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Pope Francis to elevate journalist to sainthood

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Carmelites: Canonization comes during ‘our present struggles against the venom of deceit, lies, fake news, historical revisionism and all other forms of disinformation’

Pope Francis is set to canonize a journalist revered as a “martyr of press freedom” and may be one of only two saints of the profession.

Titus Brandsma, one of 10 candidates for canonization at Vatican City on May 15 was a Dutch Carmelite priest, educator and journalist executed at the Dachau concentration camp on July 1942 for his refusal to publish Nazi propaganda in Catholic newspapers.

Brandsma was subjected to hardship and starvation and killed with carbolic acid injection in the same year. He was 61.

Brandsma’s fellow Carmelites in the country said they rejoice at the martyr’s ”much anticipated” elevation to the Roman Church’s roster of saints, saying his canonization is a gift to the order in the Philippines.

“The canonization of Titus Brandsma is truly a milestone and an inspiration, not only for the Church but particularly for Filipino Carmelites,” Prior Provincial of the Philippine Province Rev. Fr. Rico P. Ponce, O.Carm. said in a statement.

Brandsma is the patron of the Order of the Carmelites in the Philippines (formally the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel), a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order for men and women.

“Having our Province named after this modern-day martyr and mystic is made more meaningful by our own present struggles against the venom of deceit, lies, fake news, historical revisionism and all other forms of disinformation,” Fr. Ponce said.

“We have much to learn and to imitate from Titus Brandsma, who defended Truth and Press Freedom until his dying breath,” Fr. Ponce added.

The Carmelites in the Philippines named an institution and a program after the “martyr of the faith” patron.

The Titus Brandsma Media Center in Quezon City is learning resource institute for media education and pastoral care for media professionals while its Titus Brandsma Media Awards honors media practitioners “whose work reflect of truth, freedom, and genuine service to the poor and marginalized.”

Fr. Ponce said Brandsma’s canonization comes at a time when the country is “currently embroiled in a battle against the vicious enemies of truth, as well as those who try to manipulate the use of media and communication technology for their own selfish ends.”

“It is a great consolation for us to have someone from a not-so-distant generation praying and interceding for us in our current struggles, and who knows how it is to be persecuted for defending his beliefs in the light of his faith,” Fr. Ponce added.

Brandsma was director of Catholic newspapers in The Netherlands like Maximilian Kolbe who the Roman Church earlier named patron saint of journalists. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

BAYAN’s Reyes says Afghan gov’t collapse is another defeat for US imperialism

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The collapse of the foreign-backed government in Afghanistan is another defeat for interventionist military adventures by the United States, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said.

In a statement following reports Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghanil has fled Kabul, Reyes said US military interventionism that pushes imperialistic ends is bound to fail if the local populace see them as invaders.

“However hard the US imposes its version of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, the Afghan people still see them as invaders. US imperialism did not bring them change and development but deeper crisis,” Reyes wrote in Filipino.

The defeat of the US-led military coalition that occupied Afghanistan is another defeat similar to what it suffered in Iraq and Vietnam, he added.

Taliban fighters have started their entry into the capital city after Ghanil has reportedly fled Kabul as the US started evacuating its diplomatic staff with helicopters, reminiscent of the chaos seen when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in April 1975.

The Taliban first gained prominence as an anti-Soviet occupation force that implemented what is seen as a hard line form of Sunni Islam when it first led Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The US led an international military coalition that occupied Afghanistan after the 9-11 attacks in New York, accusing the Taliban of supporting Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed by US commandos in Abbotville, Pakistan in April 2012.

The coalition reportedly spent about $3 trillion dollars in the two-decade conflict, with the US shouldering about $978 billion from 2001 to 2020.

US President Joe Biden earlier ordered the withdrawal of soldiers and urged peace negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban.

Reyes said the US occupation of the country has led to the worst reported cases of human rights violations in the world in the last two decades.

He said that civilian deaths has been treated a mere “collateral damage” that has also bred continuing armed resistance against the occupation.

Reyes added that future developments would indicate whether the Taliban would commit human rights violations it was accused of in the past.

Meanwhile, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to exercise utmost restraint as he voiced concern about the future of women and girls under another Taliban regime.

The Taliban are being accused of curtailing women’s rights to education, work, free expression and others.

Pope Francis on the other hand Pope Francis called for an end to the conflict in Afghanistan so its people “can live in peace, security and reciprocal respect.”

In his Sunday address in Vatican City, Francis said, “I join in the unanimous worry about the situation in Afghanistan. I ask you to pray along with me to the God of peace so that the din of weapons ends and that solutions can be found around a table of dialogue.” # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

CNL hails canonization of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero

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An underground revolutionary organization of church people and workers hailed the canonization of a Salvadoran Archbishop known in his lifetime as a staunch human rights defender and for which he was martyred.

The Christians for National Liberation (CNL), an allied organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, in a statement expressed its “heartfelt jubilation” on the canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero to the Vatican’s roster of Saints.

Romero was canonized by Pope Francis in the Vatican last October 14 as the first Salvadoran Saint. He was gunned down during Mass in a hospital chapel on March 24, 1980, a day after telling the Salvadoran Army that “They are killing our own people.”

“No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. One must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us. And those who fend off danger will lose their lives,” Romero also said on the eve of his martyrdom.

Romero was outspoken during his country’s bloody civil war in the 1980’s, and also against the role the United States played in his country’s tumultuous history.

In a letter he sent to US President Jimmy Carter in February of 1980, he urged the US not to send military aid to El Salvador.

“You call yourdelf Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here,” Romero told Carter.

The CNL drew parallelism with Romero’s struggle for human rights in El Salvador with the Philippine militant church peoples’ struggle for social transformation, for which many are also killed and persecuted.

“CNL through the years, and up to the present, has a long list of martyrs, of church people killed, tortured, detained and harassed while serving the poor,” the group said.

“CNL members have participated in different forms of struggle, including the armed struggle, and devoted and gave up their lives for the revolution,” the group added.

CNL said that in the hearts of the ordinary Filipino faithful, their martyrs are saints just like St. Oscar Romero, as they offer their lives for the basic masses.

CNL said the sacrifice of their martyrs and members is the meaning of holiness in a world of injustice and oppression, as it challenged church people to work for the hoped “new heaven and new earth” by being one with the poor, deprived, oppressed and exploited. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Pope Francis, Stand with us for justice and peace

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“Aside from these letters and other efforts, we are also putting the whole of ourselves in our plea for return of our freedom, application of justice and respect for human rights that have been and continue to be deprived from us,” thus said the political prisoners in a statement, explaining the reason for their hunger strike. The 32 political prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa’s male and female dorm signed the declaration of hunger strike. Among them are Andrea Rosal, and consultants to the peace talks of the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) such as Alan Jazmines, Tirso Alcantara, Loida Magpatoc, Emeterio Antalan, and Leopoldo Caloza.