We had the Philippine Divine Mercy Congress 2025 which was held in Cebu City last Sunday, May 25, 2025. The theme of the event which was also the title of my 3-hour long presentation, “The Journeying Catholics: Last Hope of the ‘Church in Crisis”.

Prior to that, I reintroduced to my audience on what the FIAMC is doing around the world through the presence of active, committed and dedicated Catholic physicians present in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. I made a short presentation on the emerging threats to human life from IVF to surrogacy to Artificial Intelligence.

The main meat of my talk was centered on re-visiting with the goal of re-awakening the very important role of the Catholic faithful based on the Lumen Gentium and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.In the 2024 report, out of the 114 million Filipinos, 88 million are Catholics. This is after 504 years has passed since Christianity was introduced in the Philippines in the year 1521.

Major threats to the Catholic faith were also discussed from relativism to modernism which severely warp-up the very fibers of the Catholic faith around the world. After presenting the scenarios to the audience which are both gloomy and rosy, I ended the discussion with a heavy challenge with the quote from Saint Matthew 24.13, that “those who persevere till the end will be saved“.Truly, the current Catholic church hierarchy needs to quadruple their efforts for the most needed re-evangelization programs to the 1.4 billion Catholics who are threatened on both sides by the aggressiveness of protestantism and atheism. 

The venue of the event was at the University of Cebu Auditorium attended by 2,642 registered delegates from 40 different archdioceses and dioceses.

Rene C. Bullecer, MD

Catholic Physicians Guild of the Philippines