Philippine bishop, friend to Moslems, dies in crash

ON June 26, Philippine Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud, noted for his work with Moslems, was killed in an air crash.
The bishop, who headed the prelature of Marawi, was aboard a Philippine Airlines aircraft bound for Baguio City when the turbo prop plane crashed into 7,050ft Mount Ugo, about 130 miles north of Manila. All 50 people aboard were killed.
Bishop Tudtud, 56, Was on his way to Baguio to speak at a seminar on scriptwriting and radio drama.
His death "is a big loss for our subregion in Mindanao," said Bishop Fernando Capalla of Iligan, a close friend of Bishop Tudtud.
Bishop Tudtud was born in 1931 in Cebu City, Philippines, and ordained in 1959. He worked as Bishop of Iligan from 1971 to 1977 before becoming the first Bishop of Marawi in Mindanao, a largely Moslem region where only 7.5 per cent of the 400,000 people are Catholic. Bishop Capalla said the prelature was created by Pope Paul VI specifically for Bishop Tudtud.
Over the years of his service, he has been noted for his efforts to reconcile Christians and Moslems through what he called a "dialogue of life,"-said Bishop Capalla. In a meeting with Pope Paul in 1976, Bishop Tudtud volunteered to be a missionary among the Moslems, Bishop Capalla said: "As bishop of Iligan, he had seen how poorly Moslems were treated and felt they needed more serious, personal church attention," he said. Bishop Tudtud wanted to be a simple missionary in Lanao del Sur province which was then part of Iligan diocese, Bishop Capalla said. "But the Pope said it is not proper for a bishop to live as a simple missionary.
"The Pope created another church jurisdiction, a prelature that had only four parishes and a few Christians and put Bishop Tudtud in charge," he said. "Bishop Tudtud believed he should live with Moslems without aggressively preaching Christianity. He felt being a guest and a servant to them was the way to help Moslems and he was prepared even to be rejected by them," said Bishop Capalla. "He wanted to show them that Christians in the Philippines, though they are a majority, are not out to eliminate Moslems from Mindanao".