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Pope Francis' visit to the Philippines spoke to Filipinos heart-to-heart

President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines looks on as a girl embraces Pope Francis after a Jan. 16 welcoming ceremony at the Malacanang Palace in Manila. (CNS/Reuters/Ryeshen Egagamao)

by N.J. Viehland

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Pope Francis deeply touched the many Filipinos who came in droves to see the pope who loves children and poor people, embraces the sick and suffering, and speaks to them heart-to-heart.

According to Francis , he was also moved by the people he met. On an in-flight interview on his return to Rome from Manila, the pope said his visit to Tacloban -- Typhoon Haiyan's ground zero -- was the most moving experience of his Jan. 15-19 pastoral visit to the Philippines.

Even though a typhoon threatened to cut his visit short, Francis arrived in Tacloban, donning a yellow plastic raincoat throughout the entire Mass with survivors and pushing through with his motorcade to the town of Palo and then back to Tacloban airport.

Haiyan survivor Harold Naputo said people would have understood if Francis hadn't come to Tacloban as planned on Jan. 17, "but it was good that the pope came."

"After Mass, I felt free ... like I did not feel in a very long time. I finally had closure," said Naputo, an elementary school teacher.

Naputo, his wife and his young daughters heard the pope's words loud and clear: "So many of you have lost everything. I do not know what to tell you. But surely he [Jesus on the cross] knows what to tell you! So many of you have lost members of your family. I can only be silent; I accompany you silently, with my heart," Francis said during his homily .

Naputo began to weep uncontrollably. "In all these months, nobody had told us that," Naputo told NCR .

Days after Francis' visit, Naputo and friends were still asking, "Why did we not feel that until the pope came?" They wondered why authorities didn't give them the same message of consolation or say that even though they did not know what to do, they were with the people. Naputo said survivors feel "caught in the middle" of the political tension between national and local officials.

While it is unclear what Francis' words and actions will move politicians to do for survivors, Naputo said, "I want to help beggars and people living off the streets that we see but have been ignoring."

The visit with survivors of the 2013 typhoon -- where more than 6,000 people were killed and more than 4 million people lost their homes -- was the main purpose of his visit to the country, Francis announced in his meeting with President Benigno Aquino III.

During his visit, Francis "communicated very effectively" the theme of mercy and compassion and did not dwell on rituals, structures and "the many things we have accumulated over centuries about the Catholic church," said Oblate Fr. Eliseo Mercado. He joined Francis' encounter with families Jan. 16, the Jan. 18 meeting with the youth and final Mass at Luneta Park.

Mercado noted how the pope would drop his prepared speeches to stress points, teach or to express his own personal feelings. "It's very touching, especially for priests like me," he said.

Mercado said he thought the church had lost touch with the poor and was trying to re-engage them.

"The poor are the very heart of evangelization. Remove the poor from the message of Jesus, and there's nothing there anymore," he said. However, Francis focused on the poor in most of his speeches and drew many people from poor communities to his various activities.

The priest liked most the pope's off-the-cuff remarks to families at the Mall of Asia on Jan. 16, when he stressed the importance of dreaming of a baby's future and of good qualities of spouses. The pope also appealed to the 20,000 people in the arena to retain the ability to dream.

The "classic literature" feel to his speech allowed the pope to navigate controversial issues about family and human life without heavy theologizing or moralizing, Mercado said.

"Francis emphasized church teaching that every family should be a sanctuary of life and urged looking into our value as a people instead of falling prey to ideological colonization," the priest said.

In delivering his speech, Francis also opened up to more people, including those of other faiths. "Anybody belonging to any religion has a husband, wife, children, [or] family and can relate to what Francis discussed," Mercado added.

Naputo told NCR he found relief in the pope's words encouraging people to learn to weep. He said he has lived in a kind of "zombie city" since Typhoon Haiyan. He said he has not cried to try to show his family that everything was under control and going to be OK.

"In fact, I was worrying then where to get money to fix up our house," he said.

Benedictine Sr. Mary John Mananzan, a feminist theologian who chairs the board of trustees of Women and Gender Concerns of the Association of Major Religious Superiors, was "so happy" to hear Francis comment that women were underrepresented in that youth-sharing program.

The pope also reminded its organizers that women have a lot to tell society. "Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand," Francis said.

"I cheered this. He is all heart," Mananzan said.

Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, told reporters at the end of the conference's plenary assembly that Filipinos also "brought out the best in Pope Francis."

He said the whole world watched the country for five days as both the Philippines and Francis gave their best.

"It feels good to be a Filipino these days," Villegas said.

Many of the estimated 7 million people who came to papal visit routes and events had watched stories about the pope on television or heard them on the radio in previous months as the Philippines church prepared for the papal visit .

"We've been praying for him and the papal visit after every Mass for the past months," Luneta Massgoer Rosanna Remigio told NCR . She had cards with prayers issued by the bishops' conference after the Vatican announced the visit.

