MANILA, Philippines – Delegates of a high-stakes Vatican summit elected Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, the incoming 10th cardinal from the Philippines, as part of a 17-person council tasked to implement the “synodal process” toward a “listening church.”
The 17-person Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, where Cardinal-elect David belongs, “will play a key role both in implementing this synodal process on synodality and in preparing for the next synod,” according to Vatican News.
Elected on Wednesday, October 23, David is one of two Asian representatives at the synod council. The other one is Cardinal Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, archbishop of Goa and Damão in India, incoming president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).
David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, is the incoming vice president of FABC.
The significance of David’s new role stems from the importance of the Synod on Synodality, a three-year process of dialogue and consultations initiated by Pope Francis.
A synod is traditionally a gathering of bishops who advise the Pope on pressing issues. The word “synod” comes from the Greek term syn-hodos, which means “walking together” and which reflects the assembly’s consultative nature.
Synodality, a major hallmark of the Francis pontificate, refers to a more consultative, dialogical way of proceeding, described as a “new way of being church.” This means listening more to laypersons and consecrated individuals, not only bishops and priests, in decision-making processes.
The Synod on Synodality — which began at the parish level and is now being concluded at the Vatican — is the most important program by Francis. In the history of the Catholic Church, it is also the most significant summit since the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II, a historic gathering of bishops in the 1960s that set the church’s direction in the modern world.
The composition of this year’s synod session alone indicates its unprecedented nature: it is the first time that non-bishops such as priests, nuns, and laywomen — 96 out of 368 delegates — are included as voting members.
Membership in the synod council, therefore, raises David’s international profile.
David, 65, was born in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga on March 3, 1959. He was trained at the Jesuit-run San Jose Seminary based in Ateneo de Manila University, where he was school mates with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, and later earned his doctorate in theology at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
A former assistant bishop who kept a low profile in his native Pampanga, David rose to prominence after he became bishop of Kalookan in January 2016. Months after his installation, Rodrigo Duterte became Philippine president in June 2016 and led a bloody war on drugs that killed thousands.
The Diocese of Kalookan was a hot spot of killings in Duterte’s six-year drug war, prompting David to speak out in defense of the victims. – Rappler.com