The Black Legend Series (III): The Rock Of Ages

As I was thinking of ways how to start talking about the early Church, a stage in her history which simplistically we tend to refer as the “Church of the Catacombs”, a terms that is largely misleading, it suddenly dawned on me that one simply cannot embark on a reflection of the two-thousand year old history of the Church without remitting to the very beginning. The story of the Catholic Church does not start with the martyrs, nor with the primitive Church, nor with the mission of the apostles. Her history takes off from the story of a life that was lived in Palestine at the start of the Common Era.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, is whom we find at the very beginning of this history that has spent two thousand years in the making. This may surprise us, but it is something that we tend to overlook. Right at the start, I am setting down a very important criteria that should be at the back of our minds as we go along these series: the Church is both a divine reality, but at the same time it is not lacking in human elements. That the Church is a mystery in this sense is evident in every step in the study of her history. This is so true about her that a study of her history would be lopsided if it were seen merely from the political, social, and anthropological point of view. Such an incomplete and lopsided historical perception is mainly to blame for the many myths and half-truths about the Church, especially about her past.

Human and divine. The renowned German historian Joseph Lortz expresses this important aspect of Church history when at the start of his monumental work Geschichte der Kirche he firmly states that the history of the Church is theology.[1] The consideration that this is not merely the history of not just any people, but the People of God not only does it legitimize the scientific nature of this field of study, but it allows us to contemplate it in its proper context: that the Catholic Church makes her progress in history not merely due to social, political and historical factors, but that she goes through history always under the designs of divine providence. Things happen in the Church, present in time, not only due to what man wills and how they execute what they will (for better or for worse); her historical progress follows a design that isn’t foreign from God’s will to save man.

If you want to study how and what the Church is, then you would have to begin with Jesus Christ, who founded the Church. It is in his life and in his death that we would be able to see the seed from which the Church will grow. Thanks to the mystery of the Incarnation, I would venture to say that it is in Jesus Christ that that which is divine, that which is eternal, that which is theological could be dated. For this is what the Incarnation basically is: the irruption of the eternal, the timeless, into man’s history, history which is quantifiable.  This is something revolutionary, as one could deduce from the many references that posterior Christian thinkers would make of this mystery: “Oh wonderful exchange!”, Irenaeus of Lyon would say in the second century. But then the Incarnation is not merely a mystery: it also an event. It something that has taken place in time; it is datable, verifiable. The eternal Son of God has been born of a virgin named Mary, betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the family of David, the roots of which are found in Bethlehem. 

If it is historically verifiable, when was the Son of God born according to the flesh then? We don’t have constancy of the exact date of Jesus’ birth, in the same manner as we would see in our own birth certificates. But this fact does not invalidate the historicity of Jesus’ birth—and as such—his own existence. For one thing, back in those days, people did not keep track of time in the same way that we do (and just because they do not do it the way we do doesn’t mean that it doesn’t tell us anything true). The primary sources that we have of the life and death of Jesus—and what happened afterward with his resurrection and ascension into heaven, is the New Testament, particularly the accounts of the four gospels. These are not biographies of Jesus, strictly speaking: their primary intention is to proclaim the divinity of Jesus Christ and his mission, which is part of God’s plan to save man. Though being such—testimonies of faith in the Son of God, what he did, what he taught—as data they give contribute something that could allow us to get to know the historic Jesus.

Together with other extra-biblical sources, we could gather the following: Jesus of Nazareth was born during the final years of the reign of Herod the Great (ca. 748-50 after the foundation of Rome, or 6-4 BC) and died in Jerusalem (on the 14-15 of the Jewish month of Nisan in the year 783 ab Urbe condita[2], which corresponds to the 7 of April, year 30 of the Christian calendar), when Caiaphas was high priest and Pilate the procurator of the roman province of Judea. He started his public ministry soon after receiving baptism from John (a prophet who preached the approaching redemption wrought by the Messiah) in the Jordan. Jesus exercised his ministry principally in the lower region of Galilee, teaching, traveling, and curing. Many followed him, but among these he called twelve men who became his inner circle. His company included people from different walks of life, even public sinner, with whom he ate. He exorcised demons, cured the sick and worked miracles. His taught using parables, transmitting his teachings through simple stories and using everyday images; with these he taught his followers and listeners about the Kingdom of God. his ministry—which could have lasted between two to three years, did not end in Galilee but in Jerusalem, where he used to spend the Passover. During this time, he was secretly arrested, and handed over by the chief priests of his own people to Pilate, tried and charged guilty of sedition. He was crucified and died. Soon after, his disciples (the majority of whom fled during the days of his arrest, trial and death), went about preaching that Jesus had risen from the dead.

These data may provide a minimalist image of Jesus, but these facts are enough to establish the basis for a firm knowledge of Jesus and the origins of the Church, which the accounts of the four evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles relate.[3]

Though nowadays very few people would take for granted the fact of the historicity of the figure of Christ, in the early years of the twentieth century, influenced in a substantial way by liberal Protestantism, certain trends of thought began to question the intention of Christ to found the Church. This view is primarily found among modernists. Modernism is basically an intellectual movement which rose during the first half of the twentieth century (before the First World War) that declared that the Church had to change entirely in order to suit the modern age into which it was entering; in order to be more acceptable to modern man, she ought to change not only in her accidental aspects (which could admit change), but also in her doctrine, in matters of dogma and morals (which is unacceptable, since these, being founded on eternal truths, can never change).