However, Carmelite Fr. Marlon Lacal, of the Inter-Congregational Theological Center in Quezon City, told NCR he feels "a pinch of sadness" with his excitement over the papal visit.

"The excitement is for the effect of the pope's visit on the church to become evident, and sadness comes with the concern that we will just go back to our 'positions of power' and not take up the challenges Pope Francis posed to clergy and religious," Lacal said.

[N.J. Viehland is NCR correspondent in Manila.]

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World-record crowd of 7 million attend mass in Manila, capping dramatic visit by Pope Francis

MANILA - Pope Francis celebrated an open-air mass for as many as seven million rain-soaked worshippers at a sprawling public park here on Sunday, capping his dramatic five-day visit in Asia's most Catholic nation with a pointed reaffirmation of the church's conservative policies on family values.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the office of the president told the Vatican that between six and seven million attended the Mass in Manila's Rizal Park and surrounding areas, Reuters reported.

"We are not able to count all these people, obviously, or to verify this, but in any case, we have seen so many people that we believe that it is possible," Lombardi told a briefing, according to Reuters. "If this is true, and we think it is, this is the largest event in the history of the popes," he said, noting that Pope John Paul drew some five million to the same area in 1995.

In his homily, Pope Francis warned Catholics against falling for the "ephemeral pleasures, superficial pastimes" of modern life, including an all-consuming addiction to gadgets. "Sadly, in our day, the family all too often needs to be protected against insidious attacks and programmes contrary to all that we hold true and sacred, all that is most beautiful and noble in our culture," the pope said.

The 78-year-old Pontiff was more specific than in a previous homily about family values.

"We squander our God-given gifts by tinkering with gadgets; we squander our money on gambling and drink; we turn in on ourselves. We forget to remain focused on the things that really matter," he said.

A storm that has been battering the Philippines this past week did not stop millions from amassing since midnight around an altar at a seaside grandstand.

Despite the steady downpour and bone-chilling cold air, they walked as far as 5km, waiting patiently as they kept themselves dry with ponchos and umbrellas, and warm by huddling.

Some 27,000 policemen were on hand to control the crowd.

Tempers frayed when long queues developed because there were not enough entry points towards the park.

At a youth rally earlier in the day, Pope Francis mourned a church volunteer killed during his visit to typhoon-devastated Tacloban city.

The 78-year-old Pontiff led a moment of silence for Ms Kristel Mae Padasas, 27, who was killed on Jan 17 when a steel scaffolding collapsed on her, as a storm battered Tacloban.

Honouring her memory, Pope Francis let the huge gathering of worshippers at the 403-year-old University of Sto Tomas (UST) know that Ms Padasas was an only daughter, and that her mother has been working in Hong Kong.

The Pope was forced on Saturday to cut short a mercy mission to survivors of super typhoon Haiyan as a storm bore down on Tacloban.

Haiyan left over 7,000 dead and millions homeless when it tore through central Philippines in November 2013.

Pope Francis delivered a truncated, but emotional, mass for over 200,000 at the airport in Tacloban, but he was forced to scrap plans to spend the entire day in the city and neighbouring Palo town, amid gusts and heavy rain.

He returned to Manila hours ahead of schedule.

In an emotional moment during Pope Francis' mass at UST, a 12-year-old girl, Glyzelle Iris Palomar, broke down and wept profusely before she could finish a narrative of her hard life as a street child that she said had exposed her to prostitution and drugs.

"Many children are abandoned by their parents. Many children get involved in drugs and prostitution," Glyzelle told the Pope as she stood on stage alongside a 14-year-old boy, Jun Chura, who was also an abandoned child.

"Why does God allow these things to happen to us? The children are not guilty of anything," she said.

Glyzelle and Jun used to live in the streets before they were taken in by a church-run foster home for street children, many of whom were once child prostitutes.

Pope Francis, visibly moved and nearly in tears, consoled the two with rosaries and a grandfatherly embrace.

The Pope later discarded most of his prepared speech that he was due to give in English, reverting back to his native Spanish to deliver an impromptu and heartfelt response.

"She is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer and she wasn't even able to express it in words but in tears," the Pope told a crowd that organisers said reached 30,000.

"The nucleus of your question... almost doesn't have a reply."

The Pope also waded into the global debate on climate change for a second time in his trip.

"As stewards of God's creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family. When we destroy our forests, ravage our soil and pollute our seas, we betray that noble calling," he said in a text prepared for his homily that, although he did not read to the crowd, is considered official.

There was also a ribbing of men who are "machista".

Pope Francis said men should listen to women's ideas more and not be chauvinists.

"Women have much to tell us in today's society. (We) don't allow room for women, but women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from us, with a different eye," he said.

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10 years of Pope Francis: A look back at his visit in the Philippines | ABS-CBN News

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10 years of Pope Francis: A look back at his visit in the Philippines