A Letter from Rome

(Editor’s Note: Pontificio Collegio Filippino is the home of Filipino clergy who are studying further in Rome. Most graduate there have now become bishops in different dioceses in the Philippines. Fr. Gaston, the present rector asks for financial support for the renovation of the building.)

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, and dear brother priests,Greetings from your Home in Rome!

As you would remember, last July 7, His Eminence Luis Antonio G.Cardinal Tagle, appealed to a group of clergy and business men and women for support for the restoration of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino – “our home in Rome…a place where we priests, sent by our Bishops and our local churches, try to embrace the ministry of academic studies for service in the Church.” For those who made it to this special event held at the Makati Medical Center, maraming, maraming salamat po!

For the past 50 years, Cardinal Tagle told the audience, the Collegio Filippino “has been home to all our brothers and sisters from the Philippines and other people who find the Filipino culture and faith a source of inspiration.”

So much is at stake, therefore, to keep the Collegio Filippino in top condition to continue fulfilling its role in strengthening the Philippine Church through the further studies of our brother priests.

Sadly, time has exacted a toll on our home in Rome that major renovations are needed to upgrade the Collegio Filippino. Some repairs and stop gap measures have been made, but much more has to be done to restore it to the humble but respectable abode for our brother priests and a time-honored gateway of the Philippine Church to the world.

Concerned multi-sectoral members of our Church have responded to the call to restore the Collegio Filippino. Most importantly, a low-key campaign has been initiated to raise the much-needed funds for the renovation and also to hopefully provide for partial scholarships – so that eventually, God willing, dioceses could more easily send their priests for further studies in Rome.

The campaign will involve the coordinated use of print and broadcast media and highlight the coming four Sundays of Advent starting on November 30 as special occasions for coming together and sharing. But donations may come in through various methods – from the mobile phone’s “pasa-donate”, through credit cards and on-line banking, outright bank deposits and others. Details on the designated bank accounts are attached; and once ready, details and credit card and mobile phone “Donate” will follow.

I wish to most respectfully request your Reverences to please rally the faithful and relay this call to action down to the parish, chapel and BEC community levels. We hope you could network with possible donors, forward this letter to your email contacts and in the social media, post banners and include this appeal in your announcements during Mass services. You could replay the video of Cardinal Tagle (www.pcfroma.org) and read the gist of the letter of Abp. Soc Villegas as CBCP President (attached) and/or Bp. Jesse Mercado (attached) during the announcements made before the final blessing on the Advent Sunday Masses.

I have requested the lay coordinators (see list below) for this specific fund-raising activity to get in touch with you for logistical arrangements and details on what materials we can hopefully supply and disseminate.

We pray that this will be a fitting observance on the occasion of His Holiness, Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines this January. After all, the Pontificio Collegio Filippino falls under the jurisdiction of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy and of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Thank you very much po. Please rest assured of my prayers for you and your intentions.

Sincerely,

Fr. Gregory Ramon D. Gaston
Rector
Pontificio Collegio Filippino
www.pcfroma.org