LET us come together in little groups of reflection and discernment. In these groups we look seriously at our part in the many evils of our day—as individuals, as families, as communities—and discern what action we can do together.
On January 27 last, at the end of their first CBCP meeting for the year, the bishops issued that invitation to all of us in a pastoral statement they entitled with a quotation from the Evangelist Mark (1, 15): “Reform yourselves and believe in the Gospel!” In the earlier part of their statement, they reviewed briefly some of the besetting problems, current then, in our life as a nation: corruption in high places in the government (the ZTE scandal had just come to the public’s consciousness), extra-judicial killings, the bad peace and order situation, abuse of our natural resources, the growing incidence of political family dynasties, excessive politicking, etc. Summarizing these evils, they said: “In them all we see the all too patent subordination of the common good to the private good.” That subordination—they asked us to look deeply and honestly into by forming probing circles of discernment.
Except for a few gatherings here and there of students in universities in Manila and efforts by BEC groups and a sprinkling of lay organizations in some dioceses, the massive discerning that the bishops asked for did not happen—a disappointing response. As was the reaction of some Manila newspapers which preferred to contest the bishops’ listing of the evils of our country and failure to go along with their current obsession with the ZTE case and the “President-resign” movement. But even more disappointing, to me at least, was the parroting by some religious of the media discontent with the bishops’ statement. If the nitpicking was extraordinary, more extraordinary was the ignoring of the conclusion made by the bishops from their enumeration of evils about “the all too patent subordination of the common good to private good.”
Looking back now with the wisdom of hindsight, I wonder if the idea of circles of discernment—that was after all what the bishops were asking to be formed—was not fully understood in the context in which they put it: personal and especially communal conversion, our realizing of the part we play in the general malaise. In the statement, they referred back to what happened in 1986 in the developments that led to EDSA I reminding us of how we had come together “to pray together, reason together, decide together, act together.” In 1986, those words did bring about a common response among our people—they formed “circles of discernment”, however impermanent, asked in all seriousness how they should respond to the stolen election.
Some bishops thought that with our experience in the BECs, it would be easier to replicate, but to a wider extent, the reflection and prayer groups that formed then in 1986 after the issuance of their statement on the snap elections. For between 1986 and now, practically a generation, many dioceses have adopted the AsIPA (Asian Integral Pastoral Approach) methodology of community reflection and action in the formation of BECs. But possibly it has not been as widespread after all as was first thought, limited in most cases only to dioceses and parishes that had a strong BEC and social action program, hence the not too encouraging results. It might be a good idea then to say something here about what the AsIPA is all about, with a view to its further use as our methodology for change in the months and years ahead. For I think the bishops will keep returning to the need for communal discernment and action in the Gospel on national problems that so far have eluded efforts at correction. The method is briefly described thus:
The AsIPA presupposes a community (or group) that meets regularly for worship and keeps asking itself a basic question: “In the Scripture readings of today [usually those of Sunday] what is the Lord telling us to do as a community of believers?” The first step is to do some kind of social analysis of the life of the community—what are its current problems or opportunities, what is happening to hinder or help them live a more Christian life? Answering that question, they move on to the next step: a shared reflection on the message of the day’s scripture readings applied to their life as a community. From there they proceed to decisions on what to do with the fruits of their discernment. That done, they go on to make plans, assessing their capabilities and resources, assigning roles for particular tasks, etc. Action follows during the week. When they meet again, they assess what they have done, look into reasons for success or failure. Whether they have succeeded or not in their efforts at change, whatever situation they find themselves in as a community will call for another round of discernment and action. (That’s why the process is also called a pastoral spiral or cycle.)
The implications for self- and community-conversion of this method of communal discernment and action cannot be over-exaggerated. We’ve seen it work, as I showed in that incident I related last month on how the farming folk of Bukidnon dealt with those degrading referendums during martial law. I am convinced it is the only way we can form a strong communal sense of the common good. Without it we will most certainly continue to be mired as a people in the morass of our many intractable social ills solely because we cannot transcend selfish interests and strive as one for the common good.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
The GK Problem and Prudent Moral Choices
As expected, my first Afterthoughts column last month was not received well by some principals in the controversy over CfC/GK. It elicited “afterthoughts” of their own—but most negative of mine. I would be mad to get involved any further in their quarrel. Still, I can’t help asking that they do not dismiss cavalierly as they are doing the logic of the questions (and the answers) of my Bontoc “philosopher”. All I’d wish them to do now, before consigning me to wherever I am to be consigned, is to answer categorically the same questions he put to me. Only then, I believe, can we have a rational discourse on the controversy without the innuendoes, misreading, fallacious reasoning that are being advanced so far by way of response to that maiden column.