One of the points of the modernist way of thinking—condemned by the Church in 1907—was that the Church wasn’t founded by Christ, who never had the intention of founding anything anyway. Alfred Loisy—a French scriptural scholar, maintained that Jesus, who saw the imminent coming of the end of times, had never thought of founding any stable community, much less the Church; however, the Church was a logical consequence of the preaching of the Gospel. It was the prolongation of this preaching while mankind awaited the parousía. This is encapsulated in Loisy’s iconic statement which could be expressed in the words “Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom, but what came out of it was the Church”. Along with others, this was roundly condemned by the Magisterium.

This makes us turn to the question as to whether Jesus really had that intention of founding the Church. Did Jesus really intend to found it? Did he really see himself as its founder, its head?

Unlike how people might do it today, the Church wasn’t founded in a day or in a specific day in particular, with a notary to record it. Rather, in ascertaining the foundation of the Church, we look to certain circumstances in the life of Christ that show this intention to found the Church. Aside from this, there are also singular events in the life of Christ and in that of the first community of believers (gathered around the figure of the Twelve) in which the Church entered into history.

In the first place, there was the preaching of Jesus, which announced the coming of the Kingdom of God; in his preaching he also called to repentance and conversion. It was a conversion that was not individualistic, but always set in the context of the new People of God.

The institution of the Twelve apostles also showed the will of Christ to found the Church: like the twelve tribes that made up the people of God, they were to be the twelve columns upon which the new People of God would be built. Among them he charged Peter with the power of the keys (cfr. Mt. 10:1-4; Mk.3:13-19; Lk. 6:12-16).

Another evident sign of this will to establish the Church was Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist, and his granting of the power to perpetuate it in history to the Twelve. In this, Christ transmitted to the Church, in the person of the Twelve apostles who were seated with him in the Last Supper, the responsibility to be the sign and the instrument of that community which he had formed, one which would have to last until the end of time.

Finally, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, which had been sacramentally anticipated in the Last Supper (and made present once again every time the Mass is celebrated) gave birth to a united community, in communion with him. This is a community that is called to be both a sign and the instrument of the work that Jesus had started. The Church is born, therefore, from the total self-giving of Christ, his generosity that procured our salvation; it is a self-giving that has been anticipated in the Last Supper and fully realized on the Cross.[4]

The preaching of Jesus of the kingdom of God and his call to conversion, the call of the Twelve and the special mission of Peter, the institution of the Eucharist and the Paschal Mystery: all these were constitutive of the foundation of the Church. Soon after Pentecost, which ushered the Church to go forth and announce the Good News, the Apostles, conscious that that they had to fulfill a mission that had to last until the end of time (since as such they had received it from Christ), perpetuated it by choosing men to succeed them in the task. When at last all of the original Twelve had gone, they left behind a community of believers, with a structure through which the apostolic ministry continued, guiding and sustaining it in communion with Christ. The Acts of the Apostles show that it is an assembly—ekklesia in Greek, kirche in German, Church in English—vitalized and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

Throughout this reflection, we have pondered on basically two matters: the fact that Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, eternal God and born of the Virgin, and the fact of his will to found the Church. Jesus is the divine founder of the Church. It is a Church founded on the rock of Peter’s faith, as the familiar passage of Matthew 16:16 would tell us: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. “And I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church”.[5] More than just Peter, the rock upon which the Church is founded on is none other than Jesus Christ himself, the Rock of Ages. He had founded the Church, endowing it with the gift of his own divine life, making it indestructible. Steadfast as Peter’s confession of faith in Christ, the horrors and evil which two thousand years of human history had also experienced (among other things) hadn’t been able to destroy the Church, an edifice founded surely upon firm rock.

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[1] Cfr. Joseph LORTZ, Historia De La Iglesia, vol. I, Madrid 2003, 12.

[2] Ab Urbe condita means “after the foundation of the City”; this was the way of computing the passage of years in the Roman empire: by taking count of the years since Rome—the City par excellence—was founded.

[3] Cfr. Domingo RAMOS LISSÓN, Compendio de la Historia de la Iglesia Antigua, Pamplona 2009, 32.

[4] Cfr. Ibid., 33.

[5] Mt. 16:18.

THE BLACK LEGEND SERIES (II): METHODS, CRITERIA AND THE POSITIVE OUTLOOK OF THIS PROJECT.

In the first essay I have stated some of the reasons for coming up with a series regarding some of the dark myths about the Catholic Church. After some reflections, I’ve decided to direct what would hopefully be a series of reflections towards two main aims, as a response to the question as to why we need to get to the bottom of things with respect to this topic. The fundamental thing is to answer the question: what really happened? The first aim is apologetic, as could almost be directly deduced.  We hope that, in the process of getting down to the historical bottom of things, we would be able to unmask all of these myths and black legends, and thus be able to defend the Church.

