A Church in Communion: PCP II and the Early Church

Marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II), this paper revisits the Council's vision of a “Church of the Poor” by returning to its scriptural inspiration, the Lukan summaries of the early Jerusalem community in Acts 2:42 and 4:32-35. Reading these texts through the lens of Ratzinger, Picardal, and other commentators, the author identifies communion in the Spirit, in apostolic teaching and fellowship, and in the sharing of goods as constitutive marks of the early Church, then argues that PCP II's ecclesiology remains underdeveloped in precisely these areas—pneumatology, mission, and the Eucharist—thirty years after its promulgation, leaving the vision of a Church of the Poor an unfinished task for the Philippine Church.