Marawi: Stewardship in the Face of Conflict and Terror

There has always been good relations between Muslims and Christians in Mindanao, especially at the highest levels. The government could have taken advantage of the Marawi crisis by using Christian and Muslim leaders to negotiate with the Maute extremists. This was the primary message of Most Rev. Edwin de la Peña, DD, Bishop of Marawi at his talk, ‘Stewardship in the Face of Conflict & Terror: The Marawi Situation’, last August 5 at 10 am at the Divine Mercy Chapel. The talk is part of the CTK Spirituality of Stewardship
Series.

Bishop dela Pena had recently been in the news for slamming the Maute terrorist group’s deliberate destruction of St. Mary’s Cathedral and desecration of religious statues and religious posters during their forceful occupation of Marawi. In the video that the terrorist group released, they showed their young men setting the church ablaze and stomping on religious images. At the start of the siege, the terrorist group also abducted Fr. Teresito ‘Chito’ Suganob, the vicar general of the Marawi prelature. Bishop de la Pena also opposed the extension of martial law in Mindanao, despite having supported the initial declaration, arguing that the remaining threat could be addressed without martial law.

For his talk, Bishop de la Peña Mirst showed a CNN video on the siege of Marawi. He then talked about gratitude – being grateful for all our blessings – as the basis for stewardship.

He made a special point about there being peace in Mindanao, especially in Marawi, between the predominant 97% Muslim population and the minority 3% Christian population since 9-11. He even emphasized that there are Muslims helping Christians escape the ISIS in Marawi. Thus this conMlict is not between Catholics and Muslims. His message: if only the government used the Christian and Muslim leaders to negotiate with the extremists, perhaps a lot of violence could have been avoided.