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CFC ANCOP USA and OVP’S Angat Buhay widen partnership for the poor
By Cristina DC Pastor CFC ANCOP USA Executive Director Roger Santos and his wife Josie live in Manalapan, a South Jersey town known for its large, sprawling homes. In the couple’s formal dining room, two of the five Christmas trees – dedicated to each grandchild — were waiting for Josie’s attention, the ribbons, shiny hanging […]
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‘On Global Filipinos:’ Fordham dean on preparing future leaders to serve in faith
By Loida Nicolas Lewis Faustino Manaligod Cruz, SM., broke new ground last year at Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York, by accepting the role of Dean and Professor of Practical Theology of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE). A priest of the Society of Mary, Marists, he has served multilingual […]
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Beloved singing priest’s transfer saddens parish community
By Lindy Rosales Inside a huge white tent packed with community, friends, and family, Father Adolfo Novio bid farewell to his parish in Shrub Oak, a hamlet in Westchester County. It was a cloudy but humid day, and more than 500 people came to see him perhaps for the last time. Having completed his three-year […]
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An ardent Santo Nino devotee is PIDCI Grand Marshal
By Cristina DC Pastor Legend has it that when the old St. Augustine’s Church in Philadelphia had shrunk to a few dozen congregants in late 1980s, it was Dr. Restituto Estacio – armed with a small statue of the Santo Nino — who rallied support from the Filipino community. Today, the church highlights in its […]
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How colonial mentality became our Stockholm Syndrome
By Metty Vargas-Pellicer It’s always an ordeal to make a trip home to the Philippines. The 14-hour trans-Pacific flight and another four hours in the air if you’re coming from the U.S. East Coast seem interminable. I didn’t know why I was making this trip again after just two years. Alone on the beach with […]
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Will Iglesia Ni Cristo be granted tax-exempt status? (Part 2)
By Cristina DC Pastor The purchase of Johnsonville gives the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) – or Church of Christ — a total of four locations in Connecticut. There are already INC churches in Bristol, Stamford and Windham — a total of 32 local congregations and missions in the Northeastern Seaboard, said Brother Joji Crisostomo, INC […]
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Iglesia Ni Cristo buys abandoned village in CT, opens it to public on Aug 26 (Part 1)
By Cristina Dc Pastor East Haddam town in Connecticut is a panoramic three-hour drive from New York City. It is the only home Laurie D’Aquila, a registered nurse and a lifelong resident, has known. When Johnsonville Village in East Haddam was struck by lightning in early 1970s, D’Aquila remembered the neighborhood burning. “I was 16, […]
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In the land of Sopranos, a thousand Sto. Niños find a home
By Cristina DC Pastor From the outside, this modest, cottage-style house in the residential section of Linden, N.J., looks like any family home. This house on East Blancke Street is actually a museum cradling more than a thousand statues and figurines of the Sto. Niño Infant Jesus, giving the visitor an entrancing feeling of being […]
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My sister Myrna
By Luis H. Francia In my mind’s eye, I can see my ‘ate,’ or older sister Myrna here, possibly as a ‘babaylan,’ part of a religious community more solidly rooted in folk beliefs than the Catholic Church and more empowering of her as a woman. I remember attending her 25th anniversary celebration as a nun […]