MANILA, Philippines – Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle urged Catholics to donate to children hit by recent calamities, such as Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), through various forms of fasting and abstinence beginning Ash Wednesday, March 5.

Under the Fast2Feed program, money that one “would otherwise spend for food” can feed children who survived Yolanda, the Zamboanga siege, and the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Bohol and Cebu.

“To live charitably means carrying the burdens of the weakest and poorest among us, to be in solidarity with them,” Tagle said in a statement.

Fast2Feed forms part of the Hapag-Asa program, which aims to feed each beneficiary for 6 months and to train each of their parents for employment or business.

On its website, the Archdiocese of Manila listed the following current account numbers for Pondo ng Pinoy-Hapagasa: 

• Metrobank – 175-7175-50963-8

• Banco de Oro – 2638-00407-0

• Bank of the Philippine Islands – 3061-0858-22

• China Bank – 103-57972-19

• Security Bank – 141-026133-002

Globe cellphone subscribers can also donate by sendng “FAC <amount>” to 2899 (e.g. FAC 100). Donations can be sent in denominations of P5, P15, P25, P50, and P100.

Online, donations can be coursed through www.hapagasafeeding.com/donate.

Tagle’s call to join Fast2Feed comes as Catholics begin to observe the penitential season of Lent, a 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

The Catholic Church prescribes fasting and abstinence from meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstinence from meat on all Fridays of Lent. It also encourages other forms of sacrifice during this 40-day period.

CBCP: Live simply

In a separate Lenten message, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) called on Catholics to live simply and oppose “dehumanizing” poverty.

Writing on behalf of Philippine bishops, CBCP president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas denounced poverty as “a great scandal that takes us all to task.”

He rejected the various faces of the “economy of exclusion” – a phrase that the CBCP borrowed from Pope Francis. (READ: Filipino bishops slam ‘economy of exclusion’)

Villegas said these faces include the exclusion from “gainful livelihood,” “sufficient shelter,” “rural development,” “adequate health care,” and “quality education.”

He also condemned consumerism.

“Poverty that degrades and dehumanizes is all around us. One can be disheartened by all this… However, the Christian believes that ‘the Gospel is the real antidote to spiritual destitution,’” the archbishop said.

To fight this degrading situation, he pushed for a “life-giving poverty” that involves, among other things, “simplicity of life.”

“This Lenten season, Christ invites all, but especially the laity, to oppose degrading and dehumanizing poverty and to embrace humanizing and sanctifying poverty,” Villegas said.

“Particularly, we are invited to practice material poverty by taking up a simple lifestyle and works of mercy and justice that attend to the poor and aim for an economy of inclusion, for what the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen calls ‘total human development,’” he added. – Rappler.com