Two words from Cardinal Vidal

Right after the Mass which formally opens Cebu Press Freedom Week, the only such activity being celebrated by members of the working press in any locality in the Philippines, it is customary for the organizers to thank and greet the celebrant.

The customary celebrant of the opening Mass for the Cebu Press Freedom Week has been Cebu archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. And so it was again yesterday, the 11th edition of this activity so cherished by Cebu's working press, that Cardinal Vidal was with us again.

And as he himself admitted, while already slow in step and with slowing heartbeat, he still cherishes the moment to be with what he called his fellow searchers and messengers for the truth.

But there was something that Cardinal Vidal made me personally experience yesterday. After the Mass, as we customarily gravitated toward him to greet and thank him for being so gracious to be with us again, he did not let go of my hand during our handshake.

Instead the cardinal pulled me over. At first I thought he wanted to do beso-beso with me so I drew close to him and prepared to go through this warm social greeting. But instead of a beso-beso, Cardinal Vidal instead whispered something in my ear.

What the cardinal said to me consisted of only two words. The two words were in Latin but I understood them perfectly. And I would have wished to share the two words with you but, sorry to say, I just have the feeling the cardinal intended them personally for me.

I have to admit, though, that what the cardinal said to me intrigued me no end. It prompted me to search my recent personal and professional past to try and find something that would relate to what the good prelate said to me.

Was it something I wrote? Was it something he did? I really do not know. I must confess, though, that I have written about the cardinal and about the church and church people quite a number of times already in my journalistic careers.

In some of those articles I have been critical, in some appreciative and even collaborative. Whatever, I must say I have been very involved in church affairs in some of my writeups.

I therefore do not know if what the cardinal said to me was about any or all of my articles or of something he might have done which provoked my writing about them. My real feeling about it is that I have just been given a fresh insight into the real Cardinal Vidal.

For what he said to me was something most people would not say, especially to someone who is a journalist. A journalist, you see is sometimes haughty. A journalist may feel he knows everything and sees no more room to learn some more.

I do not believe that, and I have a very low regard for people who think they do not need any additional knowledge, people who resent being given the opportunity to learn new things. Such people will never amount to anything.

Thus, when Cardinal Vidal whispered those two Latin words into my ear, I must confess I was cut down to size by the humility of the man. Here was this man, at the pinnacle of his career, the highest ranking Filipino church official, having the humility to say what he said.

How so vastly different this new Cardinal Vidal that I now know from the other people that I know. No matter what perceptions people may have of the cardinal, I have now my own about him. And it is something that has made me respect him all the more.