Church Boots Out Ailing Filipino Priest
January 19th, 2010 by news and press
The Roman Catholic Church, and to be more specific, the New York Archdiocese, has expelled a Filipino priest for being ill and having to have dialysis. He was booted out on the first day of December. We urge everyone to sign the petition to Pope Benedict XVI, urging The Roman Catholic Church to reform their labor practices.
Rev. EUSEBIO Pablito Maghari, a 59-year-old Filipino assistant priest at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Staten Island, New York who was on his way to incardination was ordered out of the rectory on the first day of December by the NY Archdiocese and told to go back to the Philippines after becoming ill last September from acute kidney disease requiring dialysis treatment three times a week.
Although his doctors attested that Rev. Maghari remains able to work, he was stripped of his salary, health insurance and the authority to say mass and administer the sacraments by the NY Archdiocese after he refused to go back to the Philippines. A green card holder, Rev. Maghari was invited to join the NY Archdiocese to relieve the shortage of priests, but must now rely on Medicaid for his medical needs.
Rev. Maghari, a priest for thirty four years, has been a diabetic for seventeen years and said that without kidney transplant sending him back to the Philippines is like a death sentence since dialysis cost more than $1,000 a week. Currently homeless, after six years of service in NY Archdiocese his health insurance coverage expires after December 31
Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the NY Archdiocese told reporters that the archdiocese can no longer be responsible for the ailing priest and the responsibility falls on the bishop in the Philippines to care for Rev. Maghari.
Mr. Zwilling stated that the determination was made having reviewed Rev. Maghari’s medical records and the parish situation.
The following is the actual petition:
We the undersigned respectfully urge His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI
To reform the labor practices of the Roman Catholic Church regarding the employment of priests, religious and church workers who must be provided coverage of Social Security, Medicare, Disability and other safety nets like reasonable job accommodation during period of disability. The Church, as an employer must conform to U.S. labor laws that protect workers from exploitation.
We urge His Holiness to assure that Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) be treated with respect as to their civil rights and not be subjected to oppressive working environment like unreasonable work schedule, denial of access to their salary, passports, entry permits and other personal belongings, as well as limitation in reasonable personal contact with the outside world.
We urge His Holiness to immediately address the situation surrounding the termination of the health insurance, homelessness and other labor issues of Rev.Eusebio Maghari, formerly of New York Archdiocese. Kindly alleviate the suffering of Rev. Maghari and other similarly situated individuals.
We urge His Holiness to review the circumstances surrounding the past employment of BLB, a Filipina OFW in the Saipan Diocese with the purpose of preventing such incident from happening again to other similarly situated individuals.
We the undersigned not only appeal to His Holiness sense of Justice and Charity, but more important we urge the Roman Catholic Church to practice what it preaches in terms of respect for human rights and concern for social justice.
We urge His Holiness to listen to our plea and recognize the truth in our petition
Believing that our cause is just and rooted on conscience, we hereby sign this petition in solidarity based on the circumstances that are known to us without any malice on our part
(THE UNDERSIGNED)
‘Ecclesia Semper Reformanda’ (The Church Must Always Be Reformed)
January 19, 2010 at 11:24 pm
The abuse and injustice committed by the Catholic hierarchy against Filipino priests are too numerous to cite, but this one is unique: “In the early eighties one Father La Lallave, a Spanish Catholic priest who was stationed in the province of Pangasinan, became convinced of the falsity of the Roman Catholic church. After some time he determined to embrace the Protestant faith, and of course was excommunicated. He returned to Spain and there engaged in translating the four Gospels and Acts into the Pangasinan dialect. These translations were published by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Upon completion of the first edition, Father La Lallave with an assistant returned to Manila, and took up his quarters at Hotel de Oriente. They had been there only a couple of days when both were taken violently ill and showed signs of poisoning. The assistant being a younger man, recovered after a time, but La Lallave failed and finally died, killed, it is supposed, at the instigation of a jealous priesthood. The books were never landed, and were returned by the steamship company to Singapore, where they remained until the American occupancy of Manila, August, 1898.” (p. 45, Condict, Alyce Brian, “Old Glory and the Gospel in the Philippines”, Chicago 1902.)
January 20, 2010 at 12:48 am
That is what you call charity and compassion of the Catholic Church.
Practice what you preach!
January 23, 2010 at 11:35 am
we are not the same in the Philippines…it’s the culture!
