Cardinal Bo to Filipinos: Multiply your children

IEC MASS LAST DAY/JAN.31,2016: Pope Francis deliver his message during the 51st IEC closing mass at SRP. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)

With much admiration for the Philippine Church as a source of hope among the people of Asia and in the world, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, SDB, DD, the Papal Legate of the recently concluded International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu calls on Filipinos to multiply.

In his homily during the Statio Orbis and closing Mass last January 31, Cardinal Bo said: “Filipinos go. Multiply your missionaries. Multiply your children. Go and populate those countries where Christianity is becoming a minority.”

In countries where couples do not want to have children but prefer pets, Cardinal Bo challenges Filipinos to move: “Go to countries that have more pets, more dogs and cats than the children. Mga Filipino, paramihin ninyo ang inyong mga anak. Paramihin ninyo ang inyong mga misyonero. Pumunta kayo sa Europa at Amerika. Doon wala silang mga bata. Marami silang aso at pusa.”

In these countries Christianity is a big challenge. Churches are empty, vocations are dying out and Christianity is in the twilight zone. Filipinos can turn those countries into exciting zones of new Christianity.

“There is hope of glory for the Church. We who come from all the corners of the earth, go back in hope because you have a strong faith as a bread broken in the world,” said Cardinal Bo.

Before the more than 15,000 delegates from more than 70 countries throughout the world and the thousands of attendees, Cardinal Bo reiterated the exhortation of Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II in 1995 for Filipinos to be the salt of the earth.