Liturgical confab set on Paul VI’s beatification

MAKATI CITY — In keeping with its mission of promoting and directing the liturgical life of the faithful, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)’s Episcopal Commission on Liturgy (ECL) is set to hold the Venerable Pope Paul VI Pastoral Conference I” on Oct. 17, Friday, 3and00 p.m. at the San Carlos Seminary, Guadalupe, Edsa, Makati City.‘Pastoral liturgy’The event, which is organized in coordination with the Archdiocese of Manila (RCAM)’s Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission, the Paul VI Institute of Liturgy, and the San Beda College Graduate School of Liturgy, is dedicated to Pope Paul VI, whose beatification is set on the same day.CBCP-ECL Chair Bishop Julius S. Tonel of the Diocese of Ipil in Zamboanga is slated for the opening remarks, while Manila Archbishop Emeritus Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales will look back to Pope Paul VI’s Pastoral Visit to the Philippines in 1970.Fr. James H. Kroeger of the Loyola School of Theology will give an overview of Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi” (Evangelization in the Modern World), which the present pontiff, Francis, described as The greatest pastoral document written to this day”.In it, the Pope affirms the role of every Christian, clergy and laity alike, in proclaiming and spreading the Gospel.Msgr. Ricardo Jesús T. Serrano, former president of the University of the Assumption in San Fernando, Pampanga will discuss Pope Paul VI’s Legacy of Pastoral Liturgy”.Vespers will be said after the talks.Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)Paul VI was born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini on September 26, 1897 in Concesio, Italy. He was the 263rd successor to the See of Peter from 1963 until his death in 1978.Paul VI continued the Second Vatican Council which John XXIII started in 1962.In July 1968, he issued the controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae” (Of Human Life) in which he reaffirms the orthodox teaching of the Catholic Church on married love, responsible parenthood, and contraception.Dubbed the pilgrim” pope, he was the first pontiff to fly in an airplane.He died in 1978 from a heart attack. He was 80.(Raymond A. Sebastián)