Cardinal-elect Quevedo: a ‘God’s commando’

Caritas congaudet veritati. Love rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). This is the episcopal motto of Cardinal-elect Orlando B. Quevedo. I had to use a magnifying lens to find it in his coat of arms shown on the Internet. One of the quadrants in the coat of arms has a cross and a crescent and another one has a Moro vinta. Very symbolic, I thought, of where the archbishop serves.

Soon to be “elevated” to the cardinalship, Quevedo heads the archdiocese of Cotabato which covers parts of several provinces in Mindanao. I put the word “elevated” inside quotation marks after I read what Pope Francis said about cardinals.

Quevedo belongs to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The OMI has a strong foothold in Mindanao with its Notre Dame schools, media presence and priests serving in varied apostolates.

In 1997, when I had to write a feature on the slain bishop of Jolo, Benjamin de Jesus, also an Oblate, I did some research in the OMI’s library in Quezon City and went home with books on its missionary work in the Philippines starting with the coming of the first American Oblates in Mindanao. Some of the accounts of the new arrivals in the late 1930 and early 1940s were straight out of a Wild West adventure book, some hilarious, some heart-pounding.

The OMI was founded in 1826 in Aix, France, by St. Eugene de Mazenod, a count who became a priest and worked among the poor. Some 6,000 Oblates now work in difficult missions in many parts of the world. They were the first missionaries “to brave the howling winds of the North Pole to reach the encampments of neglected Indians, Metis and Eskimos.” Pope Pius XI called them “specialists in most difficult missions.” For their daring, these hardy men who wore the sash and cross earned the name “God’s commandos.”

It was during the coming of the first Oblates in the Philippines that Quevedo was born (1939) in Ilocos Norte. His family would later move to “the Land of Promise” that was Mindanao, where he would grow up. So Quevedo who has Ilocos roots can claim to be a Mindanaoan.

Before becoming archbishop of Cotabato, Quevedo served as bishop (1980-1983) of Kidapawan prelature. (Kidapawan City is the capital of Cotabato province.) He then became archbishop (1986-1998) of Nueva Segovia (Ilocos Sur). He was president for two terms (1999-2003) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. But he was also an educator, having served in various capacities in Notre Dame universities, and was spiritual director for the Oblates doing theology studies.

The archdiocese of Cotabato covers parts of three Cotabato provinces, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao and Cotabato City. In the latest Catholic Directory of the Philippines, the Cotabato archdiocese is listed as having a population of 1.2 million, 639,183 of whom are Catholics.

Pope Francis’ choice of Quevedo should not come as a surprise especially to Mindanao experts.  It’s overdue—that is, if a cardinal had to be picked from Mindanao and for the first time at that.

Upon learning that Mindanao would have a cardinal, I heard myself muttering, “Again, this Pope surprised us.” Quevedo, who is turning 75 in March, will be the Philippines’ eighth cardinal so far, one of four living ones, one of two below the age of 80 who can elect a pope. The other one is the Manila archbishop, Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, 56, who became cardinal just more than a year ago before Pope Benedict XVI retired.

We might think that cardinals are simply pope electors who can also be elected pope, but they should be more than that. They are said to be closest to the ear of the pope who picked them. Their election can also mean special recognition for the archdioceses that they head. In the past, it had always been the archdioceses of Manila and Cebu that had cardinal-archbishops.

The page-long and riveting New York Times Service article that came out yesterday in the Inquirer (“Pope Francis firmly reshaping the Vatican”) described the Pope’s style as “tricky to define.” And referring to the new crop of cardinals, the article quoted State Secretary Pietro Parolin as saying that it was but natural that the Pope should prefer “certain people who are able to advance his policy.”

And so it was that according to the article, “he pointedly instructed the new cardinals not to consider the job a promotion or to waste money with celebratory parties.” How he disparagingly spoke about “airport bishops” (jetsetters, I suppose) who are focused on their careers and not on their people. I wish he had added that cardinals should no longer be called “princes of the Church.” Servant-shepherds, they should be.

Now with Pope Francis’ new style of governance that continues to shake and stun, the present crop of active cardinals must be on their toes. And Catholic  Christians of Mindanao who have an archbishop with a good grasp and deep understanding of the region’s Muslim culture should rejoice at the Pope’s choice of one of their own.

Quevedo is known to be involved in the peace processes between Christians and Muslims. He was among the initiators of the Bishops-Ulama Conference.

Worth reading is Quevedo’s paper, “Injustice: The Root and Conflict in Mindanao,” which he delivered at the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference years ago. While he recognized the then government’s analysis of the roots of insurgency, Quevedo enumerated injustices particular to the Moro: injustice to the Moro identity, injustice to the Moro political sovereignty, and injustice to Moro integral development.

That is the truth. Caritas congaudet veritati.

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