Before sending it in to the CBCP Monitor, I had asked a professional moral theologian to look at it and see if he had some comments to make from the viewpoint of his expertise. Father Eric Marcelo Genilo, S.J. of the Loyola School of Theology obliged and sent me the following comments—they are well worth quoting at length here:
“There are enough references in scripture, the saints and the Church’s social teachings that would support the position that meeting the material needs of the poor is just as urgent and important as meeting spiritual needs.
“I would argue against those who criticize GK for taking donations from pharmaceutical companies that are involved in contraceptive production and marketing. First, these companies produce other products and it does not necessarily mean that the donations come directly from profits from contraceptives. Second, it is rash and unjust to label such companies as evil, as if they do not do any good for the community. In all human organizations the capacity for doing good and evil are present and operative. I can call the Church “devil” too if I just focus on the sex abuse committed by clerics, the atrocities of the Inquisition and the Crusades and the destruction of cultures by overzealous missionaries. But I don’t, because I recognize the Church is both sinful and graced. I would also apply the same compassionate consideration to multi-product pharmaceutical companies. Third, single-issue morality, like single-issue politics, ignores the complexity of life and the various factors that should be considered when making a prudent choice for what is good. To judge the worthiness of a charitable work on the basis of the contraceptive issue alone is like choosing a president based on his or her position on divorce, ignoring important issues like war, corruption, poverty, human rights abuses, and unemployment. Single-issue morality is morality for those with small minds and limited vision. Fourthly, one can point to examples of great men and women who did not shy away from working with sinners in order to do great good for others—Mother Teresa received donations from dictators to help the poor and dying; John Paul II visited Fidel Castro even if Cuba is embargoed by Western nations.”
Father Genilo’s ideas need no further commentary. But I would like to dwell a bit here on what he says about the danger of ignoring “the complexity of life and the various factors that should be considered when making a prudent choice for what is good.” His words carry me back to something that happened in Bukidnon during martial law times and that has been a source of lasting inspiration for me personally all these years. It is about our people’s capacity, when given the opportunity and freedom, for making precisely those much-to-be-desired prudent choices in their life as people of faith.
A number of times after the imposing of martial law, referendums were held to gauge how the people looked at the new political dispensation that was “the New Society.” The clergy of Bukidnon felt keenly the degrading effect of those phony acts of suffrage, especially in the coercing of people to vote according to “suggested answers”. They decided to come out openly on the occasion of one such referendum in the mid-‘70s with their collective judgment on it and on how they felt our people should act in its regard.
They analyzed and commented on three possible options open to us and our people: (1) boycotting the referendum in protest at its farcical nature even in the face of the decree forcing us to take part on pain of imprisonment for failure to vote; (2) participating in the process and voting yes or no freely according to conscience but making sure that our votes would be properly counted and reported as cast; and (3) resorting to blank ballots if we felt participation was too debasing or useless, but then we would also have to see to it that those ballots were correctly registered—not an easy thing to do under the menacing and ever present guns of the military.
The three options were openly discussed in all of our BECs to the consternation of government officials who had been bidden by Malacanang to produce a yes-vote. Because of the people’s vigilance, the counting of ballots at that particular referendum was done rather fairly. The final results were roughly one third yes-votes, another third no, and the last third “spoiled”—these were evidently the blank ballots. Only 200,000 of a total of more than 300,000 registered voters in the province participated in the voting. That meant some 100,000 had boycotted it. Add to this the no-votes and the “spoiled” ballots, and the message sent to Malcanang was unmistakable and clear as day. We like to think our people’s action helped put an end to those debasing travesties.
What amazed us most, however, were not so much the results of the voting (although they were surprising enough) as the way our people seriously discerned on how they were to conduct themselves in the referendum. A general pattern of action was followed by families: Mothers would participate, fathers would boycott. The rationale was simple: Should the non-participating fathers end up in jail, the voting mothers would be left to take care of the children. That approach had never occurred to the celibate clergy! But they were highly gratified when it happened, for it meant their efforts at helping create communities of faith-discernment and -action were having an effect after all.
