In 1996, a newbie reporter at The Freeman submitted a news article about then Cebu City Mayor Alvin Garcia’s comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What happened, as is often the case in press conferences, was that the mayor was asked about it after all the other more urgent issues pertinent to City Hall were already… Read more: Jerry S. Tundag and the color of the Devil’s testicles
The Commission on Laity (COL) has sent out three questions for discernment by members of the laity and eventual inclusion in the Sugbuswak proposal that will be submitted to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in January 2024 and to Rome shortly thereafter.
“The Church’s inherent nature is to give rise to local churches,” said the guidelines for 13th General Pastoral Assembly (GPA) of the Archdiocese of Cebu. The GPA opened yesterday and will run until November 16.
I woke up today to several messages about an ongoing press conference on Sugbuswak, the move to break up the Archdiocese of Cebu. I knew there was to be a launch of a Facebook page on Sugbuswak but when I read the messages, I thought that the archdiocese had decided to hold a press conference… Read more: Archdiocese of Cebu slams door on media on Sugbuswak coverage
I can’t find any report that indicates the level of popular support for Sugbuswak or the move to break up the Archdiocese of Cebu. I’m not sure if anyone in the Archdiocese is looking into that. Not that it matters because it’s practically a done deal.
For a Church that moves at a takyong’s pace (context below), how meaningful a consultation can one do in just a few weeks? Not much, some priests have told me. From what I understand and from what several sources characterized it to me, what’s being done now is closer to an information drive than a… Read more: Let’s not kid ourselves, Sugbuswak is a done deal
(The following is the welcome address of Cebu Archbishop Jose S. Palma during the Day of Prayer and Discernment last September 19, 2023. The Clergy Recollection was held to discuss the move to break up the Archdiocese of Cebu. )
If the recommendation to study the viability of breaking up the Archdiocese of Cebu came after the Cebu Archdiocesan Priests’ Congress on August 20, 2002, why did the move happen only after more than 20 years?
A key concern on the division of the Archdiocese of Cebu that was shared by several priests and lay people I’ve interviewed these past few weeks is the timeline.
I’ve covered several news beats and in my experience, the Church is among the least transparent. At times, their approach to dealing with the media is Old Testament Biblical – like they’re God on Mt. Sinai handing the 10 commandments on stone tablets to Moses.
The Archdiocese of Cebu will be split into three new territories: Archdiocese of Cebu-Central, Diocese of Cebu-North and Diocese of Cebu-South. During the Day of Prayer and Discernment on September 19, church officials presented the study on Sugbuswak, the name of the move to break up the archdiocese.