Philippine churches should choose Filipino

We Filipinos are known to export not just our bodies and labor. We also export our culture, traditions, and language.

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In fact, overseas Filipino workers practically live in two time zones: one is wherever they happen to work, and two is GMT +8, the Philippine time zone, to keep tabs on what’s happening back home.

Now this column is not about OFW’s penchant for current events, or what is passed off as OFW politics. That’s a topic we could talk about in more than one column. Neither is this about OFW’s love for Filipino food, including humba, which they humbly introduce to the world. I’m talking about Filipino folk Catholicism.

The popes themselves have discovered and praised this, and the bishops are only too happy to welcome them as new parishioners capable of filling up not just pews but entire churches. Catholic OFWs go to mass, and they bring with them everything they have known and learn to be part of Filipino folk Catholicism.

So whether it is our fiestas from Nazareno to the Sinulog, or unique Catholic devotions such as Simbang Gabi, the most fervent Catholic OFWs would find a way to ask the parish priest or the bishop for permission to bring Filipino Catholic practices. The presence of Filipino priests — be they studying, on a mission, immigrant, or naturalized — would make matters easier.