January 20, 2010 at 1:37 am
Oh, I thought the Church provides?
This is why they are against the RH bill right? Because they can support not just their own clergy but the millions of lay people as well.
He should come home…as the CBCP and Ang Kapatiran says “Marami pang lupa sa Pilipinas…” and “sagana tayo sa biyaya ng diyos”
RH Bill is the work of the devil.
January 20, 2010 at 1:39 am
PS…
P*****ng-inang simbahan talaga
…hindi nagbabayad ng Tax tapos in the end gustong kumuha ng Medicare at SSS…
Kay God kayo humingi ng social security…leeches!
January 20, 2010 at 1:47 am
what is “incardination”?
is this a typo?
January 20, 2010 at 2:13 am
it just means a parish priest being transferred from one monkey in red robes (bishop) to another money in red robes.
January 21, 2010 at 7:06 am
in addition to a special hat.
January 20, 2010 at 2:04 am
That is what you call Charity and compassion in the Church.
January 20, 2010 at 3:25 am
Thanks so much for posting this, Nick — I’ll let F Pabs know how many people r trying to help him.
L ;-)
January 20, 2010 at 5:54 am
Fr. Maghari is effectively in limbo. Will the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, with its coffers enriched by ‘donations’ from PAGCOR, give the ailing priest from Antique succor?
January 20, 2010 at 7:47 am
It’s really disgusting that the church can’t take care of their own loyal servants.
But I guess the church is like the communist party…while espousing equality and sharing, there will always be a favoured select upper committee…ie the Bishops living in grand mansions with nun servants. If Fr. Maghari was a Cardinal or Bishop, then surely a beach front convent villa awaits. Alas.
Kaya to young couples, wear a condom or use other contraceptives when you are not ready to have children because the church will not pay for your medical bills, put a roof over your head, send your children to school, or feed your children.
January 20, 2010 at 7:24 am
I thought priesthood is a calling, not a job. Why invoke secular labor laws?
January 20, 2010 at 11:30 am
yeah, much like the teachers – its a calling.
January 20, 2010 at 9:01 am
I love this stuff. My concept of moral authority was first shaken when, at the age of 13, my father sent my brother and me off to the donut shop so he could peruse the Playboy magazines at the newsstand. Now this. Pretty soon I will think the devil is in charge, and created God for the amusement of Man.
Joe
January 20, 2010 at 9:03 am
ha, I was 13, my father a bit older.
that guy at the back carrying the fallen angel looks a lot like a young Bill Clinton.
J
January 20, 2010 at 11:28 am
God is punishing the Pinoy priest for spreading a delusion.
January 20, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Delusions are highly contagious, for sure.
Joe
January 20, 2010 at 4:53 pm
And contagious, is an ill given factor!
January 20, 2010 at 5:57 pm
The NY Archdiocese is not much different from any Wall Street corporation or anyone in the Makati CBD or any of the corporations who run Manila’s giga-malls. So please do not hammer the Roman Catholic Church as a whole on this problem, even if it disgusts us. This Church, which is the oldest multinational corporation on the planet, invented the concept of subsidiarity. Now readers should know that modern corporations more or less follow this concept. The Vatican knows very well that this is a problem of the NY archdiocese and its bishop. Labor suits may be filed against the archidiocese and its CEO, the bishop. The Pope in Rome can take note but legally can’t do anything. Rome won’t step in unless the NY archdiocese requests for help. It’s just like the Fed won’t step in until the banks collapse.
Now while unfair labour practices makes us ballistic, we have to know what the Pinoy priest’s arrangements with the NY archdiocese is. If he is a guest priest, it may be that while incardinated and able to licitly administer the sacraments, he isn’t really a diocesan priest and may not be entitled to all the benefits, retirement or otherwise, that a diocesan priests is entitled to. So before readers become holy and righteous in their denunciation of the WHOLE Roman Catholic Church, check the canonical contract fine print first. I doubt that some of these readers would be that holy and righteous in their denunciation of their company’s unfair labour practices if they are paid a salary by that employer. If they are Catholics, they haven’t any material thing to lose so it may be easy to condemn the Church.
But if indeed he was a guest priest even for all those years, then the responsibility to care for him falls on the Filipino bishop that sent him to NY.
The Church has employment and corporate practices rules too. The Church invented the legal system for employment. And in like secular corporations, it is WISE TO CHECK THE FINE PRINT IN EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT!
