Table Of ContentCatholicism in Migration and Diaspora
This book focuses on the Philippines as a powerhouse in the Catholic and global
migrationlandscape.Itoffersawide-ranginglookattheroles,dynamics,character,
and trajectories of Catholic faith and practice in the age of migration through an
interdisciplinary, religious, and theological approach to Filipino Catholics’ experi-
enceof migration and diaspora both at home and overseas. In so doing, the book
introducesthereadertothehallmarksandcharacteristicsofacontextualmodelof
worldChristianityandglobalCatholicisminthetwenty-firstcentury.
Gemma Tulud Cruz is Senior Lecturer in Theology and a member of the Insti-
tute of Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University. She
is author of numerous publications on migration theologies including Chris-
tianity across Borders: Theology and Contemporary Issues in Global Migration
(Routledge, 2021).
Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations
Series Editor: Frans Wijsen, Radboud University, The Netherlands
The aim of this series is to publish scholarly works of high merit on relations
between believers of various streams of Christianity, as well as relations
between believers of Christianity and other religions. We welcome studies from
all disciplines, including multi- and interdisciplinary studies, which focus on
intra- and inter-religious relations and are non-denominational.
Editorial Board:
Francis Clooney (Cambridge, USA)
Fatimah Husein (Yogyakarta, Indonesia)
Diego Irarrazaval (Santiago, Chile)
Robert Schreiter (Chicago, USA)
Abdulkader Tayob (Cape Town, South Africa)
Anya Topolski (Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
Confucianism and Christianity
Interreligious Dialogue on the Theology of Mission
Edited by Edmund Kee-Fook Chia
Religion, Power and Society in Suriname and Guyana
Hindu, Muslim, and Christian Relations
R. Kirtie Algoe
Beyond Bantu Philosophy
Contextualizing Placide Tempels’ Initiative in African Thought
Edited by Frans Dokman and Evaristi Magoti Cornelli
Catholicism in Migration and Diaspora
Cross-Border Filipino Perspectives
Edited by Gemma Tulud Cruz
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
religion/series/WCIR
Catholicism in Migration and
Diaspora
Cross-Border Filipino Perspectives
Edited by
Gemma Tulud Cruz
Firstpublished2023
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DOI:10.4324/9781003282310
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Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction 1
GEMMATULUDCRUZ
PART I
Culture and Religious Experience 17
1 Looking for God in the Complexities of Filipino Migration and
Diaspora:Theology and FilipinoCulturalIdentitiesin aGlobalized
World 19
JULIUS-KEIKATO
2 TowardSambayanihaninEurope:AFilipinoEcclesiologyofMigration 32
ROWANLOPEZREBUSTILLO
3 Popular Piety in Migrant Journeys toward Redemption 45
NORLANH.JULIA
4 What I Have Seen and Heard: The Gifts of Filipino Catholics to
the US Catholic Church 58
CATHERINEPUNSALAN-MANLIMOS
5 Faith on the Move: Religious Conversion among Filipino Migrants
in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and the USA 71
VIVIENNES.M.ANGELES
PART II
Political Economy and Social Ethics 87
6 Migrant Remittances, Development, and Catholic Social Teaching 89
ALELLIEB.SOBREVIÑASANDGEMMATULUDCRUZ
vi Contents
7 Migration with Dignity and Climate Justice: Haiyan, Climate
Change, and Displacement 103
MA.CHRISTINAASTORGA
8 The Ties that Unbind: Filipino Female Transmigration and the
Left-Behind Family as Domestic Church of the Poor through the
Lens of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences 117
MARIAELISAA.BORJA
9 Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Filipinas in International
Marriage Migration 134
GEMMATULUDCRUZ
10 Cosmopolitanism and Filipinx Crossing Borders: Agency Faces
Ethnic and Gender Profiling 152
JOSEMARIOC.FRANCISCO
PART III
Mission and Ministry 165
11 Home and Away: The Philippine Catholic Church’s Local and
Global Migrant Ministry 167
EDWINCORROS
12 Catholicism across the Seas: Faith and Pastoral Care among
Filipino Seafarers 181
MYRNATORDILLO
13 Ginhawa: In Pursuit of Immigrant Life in Abundance 195
FAUSTINOM.CRUZ
14 OverseasFilipinoWorkersandMissionaryDiscipleship:Rethinking
missioadgentesintheContextoftheFilipinoDiaspora 210
ANDREWGIMENEZRECEPCIÓN
Index 223
Contributors
VivienneS.M.AngelesrecentlyretiredasAssociateProfessorintheDepartment
of Religion and Theology at La Salle University in Philadelphia, USA. She is
currently a member of the International Connections Committee of the
American Academy of Religion.
