INC™ Invaded the Vatican and Waved INC™ Flag at the Papal Palace Window

[The title was just a sarcasm. That flag isn't belonging to the Iglesia Ni Cristo® a church founded by Mr. Felix Y. Manalo in the Philippines in 1914. Although some members use the same symbol in many occasions as their identity symbol but that's the ITALIAN FLAG!]

Italian Bishops Conference donates ten million Euro to Caritas Italy

The major donation, is aimed at supporting the diocesan Caritas in their work to support people in difficulty due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

By Vatican News

The Italian Bishops Conference said in a statement the 10 million Euro donation will be distributed to the 220 diocesan Caritas throughout Italy.

The donation will be used to identify the most urgent needs, giving priority to forms of economic support for families already in situations of hardship. This includes the purchase of basic necessities for families and people in difficulty, support for lonely elderly and frail people, and the maintenance of services for people in situations of extreme poverty, such as canteens with take-away services or sheltered dormitories.

The director of Caritas Italy, Fr Francesco Soddu said, "this extraordinary donation from the Italian Episcopal Conference (IEC) is a concrete sign of hope and comfort for the diocesan Caritas (network). In this way, the local Churches will be able to continue the strong dynamism of charity".

Caritas Italy is also renewing its call for solidarity by inviting everyone to support the initiatives and work of the dioceses and local Caritas that are aiding people in difficulty and in increasingly precarious conditions.

30,000 Pabahay ng Iglesia Katolika sa mga Biktima ng Yolanda

Ang Iglesia Ni Cristo® -1914 ay mayroong 500 na pabahay lamang samanatalang ang tunay na Iglesiang tatag ni Cristo ~ ang "Iglesia Katolika na sa pasimula ay ang Iglesia ni Cristo" (ayon sa Pasugo Abril 1966, p. 46) ay may 30,000 pabahay para sa mga biktima ng bagyong Yolanda.

“This is our Church not giving up on her people." - Fr. Edwin Gariguez of Caritas Philippines

Church builds more than 30,000 houses for Yolanda victims

Posted: November 16, 2018 CBCP News

By Roy Lagarde

November 16, 2018

Manila, Philippines

Official figures show that the Catholic Church built more than 30,000 homes in different provinces devastated by the Philippines’ deadliest typhoon on record.

The figures were announced Friday during Caritas Philippines’ commemoration of the 5th anniversary of typhoon Yolanda in Palo, Leyte.

Started in 2014, the church’s 3-year rehabilitation program focused on shelter, livelihood, water, sanitation and health, community organizing, community-managed risk reduction, ecosystems recovery and institutional capacity building.

Fr. Edwin Gariguez, Caritas Philippines’ Executive Secretary, said that Caritas Internationalis was instrumental in ensuring not only funds but also experts in the fields of recovery and rehabilitation.

“That is why we were able to accomplish so many things,” Gariguez said.

“In 2013, we at Caritas Philippines didn’t even thought that we’ll be capable of implementing what would be the Church’s most massive, largest-funded and most comprehensive humanitarian response,” he quipped.

The number of houses built does not include yet the shelter projects of various religious congregations and other church-based groups.

The priest said each of the Caritas organization doing bilateral programs in the dioceses ensured collaboration, thus maximizing all available resources, reaching more than 1.4 million Filipinos.

He was referring to Caritas Internationalis member organizations namely, Catholic Relief Service, Caritas Switzerland, Caritas Italiana, Caritas Belgium, Caritas Germany, Development and Peace (D&P), Caritas Austria, and Cordaid.

He added that being able to able to build thousands of houses speak of the dedication and commitment of the Church “to better the lives and restore the dignity” of typhoon victims.

“We are very proud of this accomplishment, yet humbled by the experience,” Gariguez stressed.

The houses were constructed in the provinces of Leyte, Samar, Easter Samar, Palawan, Cebu, Iloilo, Aklan, Capiz, Antique and other areas devastated by super typhoon Yolanda.

The Church’s over-all Caritas response amounted to more than P3.2 billion.

Pagtulong sa Mahihirap, Iglesia Katolika ang Nangunguna sa Buong Mundo!

Ang Iglesia Katolika pa rin ang may PINAKAMALAKING charitable institution sa buong mundo ayon sa ulat sa ibaba. Ito ay ginagawa ng tunay na Iglesia ni Cristo sa loob ng mahigit na 2,000 taon na bilang pagsunod sa utos ni Cristo "pakanin niyo ang aking mga tupa" (Jn. 21:17).  Hindi hinahangad ng Santa Iglesia ang kapurihan mula sa sanlibutan kundi ginagawa ito ng Santa Iglesia sa kapurihan ng Diyos at ng Iglesiang tatag ni Cristo ~ ang Iglesia Katolika, ang tunay at nag-iisang Iglesia ni Cristo mula pa noong unang siglo (hindi 1914). 

