by Jose Torres Jr.
The Bishop of Kalookan, Monsignor. Pablo Virgilio David, broke the news on social media. The Jesuit, one of the founders of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, had received the Vatican’s “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” award and had written the historic statement “Evangelization in Asia today.”
Manila () – Philippine Jesuit Catalino Arévalo, known as one of the fathers of Asian theology, died this morning, three months before his 98th birthday.
The news was published on social networks by the Bishop of Kalookan Mons. Pablo Virgilio David: “Our dear mentor and friend, Fr. Catalino Arévalo, whom we affectionately called ‘Reverend Father’, has passed away.”
“May this great teacher to whom we owe our love for theological teaching and the spiritual discipline of discernment rest in the peace of God’s embrace,” added the prelate. “I was looking forward to this step into the afterlife. As all of his friends know, he used to say, ‘This might be our last meeting, so I have to say my last goodbye’.”
In 1997 the Jesuit priest had received the “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” Vatican award for his distinguished services to the Church, and in 1998, on the occasion of the feast of San Ignacio de Loyola, the Ateneo de Manila University had defined him as “father of Asiatic Theology”. The university recalled the more than 9,000 pages of the priest’s theological writings characterized by an “Asian emphasis”, on behalf of episcopal conferences and other Church leaders.
He was the first Asian religious member of the International Theological Commission of the Holy See and the first coordinator and founding member of the Theological Advisory Commission of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). Father Arévalo made a trip to Latin America in 1970 and later gave the first lectures on liberation theology in the Philippines. That same year he served as an expert at a meeting of Asian bishops that in 1974 would become the FABC. The priest then wrote the first statement of the FABC, the historic “Evangelization in Today’s Asia”, which continues to be “the most influential articulation in the local Churches in Asia”.