Ordinary folk evinced then in a most remarkable way the capacity for prudent choice that Father Genilo speaks of. One would wish that that capacity were more in evidence too in the resolving of the CfC-GK problem than is being shown to date; and for that matter, for us, the general population, in regard to the burgeoning ills of the nation—a pressing and hard challenge to our capacity as citizens to make the needed prudent choices.
Before sending it in to the CBCP Monitor, I had asked a professional moral theologian to look at it and see if he had some comments to make from the viewpoint of his expertise. Father Eric Marcelo Genilo, S.J. of the Loyola School of Theology obliged and sent me the following comments—they are well worth quoting at length here:
“There are enough references in scripture, the saints and the Church’s social teachings that would support the position that meeting the material needs of the poor is just as urgent and important as meeting spiritual needs.
“I would argue against those who criticize GK for taking donations from pharmaceutical companies that are involved in contraceptive production and marketing. First, these companies produce other products and it does not necessarily mean that the donations come directly from profits from contraceptives. Second, it is rash and unjust to label such companies as evil, as if they do not do any good for the community. In all human organizations the capacity for doing good and evil are present and operative. I can call the Church “devil” too if I just focus on the sex abuse committed by clerics, the atrocities of the Inquisition and the Crusades and the destruction of cultures by overzealous missionaries. But I don’t, because I recognize the Church is both sinful and graced. I would also apply the same compassionate consideration to multi-product pharmaceutical companies. Third, single-issue morality, like single-issue politics, ignores the complexity of life and the various factors that should be considered when making a prudent choice for what is good. To judge the worthiness of a charitable work on the basis of the contraceptive issue alone is like choosing a president based on his or her position on divorce, ignoring important issues like war, corruption, poverty, human rights abuses, and unemployment. Single-issue morality is morality for those with small minds and limited vision. Fourthly, one can point to examples of great men and women who did not shy away from working with sinners in order to do great good for others—Mother Teresa received donations from dictators to help the poor and dying; John Paul II visited Fidel Castro even if Cuba is embargoed by Western nations.”
Father Genilo’s ideas need no further commentary. But I would like to dwell a bit here on what he says about the danger of ignoring “the complexity of life and the various factors that should be considered when making a prudent choice for what is good.” His words carry me back to something that happened in Bukidnon during martial law times and that has been a source of lasting inspiration for me personally all these years. It is about our people’s capacity, when given the opportunity and freedom, for making precisely those much-to-be-desired prudent choices in their life as people of faith.
A number of times after the imposing of martial law, referendums were held to gauge how the people looked at the new political dispensation that was “the New Society.” The clergy of Bukidnon felt keenly the degrading effect of those phony acts of suffrage, especially in the coercing of people to vote according to “suggested answers”. They decided to come out openly on the occasion of one such referendum in the mid-‘70s with their collective judgment on it and on how they felt our people should act in its regard.
They analyzed and commented on three possible options open to us and our people: (1) boycotting the referendum in protest at its farcical nature even in the face of the decree forcing us to take part on pain of imprisonment for failure to vote; (2) participating in the process and voting yes or no freely according to conscience but making sure that our votes would be properly counted and reported as cast; and (3) resorting to blank ballots if we felt participation was too debasing or useless, but then we would also have to see to it that those ballots were correctly registered—not an easy thing to do under the menacing and ever present guns of the military.
The three options were openly discussed in all of our BECs to the consternation of government officials who had been bidden by Malacanang to produce a yes-vote. Because of the people’s vigilance, the counting of ballots at that particular referendum was done rather fairly. The final results were roughly one third yes-votes, another third no, and the last third “spoiled”—these were evidently the blank ballots. Only 200,000 of a total of more than 300,000 registered voters in the province participated in the voting. That meant some 100,000 had boycotted it. Add to this the no-votes and the “spoiled” ballots, and the message sent to Malcanang was unmistakable and clear as day. We like to think our people’s action helped put an end to those debasing travesties.
What amazed us most, however, were not so much the results of the voting (although they were surprising enough) as the way our people seriously discerned on how they were to conduct themselves in the referendum. A general pattern of action was followed by families: Mothers would participate, fathers would boycott. The rationale was simple: Should the non-participating fathers end up in jail, the voting mothers would be left to take care of the children. That approach had never occurred to the celibate clergy! But they were highly gratified when it happened, for it meant their efforts at helping create communities of faith-discernment and -action were having an effect after all.