But there is another motive for these series, which I believe is even more important, something to which we should be more attuned. It is my hope that with this series of essays, we may come in touch with the reality of the Church in the journey that she has made all throughout the two millennia of her existence. To get to know her history from the shadows that the perpetrators of these legends (either by malicious intent or through ignorance of the truth) is one important motive of this study. I would have to admit that this isn’t a normal arrangement in learning about the history of the Church, though learning it from this point of view is interesting nonetheless.

Thus getting to know what really happened, we may come to understand and learn to love the Church even more. This in my opinion are two important attitudes of any respectable Church historian: understanding and love for the Church.

Trying to understand is crucial. It is not for the student of history to judge history, because the historian is on one hand a mere student, no matter how many doctorates he may have accomplished. History, as the wise saying goes, is the teacher of life, and as the Lord himself would say, no student is greater than his master. History is best learned by trying to understand what really happened; by comprehending historical fact, always keeping in mind the historical context in which it took place. Deplorable is that easy mistake to judge an historical event from our present and modern way of thinking. to learn from the mistakes of the past is one thing; to judge the past with the present is another. And besides, to impart judgment isn’t the task of the historian; neither is it our task here. To get to know the historical context, how life was, how people thought during a particular time in history, and to see a particular issue within its proper context (for example, the Spanish Inquisition within the time of the Spanish Reconquista) form part of the methodology that I will use in these essays.

Another concerns the pursuit of the truth, an important part of which includes the acceptance of the fact that Christians have erred at one point or the other. Far from my mind is to come up with a white legend of the Church, which is a reaction to the black legends but from the opposite extreme. If the black legends try to caricaturize certain episodes in Church history, blowing things out of proportion, white legends idealize things, exaggerating facts in the bid to present a pristine and triumphalist image. One criteria that we would have to consider in the historical science is based on the fundamental doctrinal truth that while the Church is holy and immaculate, the spotless Bride of Christ, nevertheless in her bosom saints and sinners have lived together. The Church is not a mere human institution; it has its human element, otherwise there’s no sense of talking about the history of the Church. But one must not forget that she is of divine institution: she has that x-factor, so to speak, which could not have been received from this world. From this we would appreciate the fact that the Church is a mystery, living paradox: holy, yet composed of sinners; walking through history, yet escaping the clutches of time.

The study of the Church’s progress in history cannot be merely explained from a materialist, nor plainly political point of view, though they are helpful in allowing us to understand why things get to happen as they do. Without the essential element of divine providence, one could never understand the history of the Church. Reducing everything to mere politics, human interest and chance, the history of the Catholic Church would be incomprehensible, if one fact is left out: that it is part of the history of salvation, wherein God enters in conversation with man, and continually offers him salvation. It is a history of the evils men may commit, but more importantly it is also a history of grace and sanctity (which results when the offer of grace is accepted by man).

Only in getting to know the truth about the Catholic Church in its reality, deep within God’s loving plan of salvation, could one be actually led into a deeper love for the Church. It is only through this love—love is the deep appreciation of the goodness of the truth—that one can easily defend the Church. One can only defend with passion that which he loves.

With this, I would state that among the topics which I hope to discuss are the following: starting from the early Church, to the time of Constantine, the Middle Ages, the Inquisition, the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the pacification of the Philippines, Galileo, the Spanish friars during the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines, and the silence of Pius XII. There may be other matters that I could think of in the future, but for the moment the present list is already quite ambitious in itself. 

BLACK LEGENDS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The idea came to me during these last day of the long weekend we’ve just been enjoying, thanks to the celebration of the feast of Thomas Aquinas, a great philosopher and saint, which all Spanish universities—ecclesiastical or otherwise—honor by proclaiming it to be a no-class day. The reason for this traditional practice is based on the fact that this great medieval thinker has meant so much to the genesis and development of the university establishment (which properly has its roots in the Christian Middle Ages, though some say that Plato founded the first university, or at least something like it).

Anyway, the fact is these days Catholic bashing is becoming quite the thing, also in predominantly Catholic Philippines. The blows come used to come from some pretty radical Christian fundamentalists, the Iglesia de Cristo (who are not strictly Christians by the way; modern-day Arrians,  they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, which is a fundamental Christian doctrine) people who call themselves free-thinkers and those who feel the particular calling to go against any established institution, ecclesiastical or otherwise. But lately more people have stepped into the circle: people who have an axe to grind against the Church because of her solid stance against the RH bill, no converted into a law. The long exodus of this bill into being approved as a law in Philippines has resulted—among other things—in a fearsome, violent and dirty word-war, in which both sides (Church on one hand and the advocates of the bill and hangers-on in the other) are both to blame.

In the midst of the battle, characterized at times by hits below the belt, one of the choice weapons hurled against the Church were what we might properly call black legends. Understood within the word-war between Church and her opponents in the arena of public debate, these legends are basically taken from certain moments of bi-millenary Catholic history, accusations of the Church’s failure to be faithful to her mission to simply be Christian. These may include the horrors of the Inquisition and the unjust trial of Galileo.

