Archbishop Emeritus Antonio J Ledesma SJ of Cagayan de Oro reflects on the results of this week’s presidential elections in the Philippines. “Ferdinand Marcos Jr, known as ‘Bongbong’, the son and namesake of the country’s late dictator, who was ousted by a people’s revolt 36 years ago, is poised to become the next President of the Philippines for a six-year period. He amassed a huge lead over his nearest rival, the liberal human rights lawyer and incumbent vice-president Leni Robredo.
Election Day, May 9th, 2022, has come and gone. We are left with the election results. But who are the real losers and winners? Ten challenges confront us as individuals and as a nation” reflected Abp Emeritus Antonio J Ledesma SJ of Cagayan de Oro. “The massive DISINFORMATION campaign over social media by a particular candidate and his party cannot just be brushed aside. Over the past five to ten years, we are told, this online campaign has been stealthily carried out, reaching the minds and fantasies of cell phone users even in the remotest areas of the country. The dissemination of fake news about the “golden era” of the Martial Law period, the rehabilitation of the Marcos name, the downgrading of the reputations of other candidates, the casting of heroes as villains and villains as heroes – all this was planned with deliberation and strategic targeting of socioeconomic classes as well as age groups.
How can the country prevent this form of brain-washing and “vote buying” in future elections? There are cyber libel laws, but can they be easily implemented? Do we require senders of anonymous online messages to identify themselves? Frequent repetition of lies can eventually be accepted as the truth, a lesson from Goebbels of the Nazi regime.”

The steady decline of birth-rates across Europe and the West are signs of a new form of poverty that deprives humanity of a future, Pope Francis said.
Families unable to have children and young people who struggle with having a family due to economic hardship or the allure of “mediocre substitutes” risk turning the “beauty of a family full of children” into a “utopia, a dream that is difficult to fulfill,” the Pope said in a message sent May 12 to participants of a conference on low birth-rates in Italy.
“This is a new poverty that scares me,” he said. “It is the generative poverty of those who discount the desire for happiness in their hearts, of those who resign themselves to watering down their greatest aspirations, of those who are content with little and stop hoping for some-thing great.”
According to the national statistics agency, ISTAT, Italy’s birth-rate hit an all-time low with 399,431 births in 2021 compared to 404,892 in 2020. Italy, Malta, Spain, Greece and Luxembourg have the lowest fertility rates in Europe.
The two-day “General State of Birth Rates” con-ference, its website stated, aims to “make proposals to reverse the demographic trend” in Italy which has “worsened by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

With song, prayer and ritual, leaders of women’s religious congregations from around the world concluded five days of meetings in Rome on May 6, affirming their commitment to the process of synodality and em-bracing a journey of vulnerability that they believe is vital for the renewal of the church, religious life and their own communities.
The pledge was a culmination to the May 2-6 plenary of the International Union of Superiors General, during which numerous sisters, theologians and speakers voiced their support for Pope Francis’ vision of a synodal church that embraces its early historical roots, affirms the need for diversity, listens, and is more welcoming to those on society’s margins.
The 23-word commitment, spoken in unison by the 520 sisters attending the plenary in person and silently by another 200 or so who attended online, reads: “I commit myself to live vulnerable synodality through service as a leader, animating it within the community, together with the people of God.”
The plenary brought a strong sense of communion among the sister-leaders participating, UISG President Sr. Jolanta Kafka of the Claretian Missionary Sisters said in an interview after the gathering ended.

