MANILA (UCAN) -- Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila has asked Catholic media workers to support a new movement to have every Catholic join the struggle to alleviate poverty.

The archbishop introduced the renewal movement called "Pondo ng Pinoy" (foundation of the Filipino people) to 20 journalists and Church media workers at the Catholic Journalists Forum on April 26 in Manila. Father James Reuter, director of the bishops' National Office of Mass Media, organized the event.

Archbishop Rosales explained the operant concept as "basically a catechesis to form new mental attitudes and renewed values where every Christian citizen will be required to set aside everyday the equivalent of crumbs."

He said all in the Church are called: rich and poor; educated and uneducated; influential and unempowered; teachers and students; clergy, laity and Religious. All are called, he explained, because all are involved.

"We are going to gather the crumbs as key for the survival of the poor and also the key for our salvation," the archbishop said. "We are going to gather crumbs daily."

He noted that a crumb, or "mumo," one grain of rice, weighs about the same as 25 centavos (US$0.0004), one-fourth of a peso. The idea of the new movement, he continued, is that everyone will set aside the equivalent of crumbs, not food, by contributing from 25 centavos to one peso daily.

"In this new system of charity, no one is allowed to give more than a peso," he added. "We'll make a habit out of this. Sometimes charity is reduced by our culture into an act. Charity is not an act, charity is a way of life."

According to Archbishop Rosales, "In the Church we would call this catechesis, in the Bible we call this evangelization, in the government they call it development." But with Christ, "it is integral evangelization," he told the audience, among whom were representatives from the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), the Titus Brandsma Center run by Carmelite priests, and Manila archdiocese.

Unlike the government's "big" approach to development, he said, the movement comprises "small steps to progress" because small things "are always the ways of the Kingdom." He said the movement would embody a "theology of the crumbs" because its ways will be little steps, "so little that they will look funny and yet are attractive, passable and easy."

Archbishop Rosales described the situation of national poverty with reference to studies initiated by Catholic and private social research groups. He noted the "striking" condition of the poor Filipino. In Manila alone, around 52 percent of the population are poor, he said.

He also related his encounter with poverty during a day he spent in a Manila squatter area along the railways near St. John Bosco Parish. "I ate with the people. I saw along the sides of the railroads some 900,000 people," he said, adding that this number did not include people living under road bridges. Such a situation, he admitted, "puts an accusation against me as a Christian."

On average, a very poor family in the slums spends 52 pesos everyday for food, he said. "What the people eat and how they eat will tell you the real story of the national economy," he added.

The National Statistics and Coordination Board said that in 2000, there were at least 52.6 million Filipinos, or 67 percent of the population, living off 77 pesos a day.

The archbishop said he believes two worlds exist in Manila -- those of the rich and the poor. "You will be deceived if you look only at the big buildings," he cautioned, pointing out more people live under bridges and along ditches and railways than in condominiums.

He encouraged the media workers to join the archdiocesan effort when he officially launches the "renewal" movement June 11-12.

Anthony Roman of the FABC Office of Social Communication told UCA News May 3 that the archbishops' sharing received a positive response.

Other meeting participants with whom UCA News spoke confirmed this.

Pamela Avellanosa, a "mission animator" of the Divine Word congregation in Quezon City, next to Manila, said she was touched that the archbishop spent a day with slum dwellers to know how they really think and feel. "Now what I do is spread his idea of the 'theology of crumbs' by word of mouth," she added.

Daughters of St. Paul Sister Consolata Manding, director of Media Literacy Education School, said the idea is not new, but "what is wonderful here is the archbishop's approach." An agenda for the poor always exists in the Church, but an initiative coming from the leader of the local Church will hopefully create an impact on the archdiocese, she explained.

Jesuit Father Reuter told the group the forum was significant "especially those who look upon journalism as their vocation." Poverty, he said, is the main problem in the Philippines and other regions of the world, and all religions must work together to overcome it. "The media apostolate plays a powerful part in proclaiming this," he explained.

The forum also was a venue for inviting Catholic media practitioners to the coming world assembly of UCIP, the International Catholic Union of the Press, scheduled for Oct. 9-17 in Bangkok.

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