Part 4: The Decision

This is just to follow up my prior intention to just relay my story as to why I have decided to become a diocesan priest. There is no intention whatsoever to put down anybody.
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It was in Yamato that I was getting to be more attuned to the life of a diocesan priest... most especially on the pastoral side of it. Together with prayer and much thinking, by the time after summer of 2007, I was 80 % decided to become a diocesan priest.

I have wanted to make this decision known as smooth as possible, meaning, I did not want my Provincial Superior to immediately know my intentions. Some might say I should have actually consulted him first. But -- and in this part, I admit it is a very PERSONAL FEELING -- I felt that the Provincial was not the type I could hang on for any consultation. I trusted he would respect this decision.

So I started telling this to very close friends and priests who, in some way or another, had had a role in what I am today in Japan. The first I told to about this decision was my elder brother, also a Salesian priest, through e-mail. Glad to receive a promise of prayers as a response. After a month, I finally told my parents through skype. I had them sit together so that I could see them at the screen and told them about my decision. Touched was I to hear them saying that they are very supportive of whatever decision I make. Through the months that followed, I have told some Salesians and some Filipino friends, too. I got the same response: a promise of prayers and a sweet "Good Luck!"

And the Provincial? Well, I was planning to tell him my decision by late November or December, since that was the time he would usually think of movements among the salesians for the next school year. But there was someone who squealed to him about me, so that by the end of October, when I was handing him a letter to ask permission for me to join the other diocesan priests going for an exposure trip to South Korea, he confronted me on what I decided.

I immediately admitted that I was already decided. And he started asking me questions that -- FOR ME -- hampered on the principle of loyalty and consistency on the decision I have made in the past. He asked questions like: "What was your intention in making your first profession?" "Why did you make the perpetual profession in the first place?" "Why did you really desire to come to Japan?"

With the pastoral demands that I have met in the past, he even told me directly saying, "I actually inquired about you and there is this one Filipino Salesian who says he knows you very well and he actually said that you are the type who is very individualistic." At that point, I really felt offended. I told the Provincial that that Filipino Salesian does not really know me in the first place, because from the very days of my aspirantate, I have always given my time, effort, talents... and even health!... for the sake of the community. I told him that I have so many confreres in the Philippines who can attest that I was a community-builder rather than a loner. Yes, to the expense of my health... by the time I was in my 20's I was often getting sick with much fatigue or stress. And as for my seemingly non-involvement in community life here in Japan, I had my own personal reasons for that aside from pastoral demands. I just felt that it was not the forum to defend myself at that time.

I just asked him what was for me to do with this decision. He directed me to the steps that a Salesian takes when he is to leave the Congregation. He asked me to make a copy of what was written in the Salesian documents. And that evening, I went back to Yamato, with a violent mixture of freedom and betrayal.