Finally, the Roman Catholic bishops are about to be kicked out of our bedrooms.
They can now pack and have their Branson vacations, and leave family planning in the hands of the couple and the state. Oops, here’s the funny thing. What makes these celibate bishops credible speakers of family planning? Unless Father Damaso is alive and still kicks ass.
We’ve been like hostages of the church for centuries, dictating how to run our lives based on the rules set by the Pope who they deemed infallible. They have invaded our minds, then our bedrooms. Not that everything they said was bad, but there are matters that also require common sense. Example, we can no longer allow couples to procreate irresponsibly like it was in the post-Holocaust era. This country today is already overpopulated and majority of us live below poverty line. Our resources and opportunities are diminishing as a direct result.
Fathers, we have lost most of our agricultural lands to house 90 million people. Is it any wonder why we import rice these days?
Support the Reproductive Health Bill.
Shaped like Magellan's hat
We were at Sto. Nino Parish Church in Mactan to hear mass on a late Sunday afternoon. This is the first time I attended mass conducted in Cebuano dialect and saw young women in their ministry wear long veils like the very icons in the altar. We left with no idea what the entire one-hour sermon was all about. It felt like much being a foreigner in your own land. I hope they have English and Filipino versions during the day, and even Korean. This particular area in Mactan Island is a tourist belt.
Inside the hat-shaped church on a Sunday
So in between ho-hums, unimaginable boredom and missing church services at CCF, I managed to steal shots of the Sto. Nino Parish Church. The small church is right across two major roads leading to Cordova and Punta Engano. What’s amazing about this church is its unique architecture. The building was shaped like Magellan’s hat (I would have said Anakin Skywalker’s) and its glass panels depict the image of the Sto. Nino tinted with bright colors. It is no longer as backward as what a typical parish in the outskirts of a province should be, bamboo blinds and all. Cebu churches have actually come a long way to become one of the province’s heritage sites.
Devotees light their candles and offer up prayers
The marathon to explore Cebu City four hours before the flight schedule landed us on our second destination for the day. Our lengthy walks from one spot to another digested every lechon bit I had earlier and probably shed off a couple of pounds without even taking in Fastin diet pills. If I happen to be a Roman Catholic, I would have exclaimed, “Pit Senor!”
Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño
Just right across Magellan’s Cross is The Church and Convent of the Sto. Niño (known as Basilica del Sto. Niño), the oldest church started by the Spanish friars in the Philippines. It was founded by the Spanish Augustinian priest Rev. Andres Urdaneta in 1565. It was on the same year that the Legaspi expedition arrived in the Philippines and gained foothold in this southern city. What followed next was a strong Spanish influence that scattered like a disease lasting for more than three hundred years.
Spanish influences remain inside the house of prayer
The intense devotion of the Visayans to the Sto. Niño and religious pilgrimages are centered on this church since the time of Legaspi. Aside from being a house of devotion, the Church and Convent of the Sto. Niño was also a center for educating the natives, rest house for missionaries and care home for the elderly and the sick.
Today, this church remains as the permanent home of the oldest known relic of the Sto. Niño for centuries.
