A FEW weeks ago, The New York Times carried an article by Bruce Weber on Madeleine Cinquin, better known in the Catholic world as Sister Emmanuelle. She passed away in October, less than a month before reaching her 100th birthday. Born in Brussels to a French father and Belgian mother, she ranked among France?s best-loved figures, a few rungs below tennis player Yannick Noah and soccer star Zinedine Zidane.
At an early age, she expressed a desire to become a nun and joined the congregation of Notre Dame de Sion. After she took her vows, she taught in schools in places as far away as Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt. At the age of 62, she received permission from her order to relocate to Cairo, moving in with the poorest of its slum dwellers who made their living scavenging in the city garbage dumps, sorting out and recycling whatever could be salvaged and sold. Our own Payatas would probably resemble closely the world in which she devoted 22 years of her life helping the poor and the sick.
In 1980, she founded the Sister Emmanuelle Association, providing healthcare and education to some 80,000 deprived children in places like Brazil, Haiti, the Philippines, Senegal, and Sudan.
When she returned to France, she became a media sensation, well received by wide audiences and talk show hosts. It was her candor and maverick attitude to religious beliefs that made her such a popular figure. She favored allowing priests to marry, was ?benignly indifferent? to homosexuality, and at one time wrote to Pope John Paul II, defending contraception. She informed him of the plight of poor Egyptian girls who were getting pregnant and marrying at the age of 12, having babies or getting abortions practically every year.
In her autobiography, ?Confessions of a Nun,? written two years ago and held for posthumous release, she wrote of a life of faith and service. ?Remember the simple soul of your brothers and sisters in rags. Do not turn yourself to the beautiful world unless it is useful for the slums; do not let your original vanity carry you off to the heights.? True to her word, she maintained her humility, saying that no one would ask for her popularity ranking at the gates of heaven.
She also wrote frankly of her feelings of lust, of falling in love and having to renounce physical love for the love of God. In an earlier memoir, she admitted to being torn early on between the desire for pleasure and her religious calling. ?I love dancing, particularly with nice-looking boys. My mother used to say to me, ?You want boys to like you, to surround you, to admire you. And if you become a nun? ? and my response would be, ?For God, I will leave the boys alone.??
For her work and achievements on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised, particularly the garbage scavengers of Cairo, she was likened to Mother Teresa. She described the comparison as ?ridiculous,? almost as that between a mouse and a mountain.
Since time immemorial, Catholic men and women of the cloth have taken steadfast vows of faith, fidelity, and frugality, committing selfless acts of kindness and generosity toward our less privileged brothers and sisters in little corners around the globe. Many remain largely unknown and unsung. How many Filipinos have heard of Sister Emmanuelle? Beyond religious circles, many ordinary folk are being recognized for their altruism and humanity. One such individual, Liz McCartney, was recently named 2008 CNN Hero of the Year, with one million voters choosing her out of 10 equally outstanding nominees, for her work in helping hurricane victims rebuild their homes in New Orleans. In the Philippines, can we name similar heroes who have unselfishly devoted their time, talent and treasure to impoverished flood victims, destitute communities, and refugees of civil strife in Mindanao?
When Sister Emmanuelle died last Oct. 20 in a congregation retirement home in the south of France, the Vatican praised her, noting the similarities of her life with that of Mother Teresa. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who along with other politicians and officials attended a memorial service for her at the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris, called her ?a woman of faith who touched our hearts but also a woman of deeds for whom charity meant concrete actions of solidarity and fraternity.?
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and a strong advocate of human rights, described her as ?the youngest, the most beautiful, the most obstinate of activists.? Wikipedia.org lists her occupation as Catholic, nun, and humanitarian.
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My September column on the ?Bells of Balangiga, a case of amnesia? brought some interesting reactions from our readers.
Ambassador Nicasio G. Valderrama wrote to say: ?I am like you, one of those Filipinos who continue to care about the Bells of Balangiga as an important part of our national heritage. The townspeople of Balangiga, an intrepid lot, deserve the full support of the government and people of the Philippines.? He adds, ?I am confident many other Filipinos want the bells returned to us.?
Believe it or not, Nic?s letter was earlier mis-routed to one of his friends in South Australia and returned to him. So the letter got to my mailbox more than three weeks later via Down Under?perhaps a case of benign forgetfulness.
Many thanks, Nic, for your interest and concern.
Also a reader from New York, R. Sonny Sampayan, e-mailed me with encouraging news about the efforts to return the bells to the Philippines. He says, ?I want you to know that we have made great progress with the same veterans from Wyoming that opposed it in 1998. Furthermore, the Vatican endorsed the return of our church bells. I received a call a few weeks ago from our strongest supporter that he will introduce the return of the bells during the new Congress.?
I stand corrected. There are folks out there who care about the return of the bells. Let?s hope that Mr. Sampayan provides us with more concrete details on the optimistic efforts he alludes to in his letter.
