Editor's Report

Fordham Professor Often in Right Spot in the Philippines

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Henry Schwalbenberg has a habit of showing up where you might least expect to find him—and that’s a good thing.

Last Friday, for example, the Fordham professor emailed me a few photos from the Philippines where he was attending the International Eucharistic Congress. One happens to be on Page 5 with Cardinal Dolan’s column about the congress.

Actually, this is not the first time CNY has encountered Professor Schwalbenberg in the Philippines. A couple of years ago, we did a story on the damage from Typhoon Haiyan based on a first-hand report from his visit to Leyte.

It took a few tries before I managed to get in touch with the professor again on Monday morning. To be honest, I’m not sure whether he was back in New York, still in the Philippines or somewhere in between when he answered my questions. Not that it matters much.

At Fordham, Schwalbenberg directs the graduate program in international economy and development. In that capacity, he visits the Philippines every year with his graduate students. They stay at a sister Jesuit school, Ateneo de Manila University, where he lectures and then they travel to a poor, rural Filipino community to observe development projects.

In December and January, he spent more time than usual in the Philippines, attending the wedding of one of his former students in Manila and then celebrating Christmas with his family on the island of Culeon.

After New Year’s, he met up with Fordham graduate students and they spent nearly a week in Mindoro, a rural community that suffered significant damage from December’s Typhoon Nona. He and his wife of 26 years, Alma, who is a Filipina, then traveled to the southern island of Mindanao to visit another Jesuit friend, Father Bobby Yap, who is president of Xavier University. From there it was just a short plane ride to Cebu, where he and his wife participated in a pilgrimage to the Eucharistic Congress led by Cardinal Dolan and Auxiliary Bishop James Massa of Brooklyn.

He told me he was impressed by the ability of his fellow pilgrims, some were Filipino and some were not, to adapt to the Philippines where personal space is at more of a premium than even in New York, if you can believe that. “All of our pilgrims eagerly joined in all the public activities,” he said. “A small event consisted of only tens of thousands of people, while the big events drew hundreds of thousands. And the really big events, like the Eucharistic procession and the final Mass had anywhere from 1.5 to 2 million people, according to what I read.”

Although Cardinal Dolan’s arrival was delayed because of the heavy snowstorm that hit New York Jan. 23, he said the cardinal spent a significant amount of time with pilgrims once he got there.

“On his first day, the cardinal arrived at 1 a.m. and we had Mass with him at 10 a.m., followed by lunch,” Schwalbenberg said. “He also spent a leisurely dinner with us one night as well as a long breakfast with the group on another day.”

Because of his work in the Philippines and his position at Fordham, Schwalbenberg has come to know Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila. In fact, he was the academic sponsor when the Filipino prelate received an honorary doctorate from Fordham two years ago. He said Cardinal Tagle’s presentation at the congress “touched” him the most.

“He talked about being a young parish priest and how on Holy Thursday he invited people from the margins of society to have their feet washed. One of the people whose foot he washed…was a very poor girl who supported herself by selling candles and flowers in front of the parish church. She suffered from polio, which left her crippled.

“When she approached the altar…she caught the attention of everyone in the church. She was no longer someone who was ignored by most people as they entered the church. Cardinal Tagle was nearly brought to tears as he described his emotions as he washed her weak and emaciated foot.

“He gave the washing of this girl’s foot as an example of how the Eucharist breaks down barriers and calls each of us to be one another’s brothers and sisters. Here was a girl whose poverty and disability had alienated her from society. Through the Eucharistic celebration she was brought right into the heart of our community.”