With more than 80 million Catholics, the Philippines is home to the third largest Catholic population in the world.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”For Fr Larry” background_layout=”light” use_border_color=”off” _builder_version=”3.0.95″]\n
For everybody’s information, we are now on the 6th\u00a0<\/span>year of the nine-year journey to year 2021. What do we mean by this? Last July 2012, the Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) announced the \u201cnine-year journey for the New Evangelization.\u201d This is to prepare the community and the faithful for the March 16, 2021, 5th<\/span>\u00a0centenary or 500 years of the coming of Christianity in the Philippines.<\/p>\n This year, 2018, CBCP\u00a0declared the Year of the Clergy and the Religious from December 03, 2017 to November 25, 2018. The different themes for each year: Year of Integral Faith Formation (2013); Year of the Laity (2014); Year of the Poor (2015); Year of the Eucharist and the Family (2016); Year of the Parish as a Communion of Communities (2017); Year of the Clergy and Religious (2018); Year of the Youth (2019); Year of Ecumenism and\u00a0Inter-Religious Dialogue<\/a>\u00a0(2020); and Year of Missio ad gentes<\/em> [mission to the nations] (2021).<\/p>\n A 80-million stronghold Catholics, the Philippines is considered as\u00a0the third-largest Catholic population in the world, where Catholic practice is fervent and wide-ranging. The Philippines comprise more than 2,000 inhabited islands, and large islands often have multiple provincial and local cultures. Historically speaking, Filipino Catholicism is shaped by local indigenous practices, and by the Spaniards who conquered it in the 16th century and ruled it until the early 20th century.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.95″ background_layout=”light” text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]\n These statistics are derived from the Vatican’s official publication, Statistical Yearbook of the Church, 2015. Vatican City: Librera Editrice Vaticana, 2017. The numbers may differ from data reported by other sources on this site.<\/em><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.95″ use_background_color_gradient=”on” background_color_gradient_end=”#ffffff”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_circle_counter admin_label=”Baptized Catholics” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”BAPTIZED CATHOLICS AS % OF TOTAL POPULATION” number=”82″ percent_sign=”on” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_align=”center” title_font=”|700|||||||” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_number_counter admin_label=”NO. OF PRIESTS” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”NUMBER OF PRIESTS” number=”9,581″ percent_sign=”off” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font=”|700|||||||” animation_style=”zoom” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_number_counter admin_label=”CATHOLICS PER PRIEST” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”CATHOLICS PER PRIEST” number=”8,727″ percent_sign=”off” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font=”|700|||||||” animation_style=”zoom” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_number_counter admin_label=”WOMEN RELIGIOUS (NUNS & SISTERS)” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”WOMEN RELIGIOUS (NUNS & SISTERS)” number=”12,775″ percent_sign=”off” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_color=”#1074a8″ title_font=”|700|||||||” animation_style=”zoom” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_number_counter admin_label=”NO. OF PARISHES” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”NO. OF PARISHES” number=”3,354″ percent_sign=”off” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_color=”#1074a8″ title_font=”|700|||||||” animation_style=”zoom” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_number_counter admin_label=”MISSION STATIONS (No Resident Priests)” _builder_version=”3.0.95″ title=”MISSION STATIONS (No Resident Priests)” number=”8,179″ percent_sign=”off” background_layout=”light” title_text_align=”center” number_text_color=”#1074a8″ title_font=”|700|||||||” animation_style=”zoom” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”For Fr Larry” background_layout=”light” use_border_color=”off” _builder_version=”3.0.95″]\n Filipinos stand out for their devotional fervor. Filipino Catholic practice is unusually material and physical built especially on devotions to Virgin Mary, the suffering Christ, and the Santo Ni\u00f1o (Holy Child), and on powerful celebratory and penitential rituals practiced and experienced in a wide variety of Filipino vernacular forms.\u00a0Feasts like the Black Nazarene, which draws millions to the streets of Manila in January, the Simbang Gabi novena that precedes Christmas, and the month-long Flores de Mayo offering to Mary illustrate distinctively Filipino forms of devotion.<\/p>\n To date, the first Mass in the Philippines was celebrated in\u00a0Limasawa <\/a>\u00a0on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1521. History stated that it was also then when Rajah Humabon<\/a>\u00a0and his wife Hara Amihan were baptized and given the Christian name Carlos and Juana, respectively. Accordingly, that Ferdinand Magellan gifted these two first Catholics in the country with the image of Santo Ni\u00f1o de Cebu.<\/p>\n “We are truly looking forward with gratitude and joy on upcoming March 16, 2021, the fifth centenary of the coming of Christianity to our beloved land, and indeed a year of great jubilee for the Church in the Philippines.” Amen.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With more than 80 million Catholics, the Philippines is home to the third largest Catholic population in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":33357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fr-larry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ootw-8FU","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aranzazushrine.ph\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ad_yearofclergy2.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33350"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33361,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33350\/revisions\/33361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}QUICK LOOK AT CATHOLIC DEMOGRAPHICS IN THE PHILIPPINES<\/strong><\/h3>\n