January 20, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Could be he’s a contractual priest.
January 20, 2010 at 10:18 pm
blah blah.
Remember that even without a contract, the Church always proffers it’s ‘moral superiority’ and ‘honesty’ and ‘decency’ and ‘fairness’.
Too bad it has forgotten what these all mean and would rather issue edicts on ‘transubstantiation’, ‘the primacy of man’….ek ek…
January 21, 2010 at 12:52 am
but i dont get it. the philippine archbishop will take care of him right? whats the moral dilemma?
January 21, 2010 at 2:53 am
If the Archdiocese of NY goes down the gutter of the legalese, then we have a huge problem. This is not a legal issue. This is a moral issue!!!! By stooping down to the legalese, they expose themselves as, exactly, pharisees!!! The Church should not be like Wall Street or we all should get out of it. They preach love and practice greed. What are they thinking?!
Humanitarian groups send ill people from poor countries to America for state-of-the-art treatment to save their lives… Here is the archdiocese of ny doing the reverse, sending back one of their brothers, a priest forever, to die for sure…. I spoke to a dear friend, a veteran nurse since the mid 70s, who was appalled… the risk of flying Fr, Pabs out on a long flight is so great he might die on board the plane due to his terminal condition. his diagnosis is techincally END STAGE RENAL DISEASE. even if he is on dialysis, he has not many years to live unless he has kidney transplant. Where is Christian LOVE in that? He is treated like a junk car, worse than some of these bishops’ pet animals and, meantime,they nurture the pedophile priests ad nauseum…. and I was made to believe the Catholic Church is Universal, without borders…. sorry, my mouth tastes like calamondin right now.
January 21, 2010 at 7:41 am
You heard it straight from the shaman’s mouth ladies and gentlemen. Doing God’s work or, to be precise, spreading the good news of their imaginary friend in the sky is now subject to a labor contract and with a fine print at that. Priceless!
January 21, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Canonically, as I remember in my classes way back in the seminary, and in this context his domicile is under the Filipino Bishops. I think the old priest don’t want to leave the States because of the cheap medicare over there, but I think the Archbishop finds it abusive for the old priest to use another State’s cheap medical services, hence the decision of the Archbishop. So yeah, the priest might overstepped the agreement both of them made.
Surely the archbishop is not stupid, you don’t want this kind of scandal, I think he is just following procedure, nothing more. And yeah, half of the people here haven’t read an inkling in the territories of Bishops as defined in Canon Law. Heck, the Pope, which is the Bishop of Rome, cannot intervene into another Bishop’s territory unless required by Canon Law.
So I guess welcome to the Age of the Internet.
January 21, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Your much vaunted Canon Law is full of inconsistencies and has in fact undergone several revisions over the years and is nothing more and nothing less than the foundation to hammer in the theocratic vision and ambitions of the church.
You could very well shove that Canon into the Pope’s arse!
January 22, 2010 at 3:07 pm
That is quite informative, thanks iosepusmagus. Still, even if the archbishop is not stupid, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth for a supposed man of God to select procedure in lieu of human compassion to a priest under his ministration and who is a dying man.
January 20, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Tsk, tsk , its indeed saddening that the Filipino priest Rev. Eusebio Maghari was not given a fair shake by the New York Archdiocese, he being a Green Card holder at that.
How did we get to this unfair share? That even a member of the clergy has to suffer similar plight as the millions of Overseas Filipino Workers abroad.
A pundit commented that OFWs are favored because, besides the English language skills, Pinoy workers are super sipag-at-tiyaga. Translation: very prone to abuse by employers.
As Air Supply would have it: I don’t know what to say.
January 21, 2010 at 7:00 am
Please do not insult the OFWs by comparing them to clergy. Majority of OFW are hardworking while clergies are hardly working (aside from dosing out laughable beliefs)
January 21, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Where is the priest now?
January 21, 2010 at 3:32 pm
This is sad.. I hope the petitioning succeeds.
January 21, 2010 at 10:09 pm
@tranquil
January 21, 2010 at 4:40 pm
*rolls eyes*
The Church is a spiritual entity, absolutely, but it is also a political entity. That is why the Pope is sporting three tiaras.
So please, don’t paint the RC as a non-political entity, because the Church was never ambiguous with it, it is a political entity from within and without. Even the anti-Papist Dante in his De Monarchia didn’t made that mistake. Remember any community, believers or otherwise, is bound to have some degree of political framework in order to function and achieve its aims.
