Evangelization sans helping the needy is failure – Archbishop Soc
MANILA, Jan. 14, 2012— It is unacceptable to evangelize without helping those who are suffering and in need, a ranking official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said. To not be concerned with life’s temporal problems is going against the Gospel teaching of helping the needy, Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in his homily during the launching of the ‘Year of Mission’ on Saturday. “Every missionary must reach out, proclaim, teach, baptize, pray and love. But a missionary must be helpful all the time regardless of convictions, regardless of faith, regardless of culture,” Villegas said. “Helping hands, meaning to say we embrace all the tears, the joys, the successes, the defeats, the discouragements, the frustrations of humanity. Nothing that is human can be alien to the church. Because the Lord came from heaven in order to embrace fully our humanity,” he said. Hundreds of faithful, mostly young people, graced the launching of the “Year of Pontifical Miss...
