ILOILO City – The Philippine Federation of Married Catholic Priests (PFMCP) will have its 17th national convention in this southern city from April 13 to 15 at Madison Hotel.
The three-day convention will be hosted by the Compania De Los Padres De Familia (Padres de Capilla) Inc. and participated by the delegations from the different associations of married priests throughout the country.
According to Padres de Capilla, the convention aims to explore and discuss the future role of married priests in society, drawn out from the sharing of life stories of priests who left the mainstream ministry.
There will also be a brainstorming on the different forms of ministries that will be deemed relevant to the lives of the unserved sector of society, drawing on the experience of the associations.
The participants are also expected to come up with agenda for the federation that will be tackled in the next five years.
Moreover, the convention will welcome the opportunity to tackle or include issues such as the following:
* Relationship with the church in the Philippines,
* Will the PFMCP just be a loose movement advocating solutions to not only religious but other social issues relevant to the lives of the unserved sector or an Securities and Exchange Commission-registered organization,
* Positions regarding planned parenthood, responsible citizenship, climate change, religion, and science, among others,
* How to make married priests continue to be change agents in society by lapping their sense of leadership and pastoral experience, and
* What does it mean to be inclusive, and what are its implications.
Married priests are those who left the mainstream ministry for various reasons, the most important of which was to marry, and those who advocate and believe in married priesthood.
Many are inactive and already in different professions, though still adhering to the mission of their ordination; a few but growing are active in the ministry.
Married priests also include those who are: dispensed or laicized, a procedure done at the Vatican level; and those who are suspended (not excommunicated, there is no such thing) for contracting civil marriage, of those who father children, maintain families, or have a conjugal partner without living the active ministry.
Meanwhile, out of the estimated 2,000 married priests in the country, only about 60 to 70 attend national conventions.
With the Catholic church of the Philippines, the PFMCP stressed their federation as a policy does not intend to establish a parallel church, nor will it be a schismatic organization.
Some of its associations that are active in the ministry are still in communion with the Pope at the Vatican.
Under the PFMCP, there are about 20 smaller associations that are members wherein their purpose and character as organizations are different. Some are non-government organizations, consultancies, social service instrumentalities of the Catholic church, training and development agencies, credit unions and cooperatives, plain fellowship and mutual support groups, and functioning as parishes, dioceses, or prelatures, among others./PN
