THE UST community has joined the rest of the Filipino faithful in mourning the death of former Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, one of the country’s most influential religious and political figures of the past 30 years.
Rector Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. said Sin is a great loss to the Church.
“He fulfilled the pastoral mission of balancing spiritual and socio-political dimensions of our lives,” Lana told the Varsitarian. “He left a mark on all the Filipino Catholics.”
The University offered a mass for the Cardinal last June 23 at the Manila Cathedral, where Lana was the homilist. He recalled that Sin steered the nation through the tides of unrest and turmoil.
“Cardinal Sin has always been a source if light and hope to our nation, which has persistently been threatened by darkness and despair,” Lana said. “He was indeed the people’s cardinal.”
Sin, 76, had suffered from a kidney ailment and diabetes. His personal secretary, Fr. Rufino Secson, said the Cardinal died of renal failure at the Cardinal Santos Memorial Medical Center in San Juan last June 21. His remains will be interred in a crypt beneath the Manila Cathedral on June 28.
Sin, who underwent daily dialysis since 1998 until his death, was a solid advocate of democracy. He led the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. The revolutions he led became a model of non-violent political transitions across the world.
His successor, Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, praised Cardinal Sin and cited his lasting influence on the Church, the nation, and the world.
“An old tree’s greatness is not measured by the number of its fruit but by the length of the shadow it casts upon the landscape,” Rosales said.
In his lifetime, Sin defended his forays in politics.
“My duty is to put Christ in politics. Politics without Christ is the greatest scourge of our nation,” Sin said at his retirement ceremony in 2003.
Thomasian at heart
Fr. Fausto Gomez, O.P., newly appointed College of Rehabilitation Science regent, former dean of Sacred Theology, and a friend of the Cardinal, said the University was very close to Sin’s heart.
“Every time I went to see him,” Gomez said, “he often asked ‘Fausto, how is UST?’. He was very keen with the state of the University.”
On the other hand, former Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. recalled that cardinal was always delighted whenever UST won the UAAP Men’s Basketball Championship.
“Whenever the Tigers won, the Cardinal hosted a dinner in honor of the athletes, administrators, and coaches at his residence,” De la Rosa said.
Lana recalled how Sin received his guests at the Cardinal’s residence in San Juan.
“He welcomed his guests at Villa San Miguel with his usual pun, ‘Welcome to the House of Sin’,” he said.
He added that when the Cardinal was in good shape, he seldom declined any invitation to attend the University’s activities.
As a testament to the late Cardinal’s fondness for UST, Dr. Ramon Sin, the assistant to the rector for external affairs and the late Cardinal’s younger brother, said his brother chose UST over Ateneo de Manila University without hesitation to host the International Youth Forum and 10th World Youth Day in 1995.
As a result of UST’s hosting of the 1995 events, Pope John Paul II again visited UST, making UST the most-visited campus in Asia by a pope.
Sin was conferred a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree honoris causa, at the Ecclesiastical Faculties for his achievements in the Archdiocese of Manila on March 26, 1977.
In 1953, Sin was ordained to the priesthood at St. Vincent Ferrer Archdiocesan Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo. In 1974, he was named Archbishop of Manila and two years later, in 1976, he was named cardinal by Pope Paul VI. He retired in 2003. He holds the distinction of being the third Filipino Archbishop of the Manila Archdiocese.
“(Sin) cherished the values of freedom, truthfulness, justice, and life,” Gomez said. “He was strong-voiced not only for democracy and unity of the country, but also for life, which he defended from womb to tomb.”
