Church leaders from the archdioceses and dioceses in the Visayas have placed a premium on rehabilitation and evangelization in their list of communal and individual priority pastoral programs in the coming years.

The three-day 9th Visayas Region Pastoral Assembly held in Dumaguete City ended with the guide to future pastoral plans of actions of the four archdioceses and 14 dioceses in the Visayas region that was drafted and approved yesterday in a common pastoral statement.

The Pastoral Statement on Rehabilitation and Our Task of Evangelization, focusing on the Biblical passage “Arise and eat, for the journey may yet be far” (1Kgs 19:7), was signed by Archbishop Jose Palma of the Archdiocese of Cebu and the assembly convenor.

It speaks of the common desire of the participants to focus on being “one body, one spirit in Christ”, the assembly’s theme for the gathering that aimed to “revisit, evaluate and assess the implementation of the pastoral plans made in the last VRPA”.

The statement highlights in the beginning God’s faithfulness to encourage and inspire the Church leaders in the region to rise above the agony, suffering and trials brought about by disasters that had devastated the Visayas in the past year.

Paying tribute to the victims of two major 2013 disasters in the Visayas region – the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that damaged Bohol and the super typhoon Yolanda that impaired Leyte – the assembly, in their statement, focused on moving forward towards rehabilitation with God in the midst of such tribulations.

The church and lay leaders of the Visayas Region Pastoral Assembly expressed optimism of a “better tomorrow because our future in the hands of the Lord”.

They thanked the people from all over the world for the prayers and material support in the relief and rehabilitation efforts of the devastated areas saying their gratitude is “beyond telling” and said “We pledge to be faithful and transparent in the implementations of their donations”.

The assembly also expressed gratitude for the blessings amidst all these tribulations, specifically the upcoming visit of Pope Francis to Leyte in January 2015, with hopes of the Holy Father being able to visit Bohol as well, and the hosting by Cebu of the 51st International Eucharistic Congress in 2016.

They also acknowledged specific issues and concerns such as evangelization (reflective understanding and committed participation), Basic Ecclesial Communities (common understanding of the BEC), renewal of the clergy (commitment and way of life), Year of the Church of the Poor (206/address the situation of the economically poor) and the Year of the Eucharist and the Family (understanding the Eucharist).

The assembly also recognized that while each local church has a mandate to pursue programs for individual visions and missions, working collectively as a region with certain commonalities will make it easier for them to realize common dreams and aspirations.

“In this assembly, many of us also feel inspired to pursue the practice of standard living allowance (SLA) and we commit to support each other in this endeavor,” it said.

The assembly expressed gratitude to the host Diocese of Dumaguete and local government officials for the warm welcome and the successful staging of the gathering.

“It is with joy in and gratitude to the Lord that again, we redefine our pastoral priorities and our programs as we invoke the intercession of our Blessed Mother, Queen of the Visayas, that the Lord of harvest may bless our endeavors with fruits thirty, sixty and hundredfold,” Palma said, in reading the conclusion of the pastoral statement during a press conference to culminate the 9th VRPA.*JFP

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