“The Black Legend, in a strict sense, refers to a style of historical writing or propaganda that demonizes the Conquistadores and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to incite animosity against Spain”; this definition was taken from what has become the most common reference source after the dictionary these days: Wikipedia (do people still consult the dictionary these days? Just wondering). Within the historical context in which these leyendas negras were born, Spain was a world power, and a catholic one at that. Perpetrators of black legends were generally the protestant nations of Europe. These legends were spawned in the hope of discrediting Spain, and hitting it where it mattered most: it’s identity as a catholic nation (not much of it now it isn’t).

Because of the largely catholic content that it contains, the black legend has extended itself to include other topics that do not properly refer to the Spanish empire, but are nevertheless Catholic. They range from the early persecutions of Christians in the second to the fourth centuries, the role of Constantine in shaping Christian role, down to the Inquisition to the Galileo case; the latest black legend to have been spread is about the famous silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust in World War II.

Nowadays, these are topics that still serve to discredit the Church. They are good missiles that are hurled now and then in the sphere of public debate to undermine the credibility of the Church’s voice and the legitimacy of her presence in the square of public opinion. But like all weapons, they are fatal. Weapons are already dangerous enough in the hands of trained men; in the hands of ignorant fools, weapons are made even more so, because they can also turn on their own handler (at least that’s one ignorant fool less for the world). The same is true with black legends.

Whenever people let by phrases in their arguments like “the dark Middle Ages” or “it’s the Inquisition all over again” or “like what the Church did with Galileo”, I begin to suspect how much they know about those things in the first place. One such example is the statement of Philippine senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, who in 2011 said that Galileo was tortured by the Church for his beliefs. I could hear crickets chirping in the background.

Anyway, returning to the idea that I had, which I was raving about at the start, why not get straight to the facts? It’s not about exonerating churchmen from whatever wrong they might have done throughout the centuries (I’m sure there’s more than a bagful of that), but I believe it’s unfair to tag the Church with mistakes that she hadn’t committed in the first place.

Historical misconception and black legends are born not only because of ill will, but also due to oversimplification, as Fr. Gil Cañete, one of Palo’s most brilliant thinkers, had pointed out recently. A budding historian, I think it’s just right and just that I contribute to the education of others by studying these questions myself.

As such, I’ve been thinking of providing some points which may hope to clarify some of the things that public opinion may have left in the dark. What role did Constantine have in the Church after it went out of the catacombs? Was the Church really living in the catacombs during its infant stage? Is it really possible to talk about a medieval renaissance? Was the Inquisition really that cruel? What was at the bottom of the Galileo affair, and what part did the Church really have in it? These are merely some of the questions that I hope to answer in the following days and weeks, aided primarily by José Carlos Martín de la Hoz, renowned historian, who precisely wrote a book entitled Historia y leyendas de la Iglesia.

LES MISERABLES: REMEMBERING THE TRUTH THAT ONCE WAS SPOKEN.

As a weekend treat I decided to watch Les Miserables and see what all the fuss was all about. I was planning to watch it on the big screen but I’m sure the Spanish subtitles would ruin it for me, and so I had it through more unorthodox means (I’m sure don Javier Sesé would not approve, though I perfectly get his point that great movies ought to be seen in their original form, never through pirated copies. But some copies are as good as the original. I’m digressing).

The film adaptation of the musical was simply powerful. Everything was well-done, from the costumes, the cinematography, to the acting an the singing, and down to the meaning behind the movie. With this, I think I had just stated how one could judge the quality of a movie. It’s like a good glass of wine: you start evaluating it from that which is most evident (color, scent, taste, aftertaste). A good movie, like good wine, is certainly something to be enjoyed, starting from that which immediately appeals to the senses: the costumes, the colors, the shots (which are some important cinematographic elements), and then the acting, and finally, very much like an  aftertaste, the sense of it all. Some people like to watch movies that make them think less. The more senseless it is, the better (which is not bad if you’re not in the mood to think much, like, say, after an exam or after some really arduous intellectual exercise. For times like these, a good martial arts movie is recommendable: you don’t understand much of the dialogues, but the fight sequences simply rock). But a good movie always make you think afterwards; a really good movie makes you want to write down what you think of it.

I never knew that Sacha Baron Cohen, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman could sing well. Eddie Redmayne was a revelation; I saw him in Pillars of the Earth and I never suspected that he could sing really well. Russell Crow gave me the sensation that I was hearing him sing from the shower (no offense). Helena Bonham Carter was as she always was: superb (the other day I was watching the movie in which she first appeared, Room with a view, [1985] which is delectable). Colm Wilkinson gave a good performance as the Bishop who pardoned Jean Valjean and ushered him into a new life.

Aside from these things, the merit of the production is also in the message that it conveyed. The  1998 movie version (which starred Liam Neeson and the unforgettable Goeffrey Rush) was good enough in giving out the message about forgiveness and salvation, but this recent version of Victor Hugo´s masterpiece was even more powerful in its rendition on the message.

