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Centennial's St. Thomas More Parish is sowing the seeds of stewardship in the
Philippines, taking the message of spiritually-led giving to Catholics in one
of the world's poorer countries.
In January, St. Thomas More Pastor Father Andrew Kemberling and Communications
and Stewardship Director Mila Glodava traveled to Manila and Cebu for the first-ever
conference on stewardship in this island nation. The five-day conference held
Jan. 13-17, was attended by Cardinal Ricardo J. Vidal, archbishop of Cebu in
the Philippines, plus three other Philippine bishops, priests from seven dioceses
across the Philippines and representatives from 10 religious orders — all
seeking guidance to establish a foundation of stewardship among Filipino Catholics.
"To share the message of stewardship with the Filipino people was a dream,"
said Glodava, who was born in the Philippines and has devoted herself (through
her Metro Infanta Foundation) to supporting Catholics in her homeland.
"This is a pioneering effort," she said. "The Filipino people
value the principle of stewardship, but they haven't made it a tradition in
their churches, in part because they don't know how to implement a successful
stewardship program. This conference has helped them to discover their own ways
of making stewardship a reality."
St. Thomas More has a long relationship with Catholic churches in the Philippines.
For the past 5 years, the youth ministry and religious education program, including
its preschool Small Wonders, have conducted a "Pennies from Heaven"
penny drive to collect funds to help renovate St. John the Baptist Parish in
the town of Panukulan. In January, Father Kemberling delivered a check for the
final $2,000 of the $10,000 cost of the church renovation.
During a visit to St. Thomas More in February 2002, Philippine Bishop Julio
X. Labayen, O.C.D., invited Father Kemberling and Glodava to come to the Philippines
to conduct the stewardship conference.
More than 85 percent of the population of the Philippines is Roman Catholic.
A large number of Filipinos support themselves by producing coconut oil, fishing
or farming rice. Like many branches of the Catholic Church in second- and third-world
regions, the Philippine Church has seen many of its parishes struggle as religious
orders close their missions and cut back on funding for mission churches.
The question that took Father Kemberling and Glodava to the Philippines carried
its own urgency. How does the Church in the Philippines become self-sustaining?
"The answer must lie in cultivating a spirituality of stewardship that
will foster both the money and the lay people needed to take on ministry roles
that are now rightfully theirs," Father Kemberling said. "The spirituality
of stewardship means that we don't belong to ourselves and our things don't
belong to us. They're God's and he is sharing them with us. We must embrace
the spirit of evangelical poverty."
In 1999, the Catholic Church in the Philippines declared itself the "Church
of the Poor." In doing so, the Church determined that it would create a
"preferential option for the poor," and would identify with the people
of poverty in its midst. But it was a difficult spirituality to embrace, Glodava
said.
"For many years the people were asking, `how am I going to call myself
poor when I work so hard not to be?' The Church was changing, but it needed
a spirituality to put the meaning (of being the Church of the Poor) into the
pews for the people," she said.
It was for that reason that Philippine Bishop Labayen asked Father Kemberling
and Glodava to come to the Philippines and lead the stewardship conference.
For two days, Father Kemberling and Glodava lectured and led discussions on
the spirituality of stewardship, focusing particularly on the four underlying
values of stewardship: identity, trust, gratitude and love. They also helped
the priests in attendance to form their own parish programs based on the principles
of time, talent and treasure, which form the foundation of the stewardship program
at St. Thomas More.
"Listening to Father Andrew and Mila, I realized that stewardship is
not fund-raising at all, but formation in discipleship," Cardinal Vidal
said. "This conference has transformed our way of looking at the Church
of the Poor. We have come to realize that to be Church of the Poor, we must
be instruments of God's gifts, so that those who have more will not have too
much, and those who have less, will not have too little. Stewardship is discovering
God's gift in us, it is sharing our giftedness with the Church."
Cardinal Vidal has invited Father Kemberling to return to the Philippines
later this year to speak at a meeting to be held and attended by 87 dioceses
and 160 bishops across the Philippines.
"I never imagined myself as a missionary priest, and yet here I was in
a missionary role in the Philippines, sent to assist them in their role of evangelization,"
Father Kemberling said. "We were helping them to build a `spiritual interior'
to their Church that will help them identify with their spiritual role as the
Church of the Poor."
Father Kemberling and Glodava will offer a similar stewardship conference
at St. Thomas More 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 26 to various parishes in the Archdiocese
of Denver. St. Thomas More Church is at 8035 S. Quebec St.
