Loyola School of Theology Publications Office

LIMITED SLOTS! Register now for this practical seminar designed specifically to help students and novice researchers write and publish scholarly research. 📝✨

🗓️ Date: Friday, July 21
⏰ Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 nn
📍 Venue: Audio Visual Room (Rm 113), St. Ignatius Building, Loyola School of Theology [with online attendance option]

🖋️Register now at https://bit.ly/july21LSTPubSeminar and secure your spot! This seminar is free of charge and is open to LST and non-LST students alike.

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LANDAS, the academic journal of Loyola School of Theology in the Philippines, is accepting article manuscripts in the areas of Biblical studies and theology. Manuscripts from other fields of study that intersect with these areas are also welcome.

You can send your manuscripts to [email protected] or message this page directly. You can also visit the Style Guide for Authors at https://bit.ly/StyleGuideLANDAS

Visit https://publications.lst.edu/publications/serials/ to download the latest issues as well as back issues of our journals, all free of charge!

Landas Vol. 35 No. 1 (2023) is now available for open-access/free download at https://publications.lst.edu/product/landas-vol-35-no-1-2023/

To order hard copies, send us a message or email [email protected].

Landas Vol. 35 No. 1 (2023) CONTENTS – CLICK ON TITLES TO GO TO ITEM PAGE AND ADD ITEM TO ACCOUNT…

Visit https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/landas

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated and accelerated the use of the Internet to bring the celebration of liturgies and sacraments into the confines of homes and quarantine facilities. And yet, how valid and efficacious are these for online participants? The Catholic Church still requires a person’s physical presence for the celebration of a sacrament to be valid and efficacious for them. Leo- Martin Angelo R. Ocampo’s essay, “Cybergrace in Cyberspace? An Argument for Online Liturgies in Light of COVID-19,” explores the issue with foresight into what may happen to the celebration of the sacraments when the virtual world becomes more and more real and the real world becomes more and more virtual.

The ethos of the contemporary world is being shaped to a large extent by what social media promotes: a rugged individualism in which the ego is king, where everything else revolves around the self. The result is a world of monads with no sense of social responsibility or even loyalty to one’s family. This makes the breakdown of family and social life one of its dire consequences. Umberto Bresciani’s essay, “What is the Dizigui?”, introduces a work of Confucian literature which may provide a remedy and antidote to individualism. He explains how the Dizigui, a wisdom poem that instructs young people on how they should behave toward parents, teachers, and others, has been used successfully in Taiwan and China as a pedagogical tool in values education. Through it, young children are formed to become respectful of others as well as responsible members of society.

Another problem confronting society today is the degradation of the world’s biosphere and ecosystems. Economic development has been pursued relentlessly to the detriment of the environment that supports human life and biodiversity. Thus, in response to the ecological crisis, the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil formulated a set of policies meant to conserve the earth’s resources for the benefit of present and future generations, distribute wealth equitably, and reconcile economic growth with the environment’s capacity for regeneration. Abundio R. Babor, however, in his essay titled “A Bucket Half Empty: A Critique of the Notion of Sustainable Development as a Paradigm for Environmental Sustainability,” discusses the inadequacies of these policies in protecting and conserving the earth’s non-renewable resources. He argues that the unbridled exploitation of these finite resources necessarily degrades the world’s biosphere and ecosystems.

HIV infections are spreading quickly in the Philippines in addition to COVID-19. According to the statistics provided in James McTavish’s essay, “Fast and Furious: The HIV Epidemic in the Philippines,” cumulative data from 1984 to 2019 show that 69,512 people are infected with HIV, 65,162 of whom are males. McTavish also notes that “while heteros*xual s*x was the dominant mode of transmission from 1984 to 2006, the group now most at risk of transmitting HIV is the so-called MSM—males who have s*x with other males” (p. 100). What is particularly alarming, moreover, is that most of the reported HIV cases are among young men and even adolescents. According to McTavish, a cultural factor that may explain this is the high degree of acceptance of homos*xuality in the country. The HIV epidemic thus poses a great challenge for the local Church to explain effectively its moral teachings regarding homos*xuality, particularly the important distinction that needs to be made between homos*xual orientation, which may not be the fault of a person, and homos*xual acts, which are sinful.

Pope Francis once said that “realities are more important than ideas” (Evangelii Gaudium [EG]). This statement is emblematic of the inductive approach he takes when he theologizes and writes his encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, and pastoral letters. It explains, for instance, why in Laudato Si’ he discusses first the evidence provided by science and then reflects on it in the light of Gospel values and Church teaching. James H. Kroeger’s essay, “Pope Francis and Missionary Signs: Exploring the Vision of Evangelii Gaudium,” detects a similar inductive approach in Evangelii Gaudium under the rubric of scrutinizing the “signs of the times.” First used by Pope John XXIII in 1961 to convoke the Second Vatican Council, the term has since become a locus theologicus in many Church teachings. According to Kroeger, scrutinizing the “signs of the times” involves sociological analysis and theological reflection. Indeed, what Francis envisions is the genuine discernment of God’s will in events that are happening in contemporary society, “the approach of a missionary disciple” (EG 50).

The 500th anniversary celebration of Christianity in the Philippines provides an opportunity to give thanks to the Spanish missionaries who brought the Christian faith to our shores. The faith they sowed, however, still needs to be nourished and nurtured for it to mature and bear fruit in works of love and justice. This is the lesson we can learn from Moses Jarvis R. Catan’s essay, “The Semantic Metamorphosis of ‘Evangelization’: Formulating a Definition of Evangelization Based on Action, Content, and Result,” for the task of inculcating the Gospel’s values among our people is still sorely wanting even after five centuries of Christianity. Secularization and the loss of faith, especially among the youth today, prompt our Church to embark on a New Evangelization in which the laity plays an important role and where innovative approaches and creative tools of evangelization are called for.