I think that the power of the production lies as well in its message: the power of forgiveness, on that is based on the discovery of the person’s worth, a discovery that is only possible if such a discovery is based on love. Basically, as the scene of Valjean inside the church (soon after the theft of the Bishop’s silver and his forgiveness by the same), we could say that forgiveness consists in telling one that he has a soul to be saved. “He told me that I had a soul”, Valjean says in his monologue. The realization of the fact that there is more to me than flesh and blood, that I am valued also because of that touch of the divine that I have within me, is one powerful reason why I, as a person, need to open myself to the power of forgiveness. It is only in forgiving and in the experience of being forgiven that the gates of salvation are held wide open for us.

For Valjean, at least, this is what happens. The Bishop was instrumental in Valjean being able to see the loving face of God. The perception of God is another theme in this movie.  This is perceived in the personal story of Fantine and of Javert. Javert, a man hardened by the his experience of life, and who would be invoking God in his mission to promote hard justice in his police work, saw God as pure justice (something which would remind me of another figure, historical this time: Martin Luther). In a similar way, touched by misfortune and the exploitative cruelty of the reality of her life, Fantine would sing “I dreamed that God would be forgiving”. These were the words which actually made tears roll down my cheeks (yes, there were times that the screen blurred up a bit for me when I watched the movie), and made me think. Hard times, bad experiences would have a hand in making us come up with a blurred image of God, but most of the time, men are at fault in discrediting God before others. We may be sometimes at fault, because, in coming up with a God fashioned out of our own narrow and vengeful image and likeness, we rob people of the chance to approach the doors of salvation. The tears of Fantine (who later discovers that God was forgiving after all, thanks to the selfless love of Valjean) and the hardness of Javert (who could not believe that forgiveness was possible, even when it was offered to him) bring home to us a lesson: one cannot call himself a child of God if he does not know how to forgive, nor ask for forgiveness. As he lay dying, Valjean’s last words were these: “forgive me of my trespasses, and bring me to your glory”. God cannot be separated from the fact that he forgives. When a person forgives, he shows himself a worthy child of his Father in heaven. God is a God who forgives!

And because God forgives, he saves. Salvation is another great theme. It is shown in how the forgiveness shown by the Bishop to Valjean opens something up in the latter: the door to change. When evil enters a person’s heart, it closes it. Bitterness takes up residence in it, later to be joined by despair of ever being saved. But forgiveness opens the heart that has been immersed in evil and despair (provided that the heart lets itself be touched), and sets it on the first step to salvation: change. This transformation has love as its touchstone, and this is not surprising, because the prime motor of forgiveness is love itself. When Valjean finds himself forgiven, he finds himself capable of loving others as well. In doing so, he becomes instrumental in their own salvation. In this work of salvation, the figure of the Bishop is key. This was one thing I appreciated in the production. Aren’t we just tired of seeing the Church and her pastors in a bad light? Here we see a man of God actually being a man of God, somebody who touches hearts, opening them, and allowing the grace of God enter them. Here is a man of God—a bishop—who preaches forgiveness while not afraid of condemning the evil of sin, sin which is something better left behind:  “There’s a bed to rest till morning, rest from pain, and rest from wrong”, the Bishop says, inviting the escaped parolee to accept what this servant of God had to share.

Finally, this salvation is one that leads to freedom. The last scene is just stunning, because of the significance that it houses. After a life of trying to counter hatred with love, and with the generous sacrifice that it entails, Valjean finally dies, realizing that in loving, one sees the face of God. We are led to realize that love is the first step towards the ultimate freedom that we hope to get in the end. We realize that the ultimate freedom is the freedom to love, a freedom that only God can give. This is a freedom that matures in heaven, in God’s embrace. Chains and the threats of evil cannot imperil this freedom based on love, and so in the end, one has the sensation that Valjean, in his struggle to love and be loved, was free all along. This love that comes from God and shines in the midst of the darkness of this life, as it is enshrined in the heart that has experienced divine pardon—and forgives in return—will see the dawn of a day that never ends, as the words of the final song suggests: “Even the darkest night will end when the sun will rise”. Love will always allow us to look on with eyes filled with hope to the ultimate accomplishment of this freedom.

Forgiveness. Salvation. Freedom. Hope. Love. Like a good glass of wine, these are the things that made me left thinking deep, and have left me with a good hangover. Not only has the movie brought out the best in me as a writer at this point (it has allowed me to express myself in more than 1,500 words), but it has also helped me enter deeply in conversation with God, one who always makes us remember the truth that once was spoken: “to love and love a person is to see the face of God”.

TAKING A CUE FROM HISTORY: THOUGHTS CONCERNING AN ANALYSIS ON THE RH BILL DEBACLE.

The past weeks of final examinations seem to have overexcited my neurons and had pushed me to be especially fertile and productive in the literal sense. The analysis offered by Armando Doronila in the Philippine Daily Inquirer ("The RH Bill Debacle", December 20, 2012 issue) has piqued my curiosity and has set my thinking gears turning. It’s strange to note that precisely in a time when everything seems to settle down for a well-earned respite from intellectual work after the exams, the brain starts to function.

