OFWs help spread God’s Word – Vatican

A Vatican official cited the role being played by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in helping spread the Word of God around the world.

“Overseas Filipino Workers are missionaries of faith as they spread the Word of God in the countries where they work and to the people that they work with,” said Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Vatican’s Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, in a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines News post.

“Filipinos know how to evangelize in a very wonderful way, not only here but everywhere in the world,” added Filoni in an interview for the O Clarim, a Church publication in Macau on a recent pastoral visit.

“The OFWs bring their witnesses everywhere. This is wonderful. It means there are no borders,”

said the former Papal Nuncio to the Philippines. “More than considering OFWs as migrant workers, they can also share the treasure of their experience of faith and love. I’m sure the local church will take advantage also of the testimony or the witness they can do for their faith. They can bring love, they can bring joy, and also enrich the local church,” Filoni stressed.

Records show there are around 219,000 Filipino workers in Hong Kong and about 30,000 in neighboring Macau.

Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos, chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People said OFWs across the world “bring their faith with them abroad, populating church services, and observing traditional Filipino practices wherever they go.”

The local Church observed National Migrants Sunday yesterday as a tribute to the more than 10 million Filipino workers abroad. (Christina I. Hermoso)