Ma.ChristinaAstorgawasChairperson(2014–2021)andProfessorofTheology
at University of Portland in Oregon, USA.
Maria Elisa A. Borja is Assistant Professor in Theology at the Ateneo de
Manila University in the Philippines.
Gemma Tulud Cruz isSenior LecturerinTheologyandmember ofthe Institute
of Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University.
Edwin Corros, CS is Assistant Director of the Catholic Tokyo International
Center in Tokyo, Japan.
Faustino M. Cruz is Dean and Professor of Practical Theology at Fordham
University, Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education in New
York City.
Jose Mario C. Francisco, SJ is Professor and former President of the Loyola
School of Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.
He serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Asian
Christianity and Asia Pacific Mission Studies.
Norlan H. Julia, SJ completed his doctoral studies in theology at Heythrop
College, University of London. He is Rector of Saint John VianneySeminary
in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, where he also teaches fundamental and
dogmatic theology.
Julius-Kei Kato is Associate Professor in Religious Studies at King’s University
College-Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.
Catherine Punsalan-Manlimos is Assistant to the President for Mission Inte-
gration and Associate Professor in Religious Studies at University of Detroit
Mercy in Michigan, USA.
viii Contributors
Rowan Lopez Rebustillo is a Catholic priest in the diocese of Sorsogon,
Philippines. He is Professor and Dean of the Philosophy Department at
Our Lady of Penafrancia Seminary as well as a lecturer for the course on
migrants offered at the Loyola School of Theology at Ateneo de Manila
University.
AndrewGimenez Recepción is Lecturer inMissiologyatthePontificiaUniversità
Gregoriana in Rome, where he completed his Ph.D. in missiology. He is
member oftheMissionaryCounciloftheCatholicBishops’Conferenceofthe
PhilippinesandcurrentlyservesastheSpiritualDirectoraswellasDirectorof
StudiesatthePontificioCollegioFilippinoinRome.
Alellie B. Sobreviñas is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Research and
Advanced Studies in the School of Economics at Dela Salle University in
Manila.
MyrnaTordillo,MSCSisamemberoftheCongregationoftheMissionarySisters
of St. Charles Borromeo (Scalabrinians). She is Assistant Director for the
SecretariatofCulturalDiversityintheChurchoftheUnitedStatesConference
of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). She was previously National Director of
USCCB’sApostleshipoftheSea,whichprovidesessentialministrytoseafarers,
fisherfolks,andallthosewhotravelbyseaandwaterways.
Introduction
Gemma Tulud Cruz
With membership at more or less 1.28 billion, Catholicism remains the world’s
largest religion.1 As of mid-2020, Catholics also represent about half of the
Christianpopulation worldwide.2Not surprisingly,the Catholic Church, which
is largely considered the oldest globalized institution on earth, continues to be
the single largest international religious organization in the world. Its hundreds
of religious orders, which have members and missions dispersed across the
planet, have been heralds of world Christianity for centuries. Its formidable
global presence, which is intensified by its ongoing growth, expanding
international structures, and members’ intensified mobility, puts it in a good
position to engage in multistranded cross-border ties.
While cross-border connections are not new for Catholicism and its members
who move(d) across borders, there are significant differences that characterize
such connections in the current historical period—often referred to as the age of
migration—due to various factors. These factors include: (1) density, multi-
directionality, and frequency of human mobility; (2) exponential increase in the
types of migration or demographics of people on the move; (3) more developed
or sophisticated institutional systems and infrastructures for transnational con-
nectionsbetweenandamongCatholicsattheparish,(arch)diocese,andepiscopal
conference level; and (4) new communication technologies and networking stra-
tegies that facilitate more frequent connections across borders between indivi-
duals, families, and church leaders as well as religious groups and institutions.
These create, among others, high intensity of exchanges, new(er) modes of
maintaining relationships and carrying out mission and ministry, and the multi-
plication of activities that require cross-border travel and contact on a sustained
basis. Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini of Guatemala, for example, developed a sister
relationship with the Diocese of Wilmington in Delaware in the USA where
many of his parishioners—displaced by the coffee crisis—ended up laboring in
poultrypackingplants.IntheearlyyearsoftheirsettlementinOceania,meetings
betweenrepresentativesofvariousCambodianCatholiccommunitiesinAustralia
and New Zealand, meanwhile, were facilitated by the yearly visit of Bishop
Ramousse or one of the French priests who worked in the Cambodian Church
before 1975. There have been instances, too, when the church used by Filipina
migrants in Paris became a refuge for migrant Filipina domestic workers
DOI: 10.4324/9781003282310-1
