Second Plenary Council of the Philippines

Also known as: PCP II · Second Plenary Council · Plenary Council of 1991

Definition

The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) was the plenary council of the Catholic Church in the Philippines convoked by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) — formally proposed to the bishops in January 1988, approved in July of that year, and, after three years of preparation, celebrated from January 20 to February 17, 1991 in Metro Manila, with the library records of its official proceedings identifying the Holy Apostles Seminary in Makati, Metro Manila as the seat of the sessions. (Oliverio — The Empowerment of the Lay People, Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition)) Described in contemporary scholarship as “this unprecedented gathering of the Church hierarchy, the clergy, the religious and the laity,” the Council was the second such national plenary council after the First Plenary Council of 1953 and was convoked with apostolic approval from Rome, its president being the Dominican archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi. (Oliverio — The Empowerment of the Lay People, Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)

Guided by the question “How do we live as Christians, as Filipino Catholics in our situation of lights and shadows?”, the Council proposed that the Church in the Philippines should become a “Discipleship in Community” — described in Part II of its Acts as “a communion in a state of mission” — and gave that vision its most cited programmatic content: a preferential option for the poor expressed in the call to become a Church of the Poor, and a commitment to renewed integral evangelization uniting renewed catechesis, worship, and social apostolate. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II, Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization) Its decisions were issued as the Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, published by the CBCP Secretariat in 1992 and reprinted by Paulines Publishing House in 2004, with the decrees formally recognized by Rome. (Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition), Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	N/A
Wikidata	N/A
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	“Second Plenary Council of the Philippines” PCP II 1991 Acts and Decrees Church of the Poor renewed integral evangelization discipleship in community
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

PCP II
Second Plenary Council
Plenary Council of 1991

Examples and Analogies

A national application of Vatican II: PCP II is described in scholarship as expressing “one of the hopes and memories of Vatican II… to witness the emergence of world Church or the realization of the Church in a given place, time, and people” — the way a diocesan synod translates an ecumenical council’s universal texts into local pastoral decisions. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)
The council as the Church’s own parliament of renewal: the body gathered bishops, clergy, religious, and laity under a conciliar president, debated a nationwide survey’s agenda, and legislated by decree subject to Rome’s recognition — which is why its outputs are cited article by article, like a code. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II, Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization)
Verified council data:
Convoking body: Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines; formally proposed January 1988, approved July 1988
Dates: January 20 – February 17, 1991
Place: Metro Manila; the 1992 and 2004 library records of the Acts and Decrees state the council was held at the Holy Apostles Seminary, Makati, Metro Manila
Conciliar President: Most Reverend Leonardo Z. Legaspi, OP
Composition: “the Church hierarchy, the clergy, the religious and the laity” — described as unprecedented; a precise delegate count is not stated in the scholarly accounts cited here
Output: Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (CBCP Secretariat, 1992; xcix, 341 pages; Paulines reprint 2004)
Vision and review: the Church as a “Discipleship in Community”; implementation reviewed by the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal (2001)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Post-EDSA Church

Historians of the Church after the 1986 peaceful revolution use PCP II as the key internal counterpart to the political transition: the Council itself listed among its occasions “the changes in the societal condition of the Philippines due to the advent of a new government brought about by a peaceful revolution,” alongside the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Vatican II, and the First Plenary Council of 1953. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)

2. Researching the Acts and Decrees

Canonists and pastoral researchers work directly through the council’s legislative output — Part II on envisioning a renewed Church, Part III on renewed integral evangelization, and the numbered decrees — whose publication history (CBCP 1992; Paulines 2004) and article citations (for example the decrees on basic ecclesial communities) structure all later commentary. (Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization, Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition))

3. Forming Basic Ecclesial Communities

Diocesan planners cite the council’s decree that communities “under various names and forms” must be actively promoted so Christians can fully live their vocation in urban and rural settings, together with its directive that the CBCP clarify that such communities are not simply another organization and that BEC training enter seminary formation. (Wikipedia — Basic ecclesial community)

