While visiting family in Anchorage over the Christmas holidays, Tamarra met Father Fred Bugarin, pastor of St. Anthony Parish, and explained his need to be confirmed. Father Bugarin contacted Archbishop Roger Schwietz, who agreed to confirm Tamarra in a special ceremony Dec. 26 at St. Anthony.
Tamarra grew up in a Catholic family in the Philippines and completed two years of college at Atneo de Cagayan Xavier University, a Jesuit institution in his hometown of Cagayan de Oro City on the southern island of Mindanao. He was baptized and received first Communion but did not complete confirmation, the third and final sacrament of initiation.
He and his brother came to Alaska in 2002 to live with their father, a U.S. citizen. Four months after his arrival Tamarra enlisted in the U.S. Army.
An executive order that President Bush signed after Sept. 11, 2001, allows immigrants who enlist to immediately become eligible for citizenship, but Tamarra said that’s not why he joined up.
"Some people say immigrants just want to come here to steal the money," Tamarra told the Anchor last week, speaking in English, his third language. "I wanted to prove that some immigrants come here to serve."
He said he had two childhood dreams: to become a priest and a soldier. By serving as a Catholic representative in the Army he gets to at least partially experience both goals, he said.
Tamarra was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, and deployed to Kuwait in February 2003. When the invasion of Iraq commenced the following month, he drove a Humvee, providing security to convoys on the push to Baghdad.
The soldiers of the 187th were among the first to reach the Iraqi capital and were responsible for securing Saddam International Airport — which was quickly renamed Baghdad International Airport.
Tamarra and his group then moved north to patrol the Syrian border, trying to shut down illegal crossings and black market smuggling.
Tamarra became a Humvee gunner, manning a .50 caliber machine gun that spews up to 475 rounds per minute. He survived a few convoy ambushes, and never had to kill anyone, "thank God," he said.
Only three people from his battalion died during his first tour, which ended in February of this year, he said.
Tamarra said his faith helped calm and strengthen him on the battlefield."I didn’t worry much about if I die or not," he said. "I just ask God if something happens to me, to take care of my family." Then he added, "And if nothing bad happens, then I thank God. I talk to God a lot!"
The tour was very difficult, Tamarra said. He recalled driving a Humvee for 24 hours straight, enduring sandstorms and firefights, driving all day and then pulling security detail all night with only brief periods of rest, and losing all contact with the outside world for three months. The first time his convoy was ambushed, he panicked, failed to follow procedure and almost shot his commanding officer, he said.
Some soldiers in his battalion have attempted suicide and others claimed they were homosexual in order to avoid fighting, Tamarra said. But for him, the ordeal was bearable because of his faith, he said.
When he returned home, his family hoped he wouldn’t have to go back to Iraq. But Tamarra said he’s been informed that he will be deployed again sometime next year.
His refrain to family members who are afraid for him has been, "If it’s my time (to die), it’s my time," he said.
Back at Fort Campbell after his first tour, the battalion chaplain asked for Catholics to consider becoming Catholic representatives. Tamarra was the only one who volunteered.
As a Catholic representative, he will carry a pyx, a small container for hosts, into battle with him. He can conduct the liturgy of the Word or, with a priest’s permission, a Communion service.
"It will build morale," he said of his new ministry role. "In the training they said I should be a model for others."
Spirit of community
In huge parishes, smaller groups meet
regularly to foster more intimate church setting
COTABATO CITY, MINDANAO, Philippines — The Philippines is one of the most Catholic countries in the world. More than 86 million people live in an area slightly larger than Arizona and about 83 percent of them are Roman Catholic, the religion introduced by Spanish colonizers who ruled there for three centuries.
In the Archdiocese of Cotabato on the Philippine island of Mindanao, Archbishop Orlando Quevedo recently told a group of Alaska visitors that the archdiocese’s 28 parishes serve 800,000 Catholics. (The Anchorage Archdiocese, by comparison, has 29 parishes and missions and roughly 30,000 Catholics.)
"Those parishes are huge," the Filipino archbishop said, noting that his cathedral parish celebrates nine Sunday Masses. "That is true for all our parishes," he added.
The eight visiting Alaskans, including Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz, spent a week in Mindanao in November formalizing a "global solidarity partnership" with the Cotabato Archdiocese. The pact was facilitated by Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency.
How does one cultivate an intimate church experience when you are one of 10,000 members of the local parish?
In the Cotabato Archdiocese, church leaders have nourished "basic ecclesial communities," groups of 10-40 families who meet regularly to practice their faith. Basic ecclesial communities are prevalent in Latin America and also have a history in the Philippines.
In the Cotabato Archdiocese, many of the communities meet weekly for a Communion service led by elected lay leaders. Generations gather in a home or a local chapel to pray, sing and share Scripture. They may focus ministries on liturgy, family life, catechesis, youth, social action, interreligious dialogue programs or ministries with indigenous people.