Catholic Church: World’s biggest charitable organization

By: Dr. Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano - @inquirerdotnet

INQUIRER.net US Bureau / 10:22 PM September 27, 2018

Catholic nuns with poor children.

Some consider the Catholic Church as a spiritual institution founded for a spiritual purpose – and only that. And I recall Josef Stalin’s quip to French Prime Minister Pierre Laval in 1935: “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” (as quoted in Winston Churchill, The Second World War, 1948), which was purposeful sarcasm to point out how on earth a spiritual institution could do anything to help thwart the escalating military threat of Nazism.

But the Catholic Church is more than a spiritual institution. Apparently using “the strategy of non-coercive power” (Deus Vult: The Geopolitics of the Catholic Church, 2010), the Church runs 5,500 hospitals, 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, with 65 percent of them located in underdeveloped and developing countries.

Consider Caritas, the confederation of Catholic aid agencies that spent billions of dollars for poor humanity. Then sum up all the small-scale charitable projects of more than 200,000 Catholic parishes around the world and those of individual religious orders such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Opus Dei, Vincentians, and others.

Christians are only following the footsteps of Christ. The historical Jesus had a social mission, in addition to His mission of evangelization. The total liberation of the human person was foremost in the life and death of Him crucified, who was indeed never indifferent to the sufferings of others.

Jesus’ concern was not limited to the forgiveness of sins. He cured the sick, many of them, cleansing lepers, making cripples walk and the blind see. He fed the hungry, thousands of them. and so were His Apostles and the early Christians.

In obedience to her historical Founder, the Catholic Church celebrates the Eucharist and forgives sins (through her ordained Churchmen), as prophet preaches the Gospel without letup and, with the hierarchy and the laity, gets involve with the poor and the marginalized.

Catholic Church: Largest provider of health care services

The review of the history of medical care begins not with the Monastic Rule of Saint Benedict (AD 480–550) that articulates the tenet: “The care of the sick is to be placed above and before every other duty, as if Christ were being directly served.”

Catholic Relief Services worker during response to typhoon Ompong. CRS

From the Gospel to the early Christian communities to the Benedictine Rule, Christ was the inspiration. The Catholic Church’s institutional apostolate for the sick gave rise to the gradual development of a more systematic nursing and medical care of today.

To fast forward a bit, during the Middle Ages (500 AD to 1500 AD), monasteries, bishops’ houses, and convents became the key medical centers of Europe. The Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, founded in 1696, are dedicated to nursing, visiting the poor, and taking care of the old and infirm, orphans, and the mentally ill. Today, with operations worldwide, they have about 121 Sisters in the Philippines working in 13 hospitals.

Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, who cared for the British troops during the Crimean War (1853-1856), once said: “What training is there to compare with that of a Catholic nun.”

Around 4,500 Missionary Sisters of Charity (founded in 1950 by Mother Teresa) care for hundreds of thousands of poor refugees, mentally ill, the aged and convalescent, sick and abandoned children, lepers, and people with AIDS – in addition to running schools to educate street children and managing soup kitchens around the world.

“The Church, adhering to the mandate of Jesus… during the course of her history, which by now has lasted two millennia, has always attended to the sick and the suffering,” reported the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers in 2013.

Immersed and yet transcendent, rooted on earth and yet yearning for heaven, the Church does not have all the technical solutions to the problems afflicting the world, Benedict XVI admitted in 2009, days after the G8 Summit in Italy, but she remains “an expert in humanity” who proclaims the Gospel of love and justice.

The Catholic Church aids humanity to be fully alive to give greater glory to God. As Saint Ireneaus nicely put it: “Gloria Dei vivens homo.”

José Mario Bautista Maximiano (jomaximiano@gmail.com) is the author of The Church Can Handle the Truth (Claretian, 2017).

HELPING THE POOR NEED NOT TO BE TRUMPETED!

Thus, when thou givest alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and in streets, to win the esteem of men. Believe me, they have their reward already.  But when thou givest alms, thou shalt not so much as let thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing, 4 so secret is thy almsgiving to be; and then thy Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward thee. [Matthew 6:2-3]

On the other hand, the Catholic Church which has been helping the poor worldwide for more than 2,000 years now do it for Christ silently. This is why we do not trumpet our good works for the world to applause us but we do it for the glory of the true Church of Christ and the Triune God to bless us.

INC™ among those who were helped by Caritas Manila

135 children to graduate from Caritas Manila’s Hapag-Asa Integrated Nutrition Program
By Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual 
Business Mirror

Caritas Manila, the social services and development ministry of the Archdiocese of Manila, will see the graduation of 135 children ages 3 to 12 this August from malnourishment through its Integrated Nutrition Program.

