As we observe Holy Week, we are invited not only into prayer and silence but into a deeper reckoning with the realities that wound our world. This sacred season unfolds amid unrelenting socioeconomic pressures: rising oil prices, escalating geopolitical tensions, and a worsening climate crisis. These are not isolated concerns. They are deeply interconnected, rooted in systems that too often privilege profit over people and exploitation over stewardship.
Today, we witness a troubling convergence of war and climate injustice. The ongoing tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran reveal how global systems remain entangled in the pursuit of fossil fuels, power, and dominance. Wars are not fought by weapons alone. They are also driven by the control of resources that sustain modern economies. The cost is staggering: lives lost, ecosystems destroyed, futures imperiled, and the poor pushed further to the margins.
In this sacred time, we are called to contemplate the Passion of Christ, not as a distant historical event but as a living reality in our midst. Christ continues to suffer today in the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. He is present in communities displaced by stronger storms, in farmers whose lands are parched or flooded, and in families burdened by the rising cost of basic necessities.
We are reminded of the choice once offered to the crowd: Barabbas or Jesus. That choice confronts us still. To choose Christ is to stand with truth, justice, and compassion, to reject systems that crucify the vulnerable and degrade creation.
We are guided by the Church’s social teaching, especially Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum, which call us to urgent and concrete ecological conversion. To follow Christ today is to walk with those who carry heavy crosses in our time.
Here in the Philippines, the memory of Super Typhoon Odette remains vivid. Entire communities were devastated, homes lost, livelihoods destroyed, and lives forever altered. Yet from this suffering has emerged a courageous witness. Survivors have taken bold steps to seek accountability from multinational fossil fuel corporations such as Shell, bringing their case even to foreign courts. Their action is not only legal. It is profoundly moral. It is a cry for justice.
Their struggle compels us to ask: Whose voices are heard and whose are silenced? Who benefits from systems that harm the environment, and who bears the burden? Climate justice demands honest answers. It calls us to recognize that those least responsible for climate change are often those who suffer its gravest consequences.
Holy Week challenges us not to turn away from these realities. Instead, it calls us to conversion, personal and collective. To take up our cross today is to stand in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of climate impacts. It is to advocate for policies that protect both people and the planet. It is to examine our lifestyles and choices, aligning them with the Gospel values of simplicity, care and justice.
We are called to become a community of care, a people bound together by compassion, responsibility, and love for both neighbor and creation.
The cross is not the end of the story. It is the passage to resurrection. But resurrection is not possible without first confronting suffering and injustice. As we journey through these sacred days, may we resist the temptation to remain passive observers.
Instead, may we choose Christ, present in the wounded Earth and in the struggling poor. May we walk with those who seek justice, including the survivors of Odette who remind us that faith must be lived through action. And may this Holy Week renew in us the courage to become instruments of healing in a broken world.
A meaningful and justice-filled Lenten season to all.
Bishop Gerardo Alminaza is president of Caritas Philippines. He has served as bishop of the Diocese of San Carlos since 2013 and has been a vocal advocate on environmental justice and corruption.