Strategies

Reception of Vatican II by survey and council: the agenda was “culled out of a nationwide survey of all sectors representing the Filipino faithful” — a seven-point agenda covering Christian life, social concerns, the Church and society, and the laity, religious, and clergy — so that the universal council’s questions were answered from documented Filipino data. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)
Preferential option as the organizing principle: the Council made the love of preference for the poor the test of renewal — calling the well-off to listen to the cries of the poor and to stand against “any unjust and oppressive structures in the society that exploit and worsen the condition of the poor.” (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)
Evangelization in integral form: rather than treating catechesis, worship, and social action as separate tracks, the Council bound them into one program — renewed catechesis that is Christ-centered, Scripture-rooted, authentically Filipino, and systematic, joined to a renewed social apostolate and renewed worship. (Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization)
Lay empowerment as directive formula: the Council’s Message to the People of God declared that “no one is so poor to have nothing to give, and no one is so rich as to have nothing to receive,” grounding participation in equality of Christian dignity and adopting the empowerment of people as a governing directive. (Oliverio — The Empowerment of the Lay People)

Security and Safety Measures

Canonical safeguards: the Council was convoked with apostolic approval, presided over by a conciliar president, and its decrees were “recognized by Rome” — the Church’s built-in check that a local council remains in communion with the universal Church before its legislation takes effect. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II, Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization)
Accountability through documentation: the conciliar record was fixed in a published, indexed volume of Acts and Decrees (xcix, 341 pages, with bibliographical references and an index), giving researchers and dioceses a stable textual basis for implementation and review. (Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition))
Structured review mechanism: ten years on, the Church institutionalized stocktaking through the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal, whose published proceedings acknowledged unimplemented prescriptions — an institutionalized self-criticism rare in any organization. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)
For researchers — provenance caution: accounts of PCP II circulate with differing venue attributions and delegate counts; the safe practice is to rely on the library records of the Acts and Decrees for the seat and dates, and on peer-reviewed commentary for substance, since the delegate total is not settled in the sources cited here. (Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition))

Historical Context

The First Plenary Council of the Philippines had met in 1953; PCP II was convoked almost four decades later, in a Church and nation transformed by the Second Vatican Council, the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, and the 1986 EDSA peaceful revolution — all four events named by the Council among the lights that shaped it. The CBCP proposed the council in January 1988 and approved it that July; after three years of nationwide consultation, the sessions ran from January 20 to February 17, 1991 under the conciliar presidency of the Dominican archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II, Oliverio — The Empowerment of the Lay People)

The Council’s Acts and Decrees were published by the CBCP Secretariat in 1992 and reissued by Paulines in 2004. A decade after adjournment, the CBCP convened the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal (2001), whose published proceedings confessed that “the Church in the Philippines has, to our shame, also remained unchanged in some respects… many prescriptions of PCP II have not been implemented” — the standing verdict that frames all later assessments of the Council’s impact, including the 2012 CBCP pastoral exhortation on the Era of New Evangelization that revisited the council’s agenda. (Open Library — Acts and Decrees (1992 edition), Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II) The Council also left institutional marks on the CBCP itself, which traces its assembly character to the conciliar bonds formed there — among them the 1991 decision, recorded at PCP II, to build a national center for the ongoing renewal and rehabilitation of clergy. (Wikipedia — Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines)

Challenges and Controversies

The Implementation Gap

The Council’s own review became its most cited controversy: the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal found that many prescriptions of PCP II had not been implemented and that the Church “has… remained unchanged in some respects,” a judgment repeated in later scholarship on the unfinished reception of the decrees. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)

Politics, Laity, and the Boundary of Roles

Part III’s treatment of the Church and the political community posited mutual autonomy and cooperation between Church and political community and emphatically urged the lay faithful to participate actively in political life — even in partisan politics — guided by the common good, justice, the spirit of service, love of preference for the poor, and people empowerment, while the clergy retain the right to enunciate moral principles on the political order. Commentators noted the tension this leaves in practice: bishops and priests must still define the extent and limits of their competence in political matters, and many laity and media practitioners remain uninformed about what the documents claim for the pastors’ moral teaching role. (Bacani — The Renewed Integral Evangelization)

Becoming a Church of the Poor

Scholars have pressed whether the vision is more rhetoric than practice: the Church of the Poor demands conversion of the well-off, detachment, and solidarity, and later analyses of basic ecclesial communities as its concrete expression argue over how far the poor have in fact become “active agents” rather than objects of the Church’s concern — the debate is the Council’s living legacy rather than a settled question. (Basas — Refiguring the Ecclesiology of PCP II)