Inspiring example: Bishop Guerrero of San Fernando

THIS IS in connection with Randy David’s column “State support for religion.” (Inquirer, 7/7/11) I fully agree with what he said about Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos: “From the way he has conducted himself, it is clear that the bishop is no less a politician than the patron who showers him with gifts. He is as much a liability to religion as he is a problem to politics.”

Readers might like to turn their attention away from Bishop Pueblos and contemplate, instead, the inspiring example of the late Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero. Here’s a brief account.

Bishop Guerrero was installed as the first bishop of San Fernando, Pampanga on Sept. 8, 1949. He was already 64 years old when he came to Pampanga, but we boys felt he was our friend. Whenever he came to Angeles for the confirmation of children, we assisted him enthusiastically. And whenever Msgr. Cosme Bituin, the vicar general, brought us along with him to the bishop’s residence in San Fernando, Bishop Guerrero would spend some time chatting with us. He was so approachable, so pleasant to be with and so inspiring. He was our idol. He was my idol. He smiled like no other bishop, I’ve met before or after.

Instead of wearing the bishop’s white cassock and violet sash and pectoral cross in his residence, as was the common practice then, he wore only the simple brown cassock and the white cord of a Franciscan tertiary.

My beloved idol’s image of simplicity, humility and spirituality became the strong motivation for me later on as a priest to endeavor always to have a simple lifestyle and to be unobtrusive. This does not necessarily mean, though, that I succeeded in becoming humble. What I can say is that, with God’s grace and Bishop Guerrero’s example of intense spirituality, and my subsequent Benedictine monastic formation, my life and ministry as a priest has never been motivated by money nor influenced by materialism. Because his name was followed by a string of abbreviations indicating his academic degrees, including LL.B (Bachelor of Laws), STD (Doctor of Sacred Theology) and JCD (Doctor of Canon Law), I started to associate priestly life partly with academic degrees and intellectualism.

In his farewell letter to the clergy of San Fernando upon his retirement, Bishop Guerrero said, among other things, that he was waiving his right to receive financial support from the diocese because, he said, he would get funds “ex alio capite” (meaning, from another source). He belonged to the prominent Guerrero clan. He spent the remaining part of his life in the Hospicio de San Jose in Manila.

His motto was “Exultabunt ossa humiliata” (The humbled bones will rejoice), a verse from a psalm. In the epitaph he prepared for himself, the Latin word “cadaver” (corpse) was written horizontally, divided into three syllables, each one followed by letters to form a new word. “CARO” (flesh), “DATUR” (given). “VERMIBUS” (to the worms).

The first time I met Bishop Guerrero, I was a 13-year-old altar boy. Now I am a 74-year-old priest.

—FR. EDILBERTO V. SANTOS,

Angeles City, [email protected]