DAVAO CITY, December 15, 2008—The archdiocese has stepped up its preparation for the formal launching of the diamond jubilee of the Local Church in Davao on December 17 at 4:00 o’clock in the morning in time with Misa de Gallo.
The formal launching will be presided by Archbishop Fernando R. Capalla, who in his pastoral letter addressed to the clergy, religious and lay faithful urged them to take an active and full participation in the event.
With the themes, “Remembering the past with gratitude”: “Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever,” (Heb. 13:8), Capalla said, “we shall see to it that the focus of this remembering is Jesus Christ who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Capalla added that the diamond jubilee of the archdiocese is also a year of grace for the people’s inner renewal as indulgences will be granted according to the decree he issued.
The archbishop issued a decree establishing the conditions of the jubilee indulgence on the occasion of the diamond jubilee celebration on the archdiocese.
Capalla cited the following conditions for gaining the jubilee indulgences namely: 1] Pilgrimage to one of the seven old churches: San Pedro Cathedral, Sta. Ana Shrine, Our Lady of the Assumption, Sto. Rosario in Toril, Sacred Heart of Jesus in Calinan, Carmelite Monastery Chapel in Bajada and the Perpetual Adoration Chapel of the Pink Sisters; 2] The prayers to be recited while in pilgrimage: five times Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, and one Hail Holy Queen; 3] To avail of the sacrament of reconciliation within the jubilee year; 4] To offer a holy mass for the intention of the jubilee and 5] an act of charity.
The Local Church in Davao was first separated from its mother diocese, now the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, on December 17, 1949 and at the same time created as a Prelature of Davao. Its first bishop-prelate was the Most Rev. Clovis Thibault of the Society of the Foreign Missions of Quebec (PME).
Subsequently this ecclesiastical jurisdiction was elevated to the rank of Diocese on July 11, 1966, and finally on June 29, 1970 it was promoted to the metropolitan status of an archdiocese. Monsignor Thibault then was promoted and became the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Davao. (Mark S. Ventura)