The Doronila’s article provides an analysis concerning the outcome of the recent debate on the Reproductive Health (or otherwise, Responsible Parenthood) bill, which I think would be remembered in Philippine contemporary history as one of the most divisive in society. Centering on the clash between the Catholic Church and the bill’s proponents in the legislature, not only does it recount the facts about the final stages of the debate, but in order to reinforce the author’s point concerning the   ideological conflict between both, Doronila goes back in history, and points out the actuation of both parties in the debate concerning the legislation allowing for the compulsory reading of Rizal’s Noli and Fili in Philippine schools way back in the late 1950’s. In this debate, the Church (vehement against its application in the Philippine educational system) lost the debate, and the novels became part of the school curriculum. But as Sen. Joker Arroyo mentioned in his intervention during the Senate voting on the RH bill, in this 1956 debate, nobody lost face, neither the Church nor the politicians who sponsored the bill.

Doronila also mentions another episode in which the Church took a crucial part, and this was in ousting Marcos from power, effectively ending a twenty-year old regime. Here, the memorable role of the late Cardinal Sin was crucial in calling all Filipinos to the streets, a decision which was not done in the spur of the moment, but something that was taken after intense hours of prayer.  Referring to this episode, the author of the article concludes that “in this role, Church intervention in state affairs was at its best and most welcomed by the Filipino people. It was the height of the influence and power of the Church in the development of democracy”.

He goes on, winding up a rather insightful analysis, commenting on the fact that since then, the Church’s influence has waned, and could not be regained by interventions related to population and its implications related to economic growth and poverty.

Doronila begins with what amounts to a general assumption: “the Roman Catholic Church suffered its most crushing defeat in its collision with the Philippine state in 13 years when Congress decisively voted on Monday to pass the Malacañang-certified reproductive health bill  providing government funding for contraceptives and sex education in schools.” I would say that this could be taken as an apparent assumption, and this could be interpreted in many ways, depending on the perspective from which one may prefer to look at it.

Basically this was one statement that set me thinking. Certainly the votes of the anti-Rh legislators, backed by the bishops and the Catholic laity, were outnumbered by a comfortable margin by the pro-RH camp and the bill’s authors. Tactically, numerically and apparently, the outcome transformed the parties in the debate, turning it from a debate between pros and antis into one between the gleefully victorious and the defeated.

The day the results were officially made known to the public, placing the bill one step ahead into legality, many people expressed their dismay and their sadness on the outcome. Both news reached me as I surveyed the world in the internet. I guess the latter’s expressions of sadness and dismay personally irritated me more than the victory of the Pro-RH camp in the bicameral vocations,  though their reaction is perfectly understandable. The day the results went out, I didn’t have that sense of defeat, personally because it don’t see it as such. To express it more exactly, the legislators contrary to the bill lost in the votation; they may have been on the same side that the Catholic Church was championing, but it was the anti-RH votes that lost (as a parenthesis, I congratulate these legislators for being heroic in standing their ground, as much as I respect the rest of the other legislators in the other camp).

I don’t feel that there should be talk of the Catholic Church being defeated as yet, for the simple reason that the law still has to prove itself capable of bringing what it was supposed to bring on. It’s too premature to celebrate. I would grant victory to the supporters of the RH bill as a law if it has indeed been able to make true its provisions, and has uplifted the poor, helped in defending the rights of women, and aided in the true education of the youth. But the mere fact of it’s being passed into law is no guarantee that it will work. I’m not saying that it won’t work, it could be effective…but as the Holy Writ would express it, it would only be through the fruits that we would be able to see the true victory of this bill once enacted into law, and this will not happen at the spur of the moment.

I don’t think the Church has suffered a crushing defeat; a setback in its hold and influence (as the Inquirer would put it) perhaps, but a humiliated  Church, I don’t think so. In the academic jests that we would throw at each other in the residence where I live in, we would debate upon the excellence of our fields: Canon lawyers would pit themselves jokingly against dogmatic theologians, moralists against philosophers, each saying their field is better and the studying the rest is an absolute waste of time. One day they turned to me, the only historian in the residence (there aren’t much of us in the Faculty of Theology, there are only about six of us, and I’m the lone Filipino) and asked me in jest concerning any importance my field would have. I replied smugly, “I don’t need to answer that question. I just have to direct you to the fact that chapter one in all of your respective textbooks would talk about the history of your specializations. Go and deduce the answer for yourselves. We historians cannot enter into your debates; transcending such conflicts, we have the duty to be observers of everything that takes place in time and space”. Message relayed ad verbatim. I suppose I felt smug like Buddha or some other oriental sage, because my companions backed a hasty retreat and went for another to pounce on.

There is a lot to be learned in history, and in a way, it gives you a perspective that helps orient things, and it is only when things are in place could one be at peace. The outcome of the RH bill debate, its impact on the Church and upon its public image in Philippine society, and the analysis afforded by Doronila brings be back to the case of the Protestant Reformation. The Reform wrought by Luther had huge consequences in European history. It was a tragic episode with respect to the history of European unity, as with the Reform movement, that millenary political, cultural and religious unity termed as Christendom was irreparable shattered. The revolution instigated by Luther’s defiance to authority, no matter how corrupt, started a long period of wars, which culminated in the rise of modern states, each with its own handling of religion. Far from being a principle of unity, it shattered it.

