Filipino new chair for movements in Archdiocese of Washington

Adolfo Q. Paglinawan, national council member and regional coordinator for the mid-atlantic and southeast regions of Couples for Christ USA affiliated with CFC for Family and Life, succeeds Rick McKinney of the Mother of God Community for a two-year term as chairman of the Association of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities (and Third Orders) in the Archdiocese of Washington.

Paglinawan, together with his wife Margareth, is also CFCFFL’s missionary couple to the Caribbean Islands , and West and Central Africa; and heads the organization’s Secretariat based in Washington DC . They have six children and five grandchildren.

The incoming chairman brought Couples for Christ to the United States in April 1986 when he came to this country as a former diplomat of the Philippines . In fact in the Metro-Washington DC area, Paglinawan is better known as the former press officer of the Philippine Embassy. He also served as the Special Assistant of Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez both in Washington DC and the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York .

His wife Margi and he conducted the first Christian Life Program in Springfield VA in September of the same year, and made representations with the late Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey, then Archbishop of Washington, for CFC recognition as a lay association.

During the infancy of CFC in the United States , he worked closely with the charismatic movements in the tri-state of Virginia , Maryland and DC, and later nationally starting in the other East Coast states of New Jersey , New York and Florida , in the Midwest states of Illinois and Texas , and at the West Coast in California . For the charismatics, Paglinawan organized marriage retreats and established three missions for evangelist couple Lito and Edith Urgino to the United States in 1988, 1990 and 1992.

Paglinawan also opened CFC in Japan in 1995 and Cameroon in November 2006. The birthing of Cameroon CFC is significant because it has been the largest in the organization’s history, outside of the Philippines . Three hundred three lay men and women plus eleven clergy took the inaugural Christian Life Seminar in Buea of its southwest province with the collaboration of now Bishop-emeritus Pius Awah.

The incoming chairman himself took the Christian Life Seminar (CLS) in 1981 in Manila , Philippines under the auspices of Ligaya ng Panginoon (Joy of the Lord), the mother community of Couples for Christ.

At about the same time Ligaya was founding a family life outreach with 16 couples also being initiated into the movement through the CLS. It was later named by the founding participants themselves, and incorporated in 1984 as Couples for Christ Foundation Inc. (CFCFI).

Couples for Christ is now in every town in the Philippines , 30 states in the US , 20 in Latin America —a total of 160 countries worldwide. It was officially granted Vatican recognition by the Pontificium Concilium Pro Laicis on April 25, 2005 on the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist.

To learn more about the ecclesial movements in the association in the Archdiocese of Washington, here list together with their respective websites: Bukas Loob Sa Diyos Covenant Community, The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, The Catholic Worker Movement, Communion and Liberation, The Community of Sant’Egidio, Couples for Christ Foundation for Family and Life, Cursillo, Faith and Light, The Families of Nazareth Movement, The Focolare Movement, Handicapped Encounter Christ, L’Arche, The Legion of Mary, The Madonna House,Mother of God Community, The Neocatechumenal Way, Prayer and Life Workshops, Regnum Christi, The Schoenstatt Movement (German Schönstatt), Teams of Our Lady, Worldwide Marriage Encounter.

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Ado Paglinawan is a former press officer of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC who occasionally contributes to the Philippines Daily Inquirer. He writes for various email groups and blogs under the pseudonym "mymaestro888". Ado has best served overseas Filipinos as a resource person providing inside information and backgrounders about the celebrated fertilizer scam that rocked the Philippine Agriculture Department and the Presidency since 2004.

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