A Safe Haven

Fr Gary Walker at Holy Family Home, Bacolod City

My Columban colleague Fr Gary Walker, editor of The Far East, the Columban magazine for Australia and New Zealand wrote an article about Holy Family Home, Bacolod City, A Safe Haven, after visiting there last year. You can read it here in the August issue of The Far East.

We have Father Gary's article as our featured video at the moment on Misyon.

In July-August 2008 we had another article about Holy Family Home, 'A Child Redeemed is a Generation Saved' by Richelle Verdeprado, whom the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family have enabled to study at third level. Richelle is now in her third year of a four-year course in Social Work at the University of Negros Occidental - Recoletos (UNO-R), run by the Augustinian Recollects, known in the Philippines as the Recoletos. She has been involved in campus journalism since her elementary days and works in our office during vacations.

Misyononline offline (temporarily)

We uploaded the July-August Misyon on the first of this month. Yesterday afternoon we suddenly went offline. I've been in contact with the people we pay to pay the server. The fault is with the latter but I hope we'll be back as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, you can access most of the material from the current issue here, thanks to Joy Rile, my editorial assistant.

When I was doing mission appeals in the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Diocese of Nottingham in England during the summer of 2005, I think, I saw the young Filipino seaman in the photo above on the posters of the Apostleship of the Sea. They were having their annual fundraising at the same time. His name, as I recall, is Vicente.

In a parish in London I mentioned the poster and seafarers in a homily. After Mass a young member of the Royal Navy, who was from the West Indies, if my memory serves me right, thanked me for speaking about those who work at sea.

25th Anniversary of 'Negros Nine'

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of the 'Negros Nine'. The Nine included three priests and six laymen, leaders in their mga Kristianong Katilingban, Basic Christian Communities. They were falsely charged with the murder of Mayor Pablo Sola of Kabankalan, a murder for which the New People’s Army (NPA) announced they were guilty. Father Vicente Dangan, now deceased, was a priest of the Diocese of Bacolod. The area where the Columbans worked at the time is now the Diocese of Kabankalan and it was in St Francis Xavier Cathedral that we had a special Mass yesterday. The main celebrant was Columban Father Brian Gore. Bishop Patrick A. Buzon SDB of Kabankalan presided.

The Negros Nine episode made a household name of Father Brian Gore in his native Australia as it did of the late Fr Niall O’Brien in Ireland. He later became the founding editor of Misyon in 1988. I took over from him in 2002. Father Niall died in 2004.

The July-August issue of Misyon contains a number of articles to mark the occasion. Father Gore tells us how the legacy of the Negros Nine continues in The Negros Nine Live On.


Mrs Nomy Muhal, whose husband Conrado was one of the six laymen, shares her memories of the event in Faith of a Woman. There are photos above and below of Nomy visiting her husband in jail, their eldest daughter Cecille still a toddler. There is also a recent photo of Nomy.

Cecille, one of the two daughters of Conrado and Nomy at the time, recalls her visits to her father in jail when she was a toddler in A ‘Negros Nine Baby’. Cecille acquired two more sisters after her father’s release. Sadly, he never lived to see his four lovely daughters grow up. Cecille, now a nurse, is on the left in the photo below.

Coping with mental health problems

The March-April issue of Misyon, the online magazine I edit on behalf of the Columbans in the Philippines, has been online since last Monday.

Father Tim Finigan kindly drew the attention of his readers on his blog, The Hermeneutic of Continuity , to an article, A Daughter's View on Manic Depression, by Elizabeth Parkes 11 when she wrote it, on how she helped her Mom, Jackie, cope with depression. Jackie has an article, The Agony and the Ecstasy, which she originally posted in her blog last November. Jackie has since taken a break from blogging. Father Tim highlighted Jackie’s article first time around.

The current issue of Misyon also has an article on Mary Doohan, a Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great, 'for her work for the missions', which she accomplished by founding and developing The Little Way Association. Mary died last August at the age of 91 and one of her two Columban brothers, Father John, was buried here in the Philippines in January. Fr Liam dunne SVD, author of the article, compares Mary, born in County Clare, Ireland, as a missionary of the same stature as people such as Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, Fr Patrick Peyton CSC, 'The Rosary Priest' and Father (later Bishop) Edward Galvin and Fr John Blowick, founders of the Columbans.