Attack on the ‘church of the poor’

The Damdaming Katoliko sa Teolohiya (DaKaTeo), also known as the Catholic Theological Society of the Philippines, condemns the arrest, detention of and deportation order against Sister Patricia Fox.

Sister Pat, a 71-year-old regional superior of the international Catholic congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, follows in the footsteps of many foreign missionaries who have chosen to serve our people and who have shown what it means to be truly in solidarity with God’s suffering people.

She has been living in the Philippines for the past 27 years. She headed the formation program of her religious congregation in the country in 1990.

Sister Pat, who is also a lawyer, has been involved in helping peasant and tribal communities in their fight for their right to life and right to land.

Her duty as a religious missionary brought her to places where there is great oppression and lack of recognition of basic human rights. She has tirelessly and selflessly dedicated her missionary life to accompanying the poor and spreading the Gospel of liberation.

To accuse her of engaging in “illegal political activities” is to misunderstand the demands that the Gospel of Jesus Christ compels her and other missionaries to enflesh. To promote and defend the rights of the poor is an act of evangelization that is at the heart of the call for God’s Kingdom.

We believe the arrest and detention of Sister Pat is part of a large-scale crackdown of the government against church people and organizations that oppose antipoor government policies and that criticize its dubious human rights record.

The attack on Sister Pat is clearly an attack on the church of the poor and an attempt to silence dissenting forces against the creeping authoritarianism and increasingly oppressive policies of the present administration.

We urge the government to step back, respect the democratic space, and, in the name of religious freedom, let church people do their prophetic-missionary work for the upliftment and defense of the dignity of the poor.

DAMDAMING KATOLIKO SA TEOLOHIYA (DaKaTeo)