May 6, 2008
Your Excellency
BISHOP GABRIEL REYES
Bishop of Antipolo
Bishop's Residence
1870 Antipolo City, Rizal
Your Excellency:
We thank you for your letter dated May 5, 2008, wherein you expressed your decision to resign as CFC's Spiritual Director. We deeply regret that it has come to this.
As you know, notwithstanding the difficult events of the past year, which continue up to now, we have tried to pursue the proper relationship that should be observed between a lay organization and its Spiritual Director. We have always responded to your calls for meetings, in the same way that we are thankful that you have also agreed to our requests to meet with you. We also continued to invite you to our assemblies. We thank you for the teaching you gave the Metro Manila Mission Core last October 16, 2007.
We deeply apologize for the hurts we have caused you. One of those appears to be that we "made decisions...a number of times without consulting or informing..." you first. But as we informed you in our meeting last April 30, there are perceptions based on certain events that you had already taken the side of Frank Padilla and the FFL. We hope you will understand that because of that perception, we were clearly in a quandary.
For serving as CFC's Spiritual Director, we thank you. We thank you for the time and attention you gave us. Even in the midst of our own struggles, we have learned a lot in our relationship with you.
We assure you that we will make every effort to make this "parting of ways" as loving and as caring as possible. If some of our brethren have caused you pain, we apologize for them as well.
We sincerely hope that we can still come to you in friendship and definitely, with all due respect and honor as a pastor of our Church. We remain committed to the Church.
We send you our love and our best wishes for your continued good health and success. May the good Lord bless us all.
Sincerely in Christ Jesus,
(Sgd.)
Joe Tale
For the CFC International Council