All academic institutions should feel inspired to follow in the footsteps of Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., who was always ready to engage and educate.
Pope Francis gave this encouragement to University of Macerata students and faculty on May 8  in the Vatican.
The public university located in Italy’s Marche region on the Adriatic Coast was founded in 1290, making it one of the oldest European universities still operating.
The Holy Father recalled that the great Jesuit missionary, Father Matteo Ricci, who brought Catholicism to China, was born in Macerata in 1552 and died in Peking in 1610. After the initial efforts of St. Francis Xavier, S.J., thirty years later, Ricci and others succeeded in advancing the missions of the Jesuits in China. The Jesuit Pope encouraged those before him to recall Ricci as an example, and learn from his ability to dialogue with and educate others.
Macerata, the Pope said, gave birth to Father Matteo Ricci a great “champion” of the “culture of dialogue.”
Ricci, the Pope said, “is great,” not only for that which he has done or written but, that in being “a man of encounters, who went beyond being a foreigner and became a citizen of the world.”
“Certainly the university is a privileged place for this encounter. Macerata was the birthplace of this great champion.”
“I congratulate you for not only preserving his memory and promoting studies on him, but also trying to update his example of intercultural dialogue. What a need there is today, at all levels, to resolutely pursue this path, the path of dialogue!”

Westminster LGBT+ Catholics have welcomed comments by Pope Francis, published this week by Fr James Martin SJ on his website Outreach. Fr James’ pastoral ministry includes the LGBT community, and he recently sent three questions to the Holy Father, which he said are most commonly asked by LGBT Catholics and their families.
Fr James asked firstly: “What would you say is the most important thing for LGBT people to know about God?”
The Pope answered: “God is Father and he does not disown any of his children. And the ‘style’ of God is ‘closeness, mercy and tenderness.’ Along this path you will find God.”
The next question was: “What would you like LGBT people to know about the Church?
Pope Francis said: “I would like for them to read the book of the Acts of the Apostles. There they will find the image of the living Church.”
Finally Fr James asked: “What do you say to an LGBT Catholic who has experienced rejection from the Church?”
Pope Francis responded: “I would have them recognize it not as “the rejection of the church,” but instead of “people in the church.” The church is a mother and calls together all her children. Take for example the parable of those invited to the feast: “the just, the sinners, the rich and the poor, etc.” (Mathew 22:1-15; Luke 14:15-24). A “selective” church, one of “pure blood,” is not Holy Mother Church, but rather a sect.”
Ruby Almeida, Chair of the Westminster LGBT+ Catholics told ICN: “We, the Westminster LGBT+ Catholics group, are always delighted when Pope Francis speaks about our community with such compassion and understanding about the many sins of rejection and hurt that have been committed against us.

‘I emphasize again that the liturgical life, and the study of it, should lead to greater Church unity, not division. When the liturgical life is a bit like a banner of division, there is the stench of the devil in there, the deceiver,’ the Holy Father said April 7.
Pope Francis said Saturday that the liturgy should not be “a battleground” for “outdated issues.”
“I emphasize again that the liturgical life, and the study of it, should lead to greater Church unity, not division. When the liturgical life is a bit like a banner of division, there is the stench of the devil in there, the deceiver,” Pope Francis said at the Vatican on April 7.
“It’s not possible to worship God while making the liturgy a battleground for issues that are not essential, indeed, outdated issues, and to take sides, starting with the liturgy, with ideologies that divide the Church.”
Speaking at an audience with the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in the apostolic palace, the Pope said that he believes that “every reform creates resistance.”
Pope Francis recalled reforms made when he was a child by Pope Pius XII, particularly when Pius XII reduced the fasting require-ment before receiving Holy Communion and reintroduced the Easter vigil.
“All of these things scandalized closed-minded people. It happens also today,” he said.
“Indeed, such closed-minded people use liturgical frameworks to defend their views. Using the liturgy: This is the drama we are experiencing in ecclesial groups that are distancing themselves from the Church, questioning the Council, the authority of the bishops … in order to preserve tradition. And the liturgy is used for that.”
Pope Francis spoke to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, an institute in Rome whose school of liturgy has had increasing influence in liturgical norms coming from the Vatican.
The secretary and undersecretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship were both formed by the institute, which was established in 1961 by Pope St. John XXIII as part of the Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo.