The Philippine Dominicans for Justice, Peace, and Care of Creation will hold this year’s Bartolome de las Casas Conference at 8 a.m. at the Blessed Antonio Varona, O.P., Gymnasium at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Intramuros, Manila on April 1 focusing on its advocacy for life.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, D.D., president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and Rev. Fr. Mike Deeb, the Dominican Order’s permanent delegate to the United Nations and its general promoter of justice and peace, will be the keynote speakers of the conference.
Rev. Fr. Victor Calvo, O.P., the promoter of justice and peace of the Dominican Order of the Philippines and the main organizer of the conference, said that the event is in unity with the CBCP’s stand in a pastoral letter last month regarding the extra-judicial killings and the reimposition of death penalty.
“We are promoting the culture of life, and not the culture of death,” he said.
In the statement, Villegas aired the concern of the Church on all the deaths and the indifference of people towards the issue.
“The life of every person comes from God,” he said. “Not even the government has a right to kill life because it is only God’s steward and not the owner of life.”