To know deeply why we should be grateful,
faithful and fruitful, let us begin by reminding ourselves of who we are. When
we entered the seminary, we did not merely enroll just to study and learn. We
carried with us our best intention to serve God and to serve the Church. Many
if not all prayed to become priests. We made a commitment to dedicate ourselves
to God’s purpose. We spent time in discernment and we walked with our spiritual
director and formators in a spiritual journey. When we left the seminary, it
was never the end of our journey. In fact, for 50 years, there have been
countless journeys made either as priests or lay faithful. There have been
countless journeys made either as an individual or as a group like the alumni. In
all of the journeys, one thing is clear and unequivocal: God is faithful.
God has been faithful all
throughout the history of this seminary. But as we are time-bound in
celebrating a golden anniversary, we confine our celebration to a commemoration
of God’s faithfulness through fifty years of priestly formation.
Though the seminary was
established for priestly formation, not all who came out here (of the seminary)
became priests. Others went out as lay faithful whose hearts were fashioned by
God’s faithfulness. Our Lay Alumni was not created merely to be a social club
for ex-seminarians. They are institutionalized to be the conscience in the
world.
I believe we are all familiar
with Christifideles Laici, a post-synodal apostolic exhortation issued by Saint
Pope John Paul II on December 30, 1988. It states that laypeople are
co-responsible for the Church’s mission. But our Alumni are not just laypeople
in the world. In other words, they are not the same like all others. If one who
is not a military member but has a military background, our alumni though are
not ordained priests, they have priestly background. In this sense, they can be
better witnesses in the world. Their seminary formation and training empowered
them to integrate religious or theological studies with real-world applications,
which is crucial in transforming a society.
It happened (to me) just this
August 13, 2026; a friend and I were dining at a restaurant and I was surprised
that the officers of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Aklan Chapter were
also there to dine. Then the president of the IBP Aklan Chapter asked me to
lead the prayer before meals with lawyers coming from the National Office to
conduct the 13th Leg of the Code of Professional Responsibility and
Accountability (CPRA) Roll-out and Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS) Information
Caravan. After praying, I went back to my table and finished my dinner. Then a
lawyer from the National Office approached me if he could talk to me alone. Thinking
he was a lawyer by profession, so I prepared to talk to him with a mindset of a
lawyer. He asked me if I am still actively working. I answered him, yes. I told
him that I still do notarial services and sometimes have to appear in courts.
Then he clarified saying, are you still a priest? I answered yes. Then he immediately
added, do you still hear confessions. I said yes. He immediately made a sign of
the cross and asked for God’s forgiveness. The next day I learned he was a
former seminarian. Please do not ask me if there was a just cause when I heard
his confession because according to the Code of Canon Law, confessions are not
to be heard outside a confessional without a just cause (CIC 964). I hope you
all understand that I am just sharing this experience insofar as to notice that
an ex-seminarian has continued to value the spiritual formation he received
during his time in the seminary. His seminary formation has become his guiding
principle that influences his life and his relationship with others.
If all ex-seminarians live up to such
same principle, this makes them a unique kind of laypeople. When the Church
authority is under attack, they can offer themselves as shield. When the Church
hierarchy is silenced, they can serve as its voice. When some members of the
clergy are indifferent to the plight of the poor and the oppressed, they can act
as frontliners in the administration of justice. The Church does not need to
remind them of their identity -they are bearers of faith in the society and in
the Church. This is the gravity of the title as “Seminary Alumni” for
laypeople.
In the ideal world, ex-seminarians
can best assist the Church in sanctifying the world from within. As they engage
in temporal affairs, they can order them according to God’s plan. They can
begin in their homes where their children receive the faith which they pass on
to them. They continue to bear the faith by going to their working place while promoting
Christian ethics in their working environment. But we know we live in the world
which is far from being an ideal. We can only be grateful to those who believe
and live the faith, who bear and pass on the Catholic faith.
Now, if Christifideles Laici
states that laypeople are co-responsible for the Church’s mission, who is the
other party in the co-responsibility model of the Church? It is the clergy -we
priests alumni. The said co-responsibility of the clergy and the laypeople
involves mutual support. We priests then should look after our brothers -the
lay alumni while taking into account the words from 3 John 5: 6-8:
“Please help them in a way worthy
of God to continue their journey. For they have set out for the sake of
the Name and are accepting nothing from the pagans. Therefore, we
ought to support such persons, so that we may be co-workers in the truth.”
We, priests should not only
support the identity and mission of the laypeople, but also take the lead so
that the laypeople can actively participate. If we in the clergy will not do
our mission in the Church, then how can we expect the laypeople to do their
mission in the world?
To explain this, let me cite a
few paragraphs from what was written by Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez on the topic,
“Why is the Church silent amidst too much corruption?” dated September 2, 2025 on
the news website of The Freeman. He wrote:
“Jesus was teaching the
Christians to be bold enough to condemn evil deeds and express outrage against
excesses and abuses. It’s a pity that most of the top pillars of the Catholic
faith today opt to remain silent and not get involved. Perhaps it’s because the
Church itself has many skeletons in its closet. There had been for the longest
time many cases of priests and bishops accused of molesting young boys and
girls. There were a number of unsolved anomalies also in the financial and
property administration and management of the Church. Thus the leaders of the
Catholic Church have surprisingly chosen to close their eyes to the emerging
and recurring hard and painful realities involving the clergy and laity as
well.
The deafening silence among the
Catholic hierarchy from The Vatican to the lowest dioceses and parishes is
almost equivalent to endorsement of the evil that men do today. The laity are
like sheep without a shepherd. The people are waiting for a voice to lead them
in collective outrage and indignation.”