Ordinary folk evinced then in a most remarkable way the capacity for prudent choice that Father Genilo speaks of. One would wish that that capacity were more in evidence too in the resolving of the CfC-GK problem than is being shown to date; and for that matter, for us, the general population, in regard to the burgeoning ills of the nation—a pressing and hard challenge to our capacity as citizens to make the needed prudent choices.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The CfC Controversy about the Devil
I was home in Bontoc recently, and as I was leaving the parish church after Mass the last day of my visit, one of the parishioners rather rudely accosted me with this question: “Is it at all allowed to steal from the devil?” “Daft!” I said to myself. I stole a look at my interrogator—it was “the village philosopher”. I thought he was trying to be funny, but he looked serious. Like the Sphinx, in fact. And inscrutable too. So I decided to play along and questioned him in turn: “Why do you ask that?”
He answered: “Because you priests—pardon my impertinence, your Excellency!—say it would not be a sin to steal under certain circumstances, for example, if I were starving and the only way I could survive were to steal the food I needed.” I replied: “You’re right. But why the devil?” “Because,” he came right back, “he is the one who has the ready means in the casus conscientiae [a conscience problem under discussion by moralists] that’s bothering me.” The man even knew Latin.
And he proceeded to complicate his original question with another (he hadn’t earned the sobriquet of “philosopher” for nothing): “But suppose the devil freely gives me what I want, so it wouldn’t be necessary to steal, can I in good conscience avail of his magnanimity?” His logic was impeccable (though I still have to meet such a devil of magnanimity), so I answered : “Yes!” This, grudgingly. And not a little testily: “But what are you getting at anyway with all those hypothetical questions?” “They’re not at all hypothetical,” he shot back. And he explained how he was a CfC member of the parish and the split between the group of Mr. Padilla and that of Mr. Meloto was so painful to him and his follow CfC-ers, they didn‘t know what to make of it. And neither did their pastor. (I learned later, though, that they had decided to stick with Mr. Meloto.)
He drew a parallel between starving people stealing—or freely receiving help—from the devil on the one hand, and on the other, the miserably housed in squatter areas in Manila (which, he said, had horrified him no end when he saw what passed for their “houses”), the putative beneficiaries of the donations of a pharmaceutical company manufacturing “sinful” contraceptives. I didn’t think the company in question would welcome being classified as the devil, but then it was being criminalized by Mr. Meloto’s critics, so I thought the man’s comparison was quite apt. He found great difficulty in the reason being advanced to condemn Mr. Meloto’s efforts at helping to provide necessary housing for the poor, supposedly, the use of evil means for a good end. That was how receiving money from the pharmaceutical company for Gawad Kalinga projects was being caricatured. And he went on to add in defense of Mr. Meloto that it wasn’t as if he, Meloto, were profiting personally from the company’s donations.
That exchange occupied my thoughts all the way back to Manila later in the day. The man was right. If people in desperate straits may steal, it doesn’t matter from whom they steal, saint or devil—although if I were asked, I would most probably counsel stealing from whichever of the two was richer! But if instead of stealing, the severely indigent begged and were given help freely—again, does it matter at all if the donor is a saint or the devil himself? If I were asked by the beggars directly, should I tell them to beg from the saint and not from the devil? But of this I’m sure: If the saint were in any way reluctant to help, I’d have no qualms whatsoever about telling them: “Go to the devil!”
All these strange thoughts because of the quarreling heads of the CfC. The split among them is most unfortunate. But whatever the reasons for it, a way must be found for the work of the CfC to go on. And by “the work of the CfC”, I mean what both factions say they are interested in: the spiritual formation of families, the housing of poor ones—these must by all means be done. But where dirt-poor families are concerned, I would put their housing needs before their spiritual ones. As the old Latin dictum has it (it must have been thought up by another village sage), “primum vivere, secundum philosophare—to stay alive comes first, to philosophize [or theologize too?] second.”