For the Church, the Reform brought heavy consequences. It was a huge blow, and perhaps historically, it was the greatest crisis that the Catholic Church had ever faced since the Great Schism in the fifteenth century, since it constituted a scandalously huge rift within the Church itself, that mystical body termed by saints and Christian thinkers as that “seamless robe of Christ”, which the Protestant Reform had torn apart.

The Catholic Church was down, evidently…but that painful episode brought immediately brought forth one of the greatest moments of splendor that the Church has ever had in terms of art, intellectual science, administration, and most important of all, sanctity. The succeeding period brought forth a rich harvest of examples of  lives that mirrored the holiness and the love of God. above everything, this is the victory that crowns them all. The seventeenth century, heir of the woes of it turbulent predecessor, was a moment of unparalleled glory in many aspects of the Church’s life.

I don’t feel defeated in any way, nor do I think that the Church in the Philippines should feel otherwise…aside from the reasons that I’ve expressed above, whatever low moments we may find ourselves in, the Church must always see as opportunities to rise. To feel sad at an apparent setback is an error which the Catholic Church in the Philippines does not have the luxury to commit at this point in time. Her critics and detractors are right when they say that this marks a new period for the Church, and they are equally right when they say that it is time for a humbler Church.

I think that it is time for the Church in the Philippines to let go of any triumphalist tendency that it may have inherited from its colonial past. It is a triumphalism that we have inherited from the times when bishops and priests, religious and wealthy lay people WERE the Church. This triumphalism has given birth to a certain clericalism that does not speak true of the Gospel of Christ in contemporary Filipino society. True, the people don’t listen anymore to bishops and priests pontificating in their pulpits. But they cannot resist in listening to Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. People have that erroneous image of the Church as being merely the bishops and the priests and religious. No, they are not the Church. The lay people in themselves  aren’t the Church either. We may sometimes have forgotten that the Church is neither of these. The deepest truth about the Church is that it is the mystical Body of Christ; not just any mere human institution with its own aims and history. Many people wouldn't care to realize that The Church is of God, Christ is its head, and only if we let this word of Christ shine more brilliantly in the foreground, with us priests and bishops and lay people forming the mere background, wouldn’t the people listen more?

The RH Bill debates have merely set, with respect for the Church, the fertile ground upon which to grow stronger, by allowing it to see that its force is not in the numbers that it muster, but in the Truth that it needs to proclaim. For it to proclaim it as such, it needs to humble. Yes, humble, but not humiliated, as the Church’s detractors would have her. A humble Church in the Philippines will speak out all the more, forcefully than ever. A Church that does not base her power in a system of privilege, but on the Gospel of Life, a Church that is prophetic in its denunciation of evil, and active in works of charity in truth, both of which are the only driving force behind any initiative that can truly uplift the Filipino, especially the poor, the women, and the youth.

This is the Church that we are called to be with the help of God’s grace, one which our country needs. And I believe optimistically, that the odds are helping us in achieving that.

Perhaps now you may understand why I don’t think of it as a defeat.

Gaudete Sunday: TRUE JOY

(I'm offering the English translation after the Spanish version)

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete!

Avanzamos en nuestro camino hacia la fiesta de la Navidad, plenamente conscientes de que este tiempo preparatorio de Adviento es un espacio verdaderamente de penitencia. Y así hemos comenzado y vivido estos días. En el domingo pasado hemos escuchado las palabras del profeta Isaías que dijo: Preparen el camino del Señor, hagan rectos sus senderos. Estos palabras  constituyen el corazón del mensaje de san Juan Bautista, el precursor de nuestro Señor. Efectivamente, al rectificar nuestros caminos, rellenando las valles de nuestra ignorancia, rebajando las montañas de amor propio y la soberbia que estan en nuestros corazones, estamos respondiendo a la llamada de la conversión. Es una llamada perenne, de toda la vida, pero que se revista con especial urgencia estos días.

El tercer domingo de adviento, el domingo Gaudete, nos muestra a su vez que el fruto de la verdadera penitencia y conversión no puede ser otra cosa que la verdadera alegría. El apóstol san Pablo nos exhorta de estar alegres siempre, porque siempre estamos en camino de la conversión. En cuanto nos pongamos en este camino, respondiendo fielmente a esa llamada a la conversión, nos acercamos continuamente al Señor, cuya presencia entre nosotros y en nosotros es fuente de toda alegría: Dominus enim prope est. El Señor está cerca.

La liturgia nos muestra, pues,  que la alegría cristiana no es la mera alegría de un animal sano, que se pone a reír y alegrarse  porque se está físicamente bien: come bien, duerme bien, se divierta. No, la alegría de verdad brota y cunde de la presencia del Señor al que hemos dado la bienvenido en nuestro corazón, en nuestra vida. Es una alegría que vemos evidente en la vida de los santos, primeramente de María nuestra madre santísima, que a pesar de las fatigas, reveses y contradicciones de la vida, están llenos de alegría serena. Es una alegría que se tiene que propagar; una que tiene que contagiar a los demás en el alrededor.