And Canon Law is such, but do remember Canon Law is never taught as inspired in anyway, it is just there to make the mechanism work. Gets?
January 21, 2010 at 11:19 pm
That is why you can shove it in your Pope’s arse because it can only have juridical potency within the political bounderies of the Vatican state and its vassalage. Gets?
January 21, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Then why comment on an internal issue if you believe your stance on shoving stuff up the Pope’s ass? Btw, another basic political concept is this, a political entity that borders with other political entities, secular or otherwise, surely have guidelines at least on how to conduct their relationships. Migdal’s work, and a nifty Venn diagram can clear that up, but it seems you’re more interested in Catholic bashing than rigorous dialogue. ;)
January 23, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Because a religious entity exercising political clout and power is, by and large, a bane to human condition. The 3 Abrahamic faiths are notorious for this as evidenced by their history. Apart from slitting each other’s throat in fierce rivalry, these religious enterprises also subject their flock to oppression, ignorance, poverty, women hate, and inflicting their brains with mental virus of faith in the irrational.
On the Catholic front, vassal states exist mostly during the medieval period and yet the Vatican to this day treats the Philippines like one. It’s religious orders and organizations calls the Philippines a province and monies are siphoned off to the Vatican coffers.
So I say once more, shove that thing into Ratzinger’s arse. A secular society is not interested in your Canon Anon, whilst you arrogantly imply :
So freakin’ what? Not interested in dialouge. No dialouge is necessary with the deluded bunch. You can settle the matter in close enclave for all we care.
January 23, 2010 at 11:31 am
I’m in limbo reading the news about the unfortunate treatment to the ailing Fil Am priest in U.S. Why? I grew up near U.S.T. church and witnessed how the church treated old priests and even ailing priests. I used to hear mass at the balcony(as how I call it) just to see the old priests walking around the hallway(so slow) going to their spacious rooms. The scenario in Laguna is no different. I’ve seen sick priests who were well taken care of their parishes and of course the laity, not just in money but in emotional support as well. That’s how we treat our priest in the Philippines—with reverence and love. Perhaps, this unfortunate event has something to do with the culture foreign land. No offense meant, just an observation.
January 25, 2010 at 11:32 am
This is sad. The Religious worked so hard and chose poverty , no material possessions, to follow God’s calling to bring more souls to God. They deserve a much better treatment on their old age. Who will take their place when they are gone with the shortage of the Religious nowadays? Who will administer to us the Sacraments ? This is an isolated case in a certain area. It does not represent what the Church stands for. The angels in heaven cannot compare to the power that God has given to His priest, the changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ ! We respect them as God’s ” In Persona Christi. ” Why mistreat a holy dying priest this way. Let us all pray for him.
God bless !
February 7, 2010 at 4:19 pm
i find it adding insult to injury when mr, josephusmagnus says, ” I think the Archbishop finds it abusive for the old priest to use another State’s cheap medical services, hence the decision of the Archbishop. So yeah, the priest might overstepped the agreement both of them made. ” I spoke to Fr. Maghari and he confirmed that the Archdiocese assured him in writing that all his needs would be taken cared of during his stay, I asked him to give me a copy of the contract, but he was too ill to retrieved it. Less than a week later, he was back at the hospital. again, i thought the Catholic Church, being universal, has no borders…. and how can you airlift an ill person who stands to die on board a plane while on flight? just to follow canon law? have mercy, mister? if one reads the Gospel, Jesus reserves his greatest anger at those who had no mercy on the weak, the dispossessed and the ill, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan where the Priest and the Levite just passed him by, while the Samaritan, whom the Jews hated, nursed him back to health. In its April 6, 2009 issue, TIME quoted Sr. Christine Schenk of Cleveland, to wit: ” Too many bishops are treating parishes as if they were Starbucks franchises. It’s about more than money. ”
Mind you, it’s not just in New York. How do you explain the scandalous poverty rate in the Philippines, while many Bishops and priests still support the present regime which obviously has dropped the ball in serving the poor. Worse, some priests even compared GMA to Jesus Christ! Ang kapal! It’s sickening,,,
February 7, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Hernan, I talked to Consul Rebong tonite. She has promised to help from here. Please check your FB inbox for logistics. We will also see about contacting his Cardinal and the rest of his family. Keep u the good fight, my friend. Take care.