Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan warned that political dynasties corrode both family life and national well-being, urging Filipinos to follow the Gospel model of the Holy Family rather than fear-driven pursuits of power.
The prelate made the call in his homily on the Feast of the Holy Family on Dec. 28, as the Church formally closed the Jubilee of Hope within the Octave of Christmas.
David framed the Gospel reading as “a tale of two families,” drawing a sharp moral contrast between the household of King Herod and the family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
“Political dynasties, too, are families,” the cardinal said, describing them as clans that “protect their turf,” “keep power within the clan,” and turn public office into “private property.”
Reflecting on the Gospel account of the flight into Egypt, David described Herod’s household as “a powerful dynasty, obsessed with control, fearful of losing power, violent toward anyone perceived as a threat.”
He contrasted this with Joseph’s family, which he said was “fragile, displaced, homeless, forced to migrate to survive.”
Families shaped by fear and control eventually implode, David said, warning that power-centered households turn inward over time.
“A family that clings to power eventually turns against itself,” he said, adding that political dynasties “often collapse from within—siblings against siblings, parents against children, spouses against spouses—once fear and insecurity take over.”
“That kind of family is not life-giving. It is self-destructive,” he said. “And when it dominates a nation, it slowly destroys the nation as well.”
David said the Gospel underscores Joseph’s rejection of power, even though he was a descendant of King David, choosing instead to protect life.
“Joseph had no interest in rebuilding David’s throne,” he said. “He had embraced a different vocation: to help God build a family, not an empire.”
God’s saving work, David said, unfolds far from political centers and structures of dominance.
“God’s plan was not unfolding in palaces, but in kitchens; not in royal courts, but in ordinary homes; not in imperial Jerusalem, but in quiet Nazareth,” he said.
Applying the homily to the Philippine context, David said Filipinos are rightly known for being family-oriented, while warning that family life can be lived in “two very different ways.”
He contrasted dynastic families that pass power as inheritance with “quiet families” who endure “calamities, floods, fires, and earthquakes,” as well as “economic hardship, migration, separation, war, and political uncertainty.”
“These are the families of Bethlehem that become families in Egypt,” he said. “These are the families of Egypt that grow roots again in Nazareth. They do not make headlines. But they carry the future.”
As the Jubilee of Hope ended, David said the Church does not respond to social and political crises by offering “grand strategies or political blueprints,” but by calling people back to their homes.
“Hope begins there,” he said. “Hope grows when families choose the way of Joseph rather than the way of Herod.”
“God did not save the world through an empire,” the cardinal said. “He saved it through a family.”
