"Pope Francis refers to Filipino migrant workers."
Last Sunday, March 14, Pope Francis celebrated mass at the St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City to commemorate the arrival of the Spanish flotilla led by the Portuguese Fernando Magalhanes (Ferdinand Magellan), the first Europeans to set foot in what is now the Philippines, five centuries ago. Together with our very own Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle and a host of Filipino priests based in Rome it was a fitting acknowledgment of the most enduring legacy of that fateful encounter with the local population, the introduction and growth of Catholicism on the islands which, over the centuries, has been embraced by an overwhelming majority of our people making the Philippines the third biggest Catholic country in the world after Brazil and Mexico.
Apart from the growth of the faith in the Philippines, the Pontiff lauded the special role of Filipinos overseas in particular our OFWs for “living and practicing their faith despite the difficulties.” Calling them “smugglers of the faith,” Pope Francis noted that they remained firm and fearless in observing and sharing their Catholic faith. By steadfastly practicing their faith, the Pope advised, our OFWs especially in the Middle East have become true evangelists and catechists inspiring and bringing others to the fold.
This papal advisory is most fitting and truly appreciated. Many years ago, there was this real life story of a nanny of the son of one of the more prominent members of a royal family in the Middle East whose “living of the faith” so inspired the child that when he came of age he asked her how he can be converted. That initiative took the guy’s parents by surprise that they begged, as the story goes, the nanny to talk him out of that effort as it will open the entire family to ostracism and may even lead to their banishment from the land.
This story has since risen to a kind of mythology to the point that at some point there was an unwritten edict about having Filipina home service workers and the effect of their “practicing and living the faith” not just in royal households but in all others as well. The message was clear: Be patient with your service workers but be vigilant otherwise we may soon have a generation of Catholics in our midst!
This was not the first time that Pope Francis made mention of Filipinos especially our migrant workers as “smugglers of the faith.” In December 2018, he celebrated the traditional Simbang Gabi mass at the St. Peter’s Basilica and acknowledged the special role of Filipino migrant workers in the growth of the Catholic Church.
In impromptu remarks at the end of the mass, the Pontiff urged those present and other Filipino migrants everywhere to “continue to be smugglers of the faith.” Obviously, he was referring to those like the royal nanny who “practiced and lived her faith” even under difficult and maybe even dangerous circumstances.
That 2018 celebration was memorable for even as Simbang Gabi masses have been held four times at the Basilica, it was the first time that the sitting Pope presided over it. What made the occasion even more telling was what Pope Francis said in his homily as he noted that “…while Simbang Gabi has been held in the Philippines for centuries it was only in recent decades, thanks to Filipino migrants, that this devotion…has crossed national borders and has arrived in many other countries.”
Said the Pontiff: “You, dear brothers and sisters, who have left your land in search of a better future, have a special mission. Your faith should be leaven in the parish communities to which you belong. Today I encourage you to increase opportunities for meeting to share your culture and spiritual wealth while at the same time allowing yourselves to be enriched by the experiences of others.”
Punctuating that 2018 celebration was the appointment weeks after of Cardinal Tagle as the Prefect for the Evangelization of Peoples, the third highest ranking official in the Curia. No less than the veteran Vatican analyst and historian John Allen noted the significance of Tagle’s appointment and Pope Francis’ inspiring exaltation of the role of Filipinos overseas when he wrote that the appointment “puts an exclamation point on the ‘Philippines moment’ in global Catholicism.”
“In many spots on the Catholic map, including parts of the US, Filipinos today are the new Irish, meaning missionaries who keep local churches alive,” Allen exclaimed. Indeed, for “practicing and living their faith” the Filipino diaspora has become a magnet in spreading the Word Of God and the conversion of peoples as we join each other across the board and under all seasons in our very own life journeys.