ShareThisPASAY CITY – Sen. Joker Arroyo has urged Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) anew to push for an increase in the number of Filipino cardinals in the country.
Arroyo made the call in a privilege speech in the Philippine Senate last Wednesday, pointing out that while the Philippines is the second largest Catholic country in the world, it has only three cardinals.
Arroyo, who made the call also in 2007, noted that that the the number of Filipino cardinals is “grossly disproportionate” to the huge Catholic population of the Philippines.
In a Senate resolution, Arroyo and the other senators said that there are countries with lesser Catholic populations but have more cardinals.
The senator expressed hope that the matter will be discussed when the College of Cardinals meets today.
“We have one active Cardinal and two retired Cardinals. We have to put on record that a concern of the Senate on a temporal matter was ignored by the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See,” Arroyo said.