Philippines’ newest cardinal on living out Synodality: ‘We should demolish walls dividing us’

The newest cardinal of the Philippines vowed to put Synodality at the center of his ministry and become a symbol of unity and communion as “bridge-builders.”

Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, the tenth Filipino cardinal, stressed that “we should demolish the walls that divide us.”

“[We should] build more bridges of goodwill among ourselves. That is what we call Synodality,” he said during a conversation with media representatives on December 14.

“We [must] learn to walk with one another. We must let go of this sectarian thinking. Catholics should learn to be one with non-Catholics, with fellow Christians, with other religions… and all fellow human beings,” said the prelate.

Ahead of his audience with the media, the 65-year-old bishop offered a Thanksgiving Mass for his election as a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

On December 7, he was in Rome to attend the consistory, where Pope Francis elevated him to the College of Cardinal along with 20 others.

In his homily, Cardinal David, dearly called “Ambo” by Filipinos, said that the day of the consistory “has no difference from any other ordinary day” in his life.

“That’s what Pope Francis told me anyway: not to make a big deal of it and to take it all with a grain of divine humor,” he said.

Cardinal David, known for his human rights advocacy and humility, stressed why being humble is necessary to bring the Kingdom of God to the peripheries.

“The Church’s mission is not about promoting a religion,” he said. “It is too arrogant of us to even think that it is our project. It is God’s project; we are mere participants in it.”

“We’re all really unimportant here; just participants in the life and mission of our Savior,” he also said.

Cardinal David’s Thanksgiving Mass was attended by several bishops, most notably the Papal Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Charles Brown, the clergy of the Diocese of Kalookan, some of his family members, and hundreds of parishioners.

He has made history as the first incumbent president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to be created cardinal.

This is also the first time that the Philippines’ National Capital Region (NCR) is home to two living cardinals, the other being Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula.

Aside from serving as CBCP President, Cardinal David is also the Vice President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (CBCP) and a Member of the Ordinary Council of the Synod’s General Secretariat.