This brings me to the crucial
component of our gathering today: to reflect on the enduring mission of our
alumni in the Church and society. Basically, our mission is to bring the world
closer to Christ and eventually to bring everybody to heaven. In short, it is
evangelization.
In an address to members of
the Dicastery for Evangelization in May, Pope Leo XIV said:
Evangelization must remain the
fundamental motivation behind every action of the universal Church and of local
communities; only in this way is the faith itself continually rediscovered in
all its beauty and able to express its credibility to the full. The
proclamation of the Gospel, which instils hope, is not a utopian proposal: it
is a witness that draws people in because it reveals the call to love and
truth.
My dear friends, evangelization
is not new to us. In fact, in the Philippines, the Catholic Church is free in
her right to exercise spiritual sovereignty over her subjects and to
reach those elements of human affairs which are “quo modo sacrum.” One of the
milestones to be considered in our works of evangelization came with the
appointment of the then Auxiliary Bishop of Manila, Bishop Teodoro C. Bacani as
one of the commissioners who actively participated in drafting the 1987
Constitution. His contribution to the Article on the Family (Article XV) highlights
the state’s duty to protect the institution of marriage, family life, and the
welfare of children and the elderly. Another milestone which was
well-documented is the Article 36 of the Family Code of the
Philippines (Executive Order No. 209, as amended) which took effect on
August 3, 1988. Even the Supreme Court cannot deny that Article 36 was
introduced to incorporate the Catholic Church’s concept of nullity of
marriage under Canon Law, and was taken almost verbatim from the 1983 Code
of Canon Law. Thus, we can be confident in saying, because of the strong
Catholic influence in the country and our belief on the sanctity of marriage, still
the Philippines has no legal provision for divorce.
However, despite the many
milestones we celebrate, our mission is not over. As long as the world evolves,
our mission endures. We evangelize amidst the changing of time, culture or
challenges. Let me lead you back to the two milestones I mentioned earlier.
They are all related to marriage and family life. Divorce is not allowed
because marriage is sacred. Family is sacred. Yet, there are legal remedies
provided by law which for us Catholics reduce the nature of marriage into a
mere contract. In effect, it can change how family shall be defined.
1st Case: Remember the
late Freddie Aguilar who was born into a Catholic family. Later in his life, he
had converted to Islam so that he could marry his then 16-year-old girlfriend
under the Muslim Family Code of the Philippines.
However, conversion to Islam does
not automatically exempt a person from bigamy if the first marriage is still
valid under civil law. The Supreme Court of the Philippines affirmed the
conviction of Francis D. Malaki and Jacqueline Mae A. Salanatin-Malaki for
bigamy, as they did not meet the requirements which include equal treatment of
spouses and notice to the Shari’s Circuit Court with the first wife’s consent
or judicial permission.
[Malaki vs People G.R. No.
221075, November 15, 2021]
2nd Case: Republic vs
Orbecido III G.R. No. 154380
Cipriano Orbecido III married
Lady Myros M. Villanueva on May 24, 1981, in Lam-an, Ozamis City, Philippines.
They had two children. In 1986, Lady Myros moved to the United States with
their son. Years later, Cipriano learned that his wife had been naturalized as
an American citizen and had obtained a divorce decree in 2000, subsequently
marrying another man in California. Cipriano filed a petition with the Regional
Trial Court (RTC) for authority to remarry, invoking Paragraph 2 of Article 26
of the Family Code. No opposition was filed, and the RTC granted the petition.
The Republic, through the Office of the Solicitor General, sought
reconsideration, arguing that Paragraph 2 of Article 26 applies only to mixed
marriages, not to cases where both spouses were Filipino at the time of
marriage but one later became a foreign citizen
The Supreme Court held that a
Filipino spouse may remarry under Philippine law if the other spouse, later
naturalized as a foreign citizen, obtains a valid divorce abroad.
3rd Case: Oral
arguments on the recognition of foreign divorce recently concluded (August 11,
2026)
Senior Associate Justice Marvic
Leonen said that there can be strong families even without marriage.
Leonen asked Solicitor General
Darlene Berberabe if a widow and a child, a single parent, a single parent with
a partner they are not married to, an unmarried couple with children, same-sex
partners with adopted children, and an orphan being taken care of by his/her
grandparents were considered family.
Berberabe answered yes to each
one.
Then Leonen cited, Article II,
Section 12 of the Constitution, which states: “The State recognizes the
sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic
autonomous social institution.”
He added, “When we read family
there, it does not mean … only a married couple with children.”
My dear friends, although we in
the Church know this well, ‘not because an action is legal, it is also moral’; but
how about those in the world? I said it before and I will say it again, “Our
Lay Alumni was not created merely to be a social club for ex-seminarians. They
are institutionalized to be the conscience in the world.” They can act as
bridges between the Church and the world, bearing the faith to places where we
priests cannot reach. As the world evolves, we, priests on our part shall do
our best to preserve the Church to be a sanctuary, a trusted place for people
who search for truth and for the meaning of life. So that when life in the
world becomes uncertain, feels confusing and meaningless, we are the Church
where they can meet Christ to restore the full meaning and value of their
lives.
My dear friends, let us leave
this hall today with a renewed sense of purpose. Let us be the alumni who are
fiercely ethical in our actions, disciplined and dignified before the people of
this world. Let us ensure that the doors of the Church remain wide open for people
who are in need of God’s compassionate love. And as we go out to the world, like
our dear St. Joseph, let us be the guardians of those whom the Lord entrusts to
us. Let us not forget our universal mission, both as priests and laity, which
the Church has received from the risen Lord -Go into the whole world and
proclaim the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15).
Thank you and may God bless us
all!
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