Other issues, themes in Pope’s visit

Mercy and compassion may be the main themes of the visit of Pope Francis to this country this Thursday, but there are other concerns that will arise during his five-day stay as well as during his visit to Sri Lanka before he flies to the Philippines.

Reconciliation seems to be a prominent theme of the Pope’s sojourn to Sri Lanka, where, despite the cessation of hostilities, tension still reigns

between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, whose separatist aspirations led to a 25-year-long civil war.

Significantly, says a report in the Associated Press, one of Pope Francis’ stops in Sri Lanka will be the Tamil region in the north, where he will pray at the Our Lady of Madhu Shrine, described as “revered by both Sinhalese and Tamil Catholics.”

Indeed, the wire report quotes a Catholic journalist as observing that the visit to the shrine is a “very strong gesture,” and that Pope (now saint) John Paul II had wanted to visit it but couldn’t because a war was going on at the time.

“The Catholic Church considers itself uniquely poised to be a force for unity in Sri Lanka because it counts both Sinhalese and Tamils as members,” says the report. “They worship together, with liturgies often alternating between the two languages,” observes a Sri Lankan priest and doctoral student in Rome. “He’s making an extra effort to go to these areas and to see these victims. That will be a wonderful sign of solidarity.”

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Indeed, solidarity with the poor and the suffering has been a constant theme of Pope Francis’ public messages. And the main reason for his visit to Leyte, he said at the time the visit was announced, was precisely to condole and meet with the survivors of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

But could reconciliation also be part of the agenda?

Like Sri Lanka, the country is just now recovering from the end of decades of armed conflict in Mindanao, between Philippine government forces and the previously separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Years of negotiations, culminating in the signing of a final peace agreement, have ensured the silencing of the guns of war, but “normalization” and autonomy are still elusive, with the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which would establish a transitional authority leading to the establishment of the Bangsamoro entity, still waiting for passage.

MILF Chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim is said to have written to the Pope, the letter coursed through Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, asking the Pontiff to include Cotabato City during his visit. Although the visit to Cotabato is no longer in the cards, Ebrahim in his letter asked the Pope to address a few words to the Bangsamoro people and endorse the

Mindanao peace process.

Such an opportunity might arise when Pope Francis meets with leaders of various religions in his encounter with youths at the University of Santo Tomas. A local church official said the Pope will hold a “10-15-minute dialogue” with the dean of the country’s largest Islamic studies center and a Taiwan-based Buddhist leader. He will also meet with the Hong Kong-based regional head of the Greek Orthodox Church, as well as a Hindu leader, Protestant bishops, and a Manila-based rabbi.

Here’s hoping a substantial portion of that inter-religious meeting will be devoted to the prospects of a full and workable peace in Mindanao, and reconciliation and cooperation between Muslims, Christians and native peoples in Mindanao. Despite decades of conflict, all have expressed a desire to see the region step out of the shadow of violence and into the sunshine of true and equitable development. That’s a dream I’m sure Pope Francis also shares.

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Finally, another issue that is sure to crop up—if not in the Pope’s actual words but in the circumstances of his visit—would be the state of the environment.

Given the battering the Philippines has received from natural disasters, which are intensifying and increasing in frequency, the environment has

become a major concern of Filipino bishops.

Reports say Pope Francis does not have a dedicated speech on the environment during his visit here, but the public can expect “some references” to it, most probably in his address to the survivors of Yolanda. He will be speaking with them inside and in the vicinity of Palo Cathedral in Leyte. Surely he could not ignore the poignant setting: the church yard is itself dotted with crosses that mark the graves of those whose bodies were washed ashore by the waves that engulfed Palo at the height of Yolanda.

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For sure, there are those, even within the Church, who dispute studies and warnings on climate change.

But beyond dispute is the increasing and distressing impact of disasters not just in our part of the world but all over the globe. We have seen in recent years a string of “historic,” “unprecedented,” “life-altering” aberrations in the weather, from record snowfalls and low temperatures, to storms of unprecedented power and frequency, to unexpected and long-term drought and water depletion.

These are, no doubt, “natural” in provenance. But humanity—our numbers, our abusive practices, our heedless self-indulgence—has doubtless contributed to these natural disasters and hastened their arrival.

If the Pope could only convince us to deeper thought on our culpability, and what we should change in our behavior and appetites, to save our physical world, then he would have done us a great service.