RSSThe Mission Society of the Philippines´ (MSP) has become the first society of apostolic life for mission founded in Asia to gain pontifical right status.
The group announced the development on its official website (www.msp.org.ph), in an article reporting on its seventh General Assembly, which ended on Jan. 30. The article said the society´s outgoing moderator, Father Socrates Mesiona, told the assembly the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (CEP) had approved MSP´s application for pontifical right status.
Maryknoll Father William LaRousse, former president of the International Association of Catholic Missiologists, explained to UCA News that the approval means the society is no longer under the local bishop´s authority but directly responsible to the Holy See through the CEP.
The MSP assembly offered a thanksgiving Mass during which Father Mesiona “read the official decree which recognizes the Mission Society of the Philippines as a ´Society of Apostolic Life for mission ad gentes (to the nations) of Pontifical right.´”
The article said the decree was signed by CEP prefect Cardinal Ivan Dias. The Indian prelate is the first Asian to head the congregation.
MSP, a society of Filipino priests founded in 1965, has 72 members serving in 13 countries on five continents, its executive secretary, Joanna Decena, said in an interview. Natural-born Filipinos are eligible to join the society, which also welcomes Filipino diocesan priests to serve in foreign mission as associate members.
In granting the new status, Father LaRousse said, the Vatican recognized the maturity and stability of the society, popularly known as Fil-Mission. MSP´s number of members and ability to demonstrate its charism and financial stability to continue and expand would be factors in this evaluation, he added.
The missiologist said being of pontifical right could make the MSP more stable than a group of diocesan right, over which a local bishop has more direct authority and can make changes in the society.
For its part, the society has to change its constitution as suggested by the CEP, which must approve the revisions. Perpetual oaths, dispensations, confirmation of superiors and other matters of Church law must also be submitted to the Holy See for approval.
Father Patricio Casino of the MSP´s newly elected four-member General Council declined to be interviewed before the group formally informed local bishops of the Vatican recognition.
When Philippine bishops organized MSP as they commemorated the fourth centenary of evangelization of the Philippines, they declared they wanted “to express in the concrete our gratitude to God for the gift of our faith.” Close to 81 percent of 86 million Filipinos are Catholics, according to the latest National Statistics Office census data.
MSP is committed “to share the gift of faith to the peoples in Asia and the rest of the world,” the group declares on its website.
The 23 delegates to the January assembly included missioners from the Americas, Europe, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea.
As their new moderator they elected Father Alfredo Africa Jr., who is on mission in the United States and did not attend the assembly.
MSP is among six “Asian-born” missionary societies, Maryknoll Father James Kroeger said in a 2000 presentation. Two groups are of Philippine origin and two from India, while the Korean and Thai Churches have each established one institute, the missiologist wrote. Five belong to the Roman, or Latin-rite, Church and one to the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the two Oriental Catholic rites based in India.
END
Share
Twitter