Cardinal Sin: from sickly boy to Asia's most influential man of the cloth

MANILA, Sept 15 (AFP) - Cardinal Jaime Sin, the retiring spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Philippines, was a sickly 11-year-old boy when he first entered a seminary.

After serving nearly three decades as Manila's archbishop, the 75-year-old Sin leaves behind Asia's most powerful and outspoken Roman Catholic diocese, political and religious leaders say.

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Born to a religious family in central Aklan province, Sin was said to have made a special appeal to the Virgin Mary to heal his chronic asthma in exchange for a vow to help the poor.

His wish was granted.

At 26, Sin, fondly known as "Father Amie", was ordained priest for a newly established diocese near his hometown.

He became bishop, archbishop of Manila and then Cardinal in 1976, making him at 48 the youngest member of the College of Cardinal at that time.

Sin built his political influence as president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), with a majority of the 80 million people in the country Roman Catholics.

Bespectacled and rotund, he often joked about his name and was well loved by his staff. He was known to enjoy eating king-sized crabs, shrimps, steak and roast pig -- which according to at least one account may have helped lead to his health problems.

Sin despised corruption and did not tolerate inequality. He was not shy in using the pulpit to attack politicians whom he saw as morally unfit.

He was also a leading voice against abortion and the death penalty -- his appeals forced the Philippine government in 1998 to declare a moratorium on judicial killings.

"From the areopagus of Manila, for nearly three decades, his eminence has been the clearest voice of the Philippine church and the most quotable leader of the local churches in Asia," according to Father Fausto Gomez, dean of theology at the local University of Santo Tomas, Asia's oldest Catholic university.

"He has defended consistently the indivisible and inalienable right to life of every human being from the moment of conception to natural death, or as his eminence likes to put it, from womb to tomb," Gomez was quoted saying recently.

But perhaps Sin's greatest legacy would be his role in toppling the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and the corruption-tainted government of president Joseph Estrada in 2001.

Sin rallied his flock to support soldiers who had defected from Marcos's camp, eventually culminating into a peaceful "people power" revolt that forced the strongman to flee into exile in Hawaii, where he died three years later.

Sin was to have retired in 2000 but stayed back to rally his flock again a year later against the government of Estrada, a former movie actor whom he felt was morally unfit to rule.

Estrada was driven out of office by a military-led uprising and replaced by current president Gloria Arroyo, a devout Catholic.

"I consider everything as God's handiwork," Sin told the widely circulated Philippine Daily Inquirer recently. "I am just an instrument. I am just like the donkey the Lord rode on. I cannot boast of anything. Everything is grace."

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