"Knowing one another goes against the anonymous parish member," Archbishop Quevedo said. "They come together as community every week; they think community."
Priests work to "inspire, encourage, to be catalysts" of basic ecclesial communities, he added.
Archbishop Quevedo said that in the 1970s, basic ecclesial communities in Mindanao served as a "vanguard of resistance" against martial law and human rights abuses. In 1986, the church-backed "people power" uprising in Manila succeeded in overthrowing the notoriously corrupt president Ferdinand Marcos.
"It was a very dynamic church," the archbishop recalled.
In 1991, Archbishop Quevedo and hundreds of other church workers at the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines called for the creation of a "church of the poor" with basic ecclesial communities at its core.
Today, the archbishop said, there’s an effort underway to infuse "new blood" into basic ecclesial communities.
The area around Pikit, a city southeast of Cotabato City, has been the battleground of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in four major armed conflicts since 1997. Pikit’s Immaculate Conception Parish, at the height of the 2000 war there, renewed its parish mission.
"The question was, ‘Is our church going to be an instrument of peace here? What’s the structure of the parish and how is the structure ... at the service of the mission?’ " observed Joe Hastings, a California-based Catholic Relief Services community educator who traveled to the Philippines with the Alaska group and visited Pikit.
In 2000, Immaculate Conception was already coordinating a volunteer disaster response team to care for war refugees living in the church, its school and elsewhere. The parish’s 155 basic ecclesial communities discussed the parish mission and decided to add peace-building components and foster interreligious dialogue in their villages.
By engaging in the lives of their neighbors, Hastings said, parishioners are "seeking a better community — a better Pikit."
"I don’t know any parish in the U.S. that is that active and organized," Hastings remarked to Archbishop Quevedo after visiting Pikit.
"That’s how most of our parishes are," the archbishop responded.
Immaculate Conception’s pastor, Father Roberto Layson, said the parish stood with victims of violence during the wars and continues to help heal damaged relationships with its focus on peace and reconciliation.Parishioners attend "culture of peace" seminars offered by Catholic Relief Services and help monitor "spaces for peace," clusters of villages in which warring factions have agreed not to fight."As long as there is that war that is going on in the hearts of the people of Mindanao — Christians, Muslims and indigenous people — this is the role of the church: strengthening the relationships of people through the interreligious dialogue ministry," Father Layson said.
Bonnie Cler, director of youth ministry at St. Michael Parish in Palmer, said she saw first-hand in the Philippines the rich spiritual life in basic ecclesial communities. Cler stayed in the home of a Catholic family in Dukay, south of Pikit, for three days. In the evening, the family would play an electric keyboard and sing hymns.
When villagers discovered one of their Alaska guests, Kathy Dunagan of Soldotna, was celebrating a birthday, they woke before dawn, surrounded the house and sang a song thanking God for the day she was born, Cler said.
The celebration culminated with impromptu Scriptural reflections by about 20 people.
"Faith life isn’t separated from their everyday life," Cler said. "A birthday party would include their faith."
Within basic ecclesial communities, families share the hardships that come with the extreme poverty of the region and even help harvest each other’s crops.
Cler said the organizational structure, with heavy reliance on lay leaders, gives parishioners a sense of ownership.
"They are the church. There’s no doubt about that. I don’t think anybody has to stand around hoping people sign up for ministries," Cler said. "The church is where the people are. ... It comes from them and it’s there with them."Margaret Menting, director of religious education at Kenai’s Our Lady of the Angels Parish, heard singing in a Pikit neighborhood as she approached the open-air chapel where a basic ecclesial community was starting its monthly meeting with music and dancing.
Later, as the sunset faded behind a wooden mosque in the village of Nalapaan, Hastings and Menting joined a basic ecclesial community and also Protestants and indigenous Filipinos invited by their Muslim neighbors to break the day’s Ramadan fast. During that holy period in Islam, believers abstain from food, drink and sexual activity from dawn until dusk.
"It was a very communal group," Menting said of the hundreds of people who joined the meal, likening the gathering to potlatches she experienced in Native villages during her years as a teacher in rural Alaska.
Cler praised the people she met in the Philippines as being "so full of spirit."
"All of our wealth and all of our distractions and all of our material richness has stripped us of our spirituality," Cler said.
"When you go there, you realize, ‘Boy, we’ve paid a high price for what we have.’ Just having so much takes your attention away from what’s really important: being in relationship with one another."
Editorials
Pray for Holy Spirit’s guidance in 2005
We have lots on our minds, hereabouts and far and wide, as a brand new year dawns.
• The local church has big plans for 2005. The archdiocese’s new Office of Evangelization has burst onto the scene with a mission to help Catholics live their faith more thoroughly, and to have fun doing it. The office helped make the archdiocese’s first "Simbang Gabi" Filipino novena a huge success, and wants to assist other ethnic groups who wish to share their faith traditions. This is an excellent way to share the richness of this worldwide church and to build interpersonal faith-based relationships.
