MANILA, Philippines – Come greet the people outside, the master of ceremonies told Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the archbishop of Manila, after the prelate said Mass for at least 9,000 Filipinos at the Duomo, Milan’s iconic cathedral.

Filipinos had packed the Duomo to its full capacity that Sunday, February 23. When the master of ceremonies escorted him to the exit, Tagle said he expected seeing just “a few people standing there by the door of the Duomo.”

The crowd was so huge, however, that it took him 45 minutes to get to the door from the altar. “I was being pulled to this side, to that side.”

“And when I got to the door, I almost collapsed! The whole piazza and all the major roads surrounding the piazza were filled with Filipinos,” Tagle said, as he estimated around 11,000 Filipinos there.

For Tagle, this story presents a lesson on crises and opportunities. He considers migration, for one, a “wound” of society that also presents an opportunity: Thanks to it, the Catholic faith “has spread to different parts of the world” because of migrant Filipinos.

Make no mistake: There’s no “denying that problem aspect,” he said. He added that Catholics, however, should stop simply complaining.

“Look at the opportunities that this very broken world opens for our mission, for our evangelizing mission,” Tagle said in a forum with John Allen, a veteran Vatican analyst, on March 13.

‘God hasn’t left the world’

On crises that present opportunities, bishops gave more examples during their major gathering, called a synod, on rekindling faith.

During the synod, in the group he belonged to, Tagle said some bishops “lamented the fact that the world has been secularized and how secularization is undermining the faith, et cetera.”

“But then,” he said, “some bishops from Africa and the Middle East said, ‘Why are you lamenting secularization? That is what we need to keep the faith! We need a secular state and not a theocratic state!’”

“And so we would see that one part of the world considers a wound, a malaise, could open an opportunity for the growth of the faith in some parts of the world,” Tagle explained.

This situation also presents itself in media.

A television preacher himself, Tagle said: “We just cannot complain about how the present state of media practice is quite unfair to the Church, or even not comprehensive in its reporting of the truth. Let us get involved in media. Let us not just criticize it.”

Tagle explained: “We are very much aware of the brokenness of the world. And the world contains the Church. The Church is very much part of that human world. And so the Church shares in the woundedness, the brokenness, and the sinfulness of that world. And there are real problems. There are serious problems that the world presents to the Church and which the Church also brings to the world.”

Tagle said that despite these problems, this world “continues to be God’s world.” (READ: When a girl tells Cardinal Tagle: You’re fake!)

“God has not left this world,” Tagle said, citing the synod. “And so we should also be attentive to the signs of God’s presence, the signs of hope, and the opportunities which this broken world opens for mission and for evangelization.” – Rappler.com