The Redemptorist Province of Cebu announced late Wednesday the passing of Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal, CSsR, who was known for his activism—like his crusade against the extra judicial killings in Davao City and later, in the nationwide “war on drugs”—and his athleticism as he joined marathons, climbed mountains, and biked all over the country. He was 69.
Image from the Redemptorist Province of Cebu Facebook page
“Fr. Picx was a brilliant and courageous missionary. He was a passionate advocate of peace and social justice and a professor of theology who has touched and transformed the lives of many,” said Fr. Edilberto Cepe, CSsR, the Provincial Superior of the Redemptorist Missionaries’ Province of Cebu.
Cepe made the announcement on Facebook, at the Redemptorist Province of Cebu’s page. He did not provide details as to the cause of Picardal’s death.
But a Redemptorist Brother, Karl M. Gaspar, CSsR, wrote that Fr. Picx was walking when “he collapsed in the garden near the hermitage that he had been building for a year in the hills of Busay” in Cebu City where the Redemptorists have a small retreat center.
Hours before his death, Fr. Picx posted on Facebook that it was the 47th anniversary of his “religious profession of the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience as a Redemptorist.” He joined the Redemptorists in 1977. He was ordained as priest on April 24, 1981.
In the same Facebook post, Picardal wrote a poem about his dog Bruno, which he titled “A Hermit’s Companion.”
Fr. Picx was born in Iligan City in 1954, the eldest of eight children.
In his “web journal” at blogpost.com, Picardal wrote that he studied AB Philosophy at the University of San Carlos in Cebu in the 1970s, where was involved in student activism.
“I was arrested, tortured and imprisoned for seven months a year after Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law,” he wrote.
After ordination, Fr. Picx was heavily involved in the Catholic Church’s Basic Ecclesial Communities all over Mindanao.
Fr. Picx in Bukidnon for his “Solo Trans-Mindanao Run/Hike for Peace and the Environment” from Davao City to Iligan City in the summer of 2010. MindaNews file photo by BOBBY TIMONERA
“My last mission assignment was in San Fernando, Bukidnon where I helped organize and mobilize the communities against the logging companies in 1987-1988. As a result of our efforts, the government imposed a total log ban in the province since 1989,” he wrote.
In 1989, he went to the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley in California. He then went to Rome in 1991 to continue his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Fr. Picx was based in Davao City from 1995 to 2011 as professor and dean of academic studies at the St. Alphonsus’ Theologate (later renamed St. Alphonsus’ Theological & Mission Institute), the school of theology for Redemptorists in Southeast Asia. It was during this time that he was actively involved in the Coalition Against Summary Execution that monitored and spoke out against the Davao Death Squads.
He ran marathons (a distance of 42 kilometers) since his 20s, all the way until his late 60s, and climbed Mt. Apo seven times.
He is known as the “cycling priest of the Philippines,” having biked across the country a few times for various causes. He also hiked long distances for his advocacies. In 2010, he ran and walked barefoot the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James), “from the French Pyrenees across the North of Spain up Santiago de Compostela, covering around 800 km in 27 days.”
Fr. Picx often wrote poetry, some of which he posted on Facebook.
He played the piano (“which I studied for five years”), flute, violin, guitar and harmonica, and had composed songs for liturgy and evangelization seminars.
Fr. Picx (2nd from right) arrives in Cagayan de Oro for the last leg of his “Climate Ride.” MindaNews file photo by FROILAN GALLARDO
Picardal was once assigned in Manila where he served as Executive Secretary of the Basic Ecclesial Communities Committee of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. He was later sent to Rome as Executive Co-Secretary of the Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of the Union of Superiors General.
Over the last few months, Fr. Picx ventured into Artificial Intelligence (AI), sharing his experiments with ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot on how to use these tools in the Catholic Church’s ministry.
“AI can be an aid for the priest as he prepares his homily but cannot replace him. A homily should take into account the local context—the situation and concerns of the audience,” he wrote early in May. (MindaNews)