The children are from Barangay 649, also known as Baseco compound. All of them are from less- fortunate families. They are of different religions, such as Catholics, Christians, Muslims and Iglesia ni Cristo, and have undergone the six-month integrated program to improve their health.

The Hapag-Asa Integrated Nutrition Program aims to educate families in urban-poor communities in Metro Manila, most especially mothers and women, about dietary programs and nutritional continuity and improve the health condition of malnourished children. Its goal is to help families help their communities become free from malnourishment. We do this not only by feeding the children but also by educating households, especially mothers.

Caritas Manila, through its Damayan program, works with the local government units (LGUs) and parishes in identifying families and children that need to be part of the program. For the first month, Operation Timbang was done with the help of the Barangay Health Office to assess the nutritional health of the children.

As part of the program, once a week and usually during Saturday professional health volunteers and trained health staff from Caritas Manila provide seminars and modularized training through “Gabay sa Kalusugan”. Participants are usually the parents of the children undertaking relevant activities that emphasize the importance of continuous nourishment, such as orientation on diet-management education, exploring planned based diet, proper food preparation, maintenance and sanitation of food production, different health hazards and other related activities to meet the needs of the participating communities.

Volunteers from the community also extend their full support to the program by giving their time, particularly on food preparation using nutrient-enriched Manna Pack Food Supplements. MannaPack Fortified Rice is made of rice, soya and dehydrated vegetables, while MannaPack Fortified Potato is made of potatoes with sweet potato flavor. Malnourished children are fed five times a week for six months. At the end of each month, the children are weighed to measure the improvement in their nutritional status.

Hapag-Asa Integrated Nutrition Program is the Church’s response to fight malnutrition in densely populated communities where circumstances of deficiency are palpable. It was launched by the Pondo ng Pinoy Community Foundation (PnPCFI), then headed by Cardinal Gaudencio B. Rosales and 13 other bishops in July 2005 in partnership with Assisi Development Foundation (ADFI) and Feed the Children Philippines (FTCPI). CBCP-NASSA Caritas Filipinas Foundation, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) and Risen Savior Missions (RSM) also joined the efforts of Hapag-Asa in fighting malnutrition in the Philippines.

Based from the records of Caritas Manila, more than 2,000 malnourished children from Tondo, Payatas and Baseco have graduated from the Hapag-Asa Integrated Nutrition Program in 2016.

Interested parishes and organizations that want to bring the essence of Hapag-Asa Integrated Nutrition Program to their communities may contact +(632) 562-0020 to 25 or visit at Caritas Manila Inc., 2002 Jesus Street, Pandacan, Manila. To help Caritas Damayan and to get more information about the program, e-mail caritas_manila@yahoo.com

Caritas Damayan is the preventive health and disaster risk reduction and management program of Caritas Manila.

Photo Source: Caritas Manila

John Paul II Foundation namahagi ng 2M dolyar sa Sahel Africa

Logo ng John Paul II Foundation

VATICAN CITY - Ang Iglesia ni Cristo na itinatag mismo ni Cristo noong mga siglo 33 A.D. ay patuloy na nagiging ilaw ng katotohanan at pag-ibig sa kabila ng maraming mga kumakaaway sa kanya.

Kamakailan ang Iglesia ni Cristo ay namahagi ng 2 milyong dolyar sa mga bansang nakasakop sa Kanluran at Gitnang pate ng kontinente ng Africa. Ang nasabing tulong ay nagmula sa John Paul II Foundation na pinamumunuan ni Monsignor Giampietro Dal Toso, Secretary of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

Layunin ng nasabing tulong na pag-ibayuhin ang pamumuhay ng mga nasalanta ng matinding tag-tuyot at pahirap na dala ng Political Crisis lalong lalo na ang mga mamamayang naghihirap dulot ng sigalot na dala ng mga Islamist.

Ang Edukasyon ang pangunahing layunin ng nasabing tulong.

Ninanais ng John Paul II Foundation na sa pamamagitan ng pagiging ilaw at gabay ng Iglesia ni Cristo sa Africa ang lahat ng sektor ng pamumuhay ng tao ay naaayon sa hustisya (justice), kapayapaan (peace) at pag-ibig (love).

Umaasa ang buong Iglesia ni Cristo sa pamamagitan ng pamumuno ng Santo Papa Benito na ang hidwaan na naghahari ngayon sa nasabing lugar ay mapayapang masolusyunan lalong lalo na ang pakikiabot ng Iglesia sa relihiyong Islam upang manumbalik ang kapayapaan at respeto sa pananampalataya ng bawat isa.

Idalangin din natin na sa pamamagitan ng Santa Iglesia ang kalayaan na dulot ng pag-ibig ni Cristo ay lalong manahan sa bawat puso ng mga tao sa Africa.

Ituloy ang pagbabasa rito...