• Catholic Social Services, the archdiocese’s social outreach agency, is banging away on its new Brother Francis Shelter building. The $5.2 million facility is on schedule to be finished in April. That’s good news for Alaska’s largest city, where an estimated 7,000 adults and children experience homelessness throughout the year. (Only 200 or so of them are the chronically homeless "street people" that so many people associate with homelessness.)
Catholic Social Services (www.cssalaska.org) operates 12 programs aimed at strengthening families and assisting the most vulnerable members of the community. We highly recommend getting involved with this conglomeration of Christian love in action.
• The U.S. church has taken dramatic steps in dealing with the clergy sex abuse crisis, enacting stringent safety measures and settling cases for tens of millions of dollars with hundreds of victims of abuse. These are painful but necessary steps for a church that preaches and practices reconciliation.
• In Iraq, the enormity of the task to which President Bush has committed America is still coming into focus. Pope John Paul II’s foresight has proven 20/20: The use of preemptive military force has led to more violence, which now threatens the progress Iraq has made in moving from dictatorship to democracy. We pray that the scheduled January elections prove to be a turning point.
• Iraq is a black hole sucking resources from other international issues on which the United States could be providing more leadership. Arafat’s death in November and the Israeli leadership’s nascent willingness to compromise on the occupied territories have breathed new life into peace possibilities in the Holy Land. In western Sudan, where Arab militias have killed, raped and routed black Sudanese farmers by the hundreds of thousands, puny peace efforts have been delayed and ignored by the Arab-controlled Khartoum government.
We look forward to covering the challenges and blessings that are sure to surface in the new year. We pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance and always welcome reader input.
Are Democrats softening on abortion?
Could it be that the 2004 elections have cracked the Democratic Party’s seemingly impervious pro-choice plank?
When Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota lost re-election in November — the first time a Senate party leader failed to win a new term since 1952 — the Democrats quickly elected pro-life Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada to replace him.
Sen. Reid, a Mormon, was one of only five Democratic senators to vote against the so-called Harkin Amendment, which describes Roe v. Wade as a decision that "was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right; and … should not be overturned." (Both of Alaska’s current Republican senators voted in favor of the amendment.)
It used to be that Democratic politicians could automatically put the Catholic vote in their basket, but the party’s increasingly dogmatic support for legalized abortion has disappointed multitudes of Catholic faithful. Methodist President George Bush got more of the Catholic vote in November than Catholic Sen. John Kerry.
Sen. Reid’s iconoclastic ascension is good news for all who support the unborn. We hope it signifies that the Democratic leadership is showing more respect for party members’ pro-life convictions.
Letters to the Editor
‘Soul’ cartoon wasn’t funny
A comic in the Dec. 3 Anchor was not funny to me. We diligently and perseveringly try to devote our entire lives to saving our souls, to being one with Christ’s most sacred heart, to putting off the world and putting on Christ, but the Anchor editor seems to think worldly humor about our salvation has an appropriate place in our Catholic periodical. We can expect belittling humor everywhere else we turn, but it’s a shame we have to put up with the same old mocking and degrading humor from Catholics. I would tend to believe none of the saints in heaven, nor Christ himself, would think it was very funny, especially since there is probably a lot of sad truth to the comic. It makes me all the more glad that I don’t have eBay! "I sold my soul on eBay," indeed. Let us pray.
Anchorage
Take liturgy more seriously
I was most impressed with the erudite Dr. Zografos’ column on the importance of liturgy and hospitality (Dec. 17). Now, if only the archdiocese would follow words with action. In various parishes, we have had liturgical abuse running rampant for years, from the non-ordained delivering homilies to the absence of a crucifix behind the altar, the removal of Holy Water during Lent, the non-ordained elevating the Precious Blood with the priest at the "per ipsum," and "liturgical" nymphs and satyrs prancing about during Mass. The people who cite these abuses are consequently unwelcome and marginalized in their parishes, despite all the hype about "stewardship" and sharing our time and talent.
Kenai
Three wishes for the new year
I submit to the hardworking priests of this archdiocese a "layperson’s wish list" for the the current Year of the Eucharist. Just three items, with many thanks: 1. Read "Redemptionis Sacramentum: Instruction On Certain Matters to Be Observed Or To Be Avoided Regarding the Most Holy Eucharist." 2. Conform to the document’s explicit prohibition against crystal or earthenware altar vessels. 3. Read Cardinal Ratzinger’s memo re pro-abortion pols (not just Cardinal McCarrick’s erroneous interpretation) and then personally contact anyone in your flock who is pro-choice-to-murder-babies to explain why that choice precludes them expressing, by receiving Holy Communion, a union with the Catholic Church they cannot possibly possess if they refuse to acknowledge or live up to the absolute sacredness of every human life.
Anchorage
