Editorial: Totus Tuus! Week and Bacolod’s mass wedding

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

BACOLOD City declared Feb. 13-20 as Totus Tuus! Week in commemoration of the 31st anniversary of Blessed John Paul II’s visit to the city.

True to the advocacy of the late beloved pontiff, Totus Tuus! Week is highlighted by the national convention entitled “Blessed John Paul II’s Nuptial Theology: Call to Family Ministry, Agenda for Humanity” which kicked off yesterday.

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The convention, which drew about 200 advocates of family life ministries, was led by Rev. Fr. Jose Granados, vice president of the Vatican-based Pontificio Istituto Giovanni Paolo II per Studi su Matrimonio E Familigia, and Diocese of Bacolod Vicar General Msgr. Victorino Rivas, director of the John Paul II National Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.

Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Giuseppe Pinto also arrived yesterday to further underscore the value which the Church places on marriage and family in its hierarchy of advocacies.

Interestingly, it is also today – the Valentine’s Day which falls within the celebration of Totus Tuus! Week in Bacolod City – that the local government is holding a mass wedding for reportedly 750 couples at the New Government Center (NGC).

Vice-President Jejomar Binay himself will stand as sponsor in today’s mass wedding which will be officiated by Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia who will then host the grandiose reception for the newly-weds at the fountain area of the NGC which, along with the John Paul II Tower at the reclamation area, has been declared as a new icon of Bacolod.

After declaring Feb. 13-20 as Totus Tuus! Week, Mayor Leonardia and Vice-Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson could have delivered the coup de grace by inviting the Papal Nuncio and Fr. Granados to officiate the mass wedding. The priests working with Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra could have handled the counseling and the confessions of the couples.

Missed opportunity, indeed!

At any rate, acknowledging the need for a civil wedding is already an affirmation of the couple’s respect for the family. Through the grace of Blessed John Paul II, may they and all other couples be led to sanctifying their union before God and thus further strengthen their bond of family.