Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra —photograph from https://silsilahdialogue.com/
MANILA, Philippines — The Catholic Bishops’ Convention of the Philippines (CBCP) on Friday stated it’s going to confer its highest award on an Italian priest whom the group calls “a number one determine in interreligious dialogue” in Mindanao.
In a press release on the CBCP’s web site, the group’s secretary common Msgr. Bernardo Pantin stated the bishops will confer on Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra the Bishop Jorge Barlin Golden Cross—the group’s highest distinction, named after the Nineteenth-century Catholic chief and the nation’s first Filipino bishop.
D’Ambra, 82, has been based mostly in Mindanao for nearly 50 years now, however his keep has been interrupted repeatedly by threats to his life.
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When he first arrived in Zamboanga Metropolis in 1977, the federal government had simply entered into the 1976 Tripoli Settlement with the Moro Nationwide Liberation Entrance, though tensions from that group’s secessionist motion remained. This was additionally the peak of the martial regulation regime.
D’Ambra was, at the moment, a missionary priest of the Pontifical Institute for Overseas Missions (Pime), the Rome-based missionary group based in 1850.
Witnessing Muslim-Christian tensions, he preached peaceable coexistence, aided Muslim Filipino refugees fleeing from army operations, and even served as a neighborhood peace negotiator between the army and Moro rebels.
After escaping assassination, he was ordered again to Italy by his superior, however returned in 1983 as Pime regional superior. The following yr, he and a bunch of Muslim and Christian mates based the Silsilah Dialogue Motion in Zamboanga Metropolis.
Hyperlink, connection
D’Ambra named that group after the Arabic phrase for chain, hyperlink or connection. In line with its web site, Silsilah “envisions a life-in-dialogue for all Muslims, Christians, and peoples of different dwelling faiths in respect, belief and love for each other, and shifting collectively in direction of an expertise of concord, solidarity and peace.”
Violence in opposition to Silsilah perpetrated by Islamic extremists within the early Nineteen Nineties led to a second recall to Italy. However D’Ambra would later return to the Philippines to proceed his mission.
His Silsilah motion has gained such worldwide awards because the Goi Peace Award from Japan’s Goi Peace Basis in 2013 and the World Interfaith Concord Week Award (additionally known as the King Abdullah II of Jordan Prize) the subsequent yr.
Silsilah additionally led to the creation of the Emmaus Dialogue Group (EDC) in 1987 and the Emmaus School of Theology (ECT) in 2020.
EDC is one other group selling interreligious dialogue, whereas ECT is an establishment the place Catholic youths are capable of work together with different cultures and religions.
‘Service, beliefs’
D’Ambra had additionally served the CBCP as the primary govt secretary of its Episcopal Fee on Interreligious Dialogue upon its institution in 1990. He served that publish “for a few years,” the CBCP stated.
Pantin stated the Golden Cross is in recognition of the Italian priest’s “excellent and beneficiant service” to the Church, “exemplifying the beliefs” of Barlin.
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He will probably be formally conferred that award through the CBCP’s 128th plenary meeting in July.