La liturgia del domingo Gaudete nos enseña también que la alegría que tenemos en este vida no es definitiva, sino que llegará a su plenitud con la venida definitiva del Señor. Hace cinco años, en un domingo de Gaudete tal como hoy, celebré solemnemente por primera vez la Santa Misa, y a pesar de las grandes ganas que tenía de entonar el himno gozoso de la Gloria, no pude, porque no estaba previsto por las rubricas. Nosotros cantaremos la Gloria definitiva en el final, pero se trata de un himno de alabanza que esta ya incoada en nuestros corazones, manifestado en nuestra vida. El Gaudete nos orienta para ver que esta vida con sus alegrías no es definitiva, y que por lo bonita que sea, hemos de mirar hacia la gran fiesta que está por llegar con nuestra unión con Dios en el cielo.

Termino con unas palabras de un gran pensador, Juan Escoto Eriugena: “No se debe desear otra cosa sino la alegría de verdad, que es Cristo, ni evitar otra cosa sino estar alejados de él, pues esto se debería considerar como causa única de tristeza total y eterna. Si me quitas a Cristo no me quedará ningún bien, y nada me asustará como estar lejos de él. El mayor tormento de una criatura racional es estar privado de él o lejos de él”. Que estas palabras nos ayuden en nuestro empeño de estar más cerca de Cristo, única fuente de nuestra alegría. AMEN.

(The English translation)

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete!

We are moving forward on our way towards the great feast of Christmas, fully aware of the fact that Advent is also a time of true penance. As such we have started this season and we have lived all throughout this time. Last Sunday we heard the words of the prophet Isaiah who said: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. These words are at the heart of the message of St. John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord. Truly, when we make straight our path, filling up the valleys of our ignorance and apathy, and allowing the mountains of our pride and self-love made low, we are responding to the call of conversion. It is a call that is being made out to us always, but which we could hear with special urgency in this season of advent.

The third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, allows us to see as well that the fruit of true penance and conversion is true joy. The apostle St. Paul exhorts us in his letter to the Philippians to be joyful always, and this is because we are on the road of conversion. Inasmuch as we faithfully respond to the call of conversion, we draw nearer always to the Lord, and the Lord makes himself present in our lives. His presence is precisely the cause of true joy in our lives and in our hearts: Dominus prope est, the Lord is near.

The liturgy shows us therefore, that true Christian joy is different from just being that of a healthy animal, one that laughs and is happy because it is physically well. No, true joy springs from the presence of the Lord, whom we have truly welcomed in our hearts and in our lives. It is a joy that is most evident in the lives of the saints, especially in that of Mary, our mother; despite of the sufferings and contradictions that life held in store for them, they were able to go through all of it serenely, in joy. This is the gladness that we need to have, and that which we need to spread, wherever we may find ourselves in.

The liturgy of Gaudete Sunday also teaches us that whatever joy we may have is never definitive, but rather that which will reach its fullness only when the finally comes. Five years ago, in a Gaudete Sunday such as this, I solemnly celebrated for the first time the holy Mass, and despite of the great urge to intone that joyful hymn of the Glory, I couldn’t, simply because it wasn’t prescribed by the rubrics, it being a Sunday of Advent. We shall definitively sing the Glory in the end, when we come face to face with God in heaven. But this song of joy has already begun in our hearts, and is present already in our lives. Gaudete Sunday directs us in order to see that even the positive joys of life are not lasting, that this life is not definitive, no matter how beautiful it may be. We need to look forward, turning our eyes towards the great feast that is yet to come, the feast of our perfect union with God in heaven.

I would like to end with these words of a great Christian thinker, John Scotus Eriugena: “One ought not desire any other thing than true joy, who is Christ, and avoid anything else but be far from him, because this is what ought to be considered as the only cause of true and total sadness. If Christ were to be taken from me, this would be really unfortunate; nothing would make me fear than being far from him. The greatest torment any rational creature could have is to be deprived of him or be far from him”. May these words help us in our effort to be closer to Christ, the only true source of our joy. AMEN.

LOVE IS NOT MY RELIGION

To say LOVE IS GOD and GOD IS LOVE is not the same: as two paths, one leads to the abyss, the other leads to self-realization and salvation. To make LOVE one’s religion is to succumb to the merciless dictatorship of the sentiments and rosy—but empty—concepts, concepts that cannot save man from the specter of emptiness. Such is a love that does not distinguish between anything, since it is formless, without foundation. In such a love there is no future. But to submit oneself to a GOD  who is LOVE, made flesh and taking part in human history, is to open one’s horizon to the infinite eternity of a LOVE who has a name and a face, and who can give me LIFE UNLIMITED.

LOVE IS NOT MY RELIGION; rather, I worship a GOD whose love allows me to touch and embrace him through the HUMANITY that HE shares with me, from the moment that he accepted the “yes” of a humble Virgin. It is a humanity which I fervently hope he would eternally glorify in me when the EVERLASTING DAY comes at last.