I guess more spiritual persons than I will vehemently say nay to that bit of folk wisdom, maintain that the spiritual must come first at all costs before the material. I’ll have no trouble agreeing with them—in the order of ultimate priorities. But in a situation of dire and immediate need for shelter and food? I’m afraid I’ll have to say the physical and the material will have to be attended to first. This is what many of us who work in the Church’s social action apostolate have found from painful experience. It is simply not the right thing to do to talk about spiritual matters to people whose empty bellies cry out to be filled. Or whose make-shift, open-to the-elements hovels degrade—and make hard the living of—their dignity as human beings and as children of the one Father of us all.
The parallel the man made between the desperate need for food and the equally desperate need for shelter came back to me with head-battering force. How spiritual can a family get living over a stinking estero or in one of those under-a-bridge “condos” that are the scandal of Manila? A decent house to bring up a family in—that’s an essential, I would think, for ordinary human living and, yes, for ordinary spiritual well-being as well.
Getting direct help from the devil—the thought was most intriguing. And another just as intriguing popped up to mind unbidden: Why should the devil go against his nature and agree to do a good deed? For a human, redeemable “devil”, I thought to myself, it could be out of a desire to make reparation for sins; or simply out of ordinary Filipino awa—something that I would think should come naturally to most of us. But for the real, unredeemed and unredeemable devil? No problem, I concluded: It would be out of sheer malice—to wreck havoc on some moral theologian’s inflexibly righteous certitudes! I should have asked my Igorot philosopher for his opinionated but, I do not doubt, common-sense verdict?
The real scandal, I further concluded, was not the money gotten from the “devil” of a pharmaceutical firm, but the necessity to welcome it because Christians—the saints—were not being sufficiently forthcoming with their charity. “I was a stranger and you took me in; I was without a roof and you helped me put one over my head—and my family’s. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
And with that bothersome if holy thought, I fell into a fitful, troubled nap.
He answered: “Because you priests—pardon my impertinence, your Excellency!—say it would not be a sin to steal under certain circumstances, for example, if I were starving and the only way I could survive were to steal the food I needed.” I replied: “You’re right. But why the devil?” “Because,” he came right back, “he is the one who has the ready means in the casus conscientiae [a conscience problem under discussion by moralists] that’s bothering me.” The man even knew Latin.
And he proceeded to complicate his original question with another (he hadn’t earned the sobriquet of “philosopher” for nothing): “But suppose the devil freely gives me what I want, so it wouldn’t be necessary to steal, can I in good conscience avail of his magnanimity?” His logic was impeccable (though I still have to meet such a devil of magnanimity), so I answered : “Yes!” This, grudgingly. And not a little testily: “But what are you getting at anyway with all those hypothetical questions?” “They’re not at all hypothetical,” he shot back. And he explained how he was a CfC member of the parish and the split between the group of Mr. Padilla and that of Mr. Meloto was so painful to him and his follow CfC-ers, they didn‘t know what to make of it. And neither did their pastor. (I learned later, though, that they had decided to stick with Mr. Meloto.)
He drew a parallel between starving people stealing—or freely receiving help—from the devil on the one hand, and on the other, the miserably housed in squatter areas in Manila (which, he said, had horrified him no end when he saw what passed for their “houses”), the putative beneficiaries of the donations of a pharmaceutical company manufacturing “sinful” contraceptives. I didn’t think the company in question would welcome being classified as the devil, but then it was being criminalized by Mr. Meloto’s critics, so I thought the man’s comparison was quite apt. He found great difficulty in the reason being advanced to condemn Mr. Meloto’s efforts at helping to provide necessary housing for the poor, supposedly, the use of evil means for a good end. That was how receiving money from the pharmaceutical company for Gawad Kalinga projects was being caricatured. And he went on to add in defense of Mr. Meloto that it wasn’t as if he, Meloto, were profiting personally from the company’s donations.
That exchange occupied my thoughts all the way back to Manila later in the day. The man was right. If people in desperate straits may steal, it doesn’t matter from whom they steal, saint or devil—although if I were asked, I would most probably counsel stealing from whichever of the two was richer! But if instead of stealing, the severely indigent begged and were given help freely—again, does it matter at all if the donor is a saint or the devil himself? If I were asked by the beggars directly, should I tell them to beg from the saint and not from the devil? But of this I’m sure: If the saint were in any way reluctant to help, I’d have no qualms whatsoever about telling them: “Go to the devil!”
All these strange thoughts because of the quarreling heads of the CfC. The split among them is most unfortunate. But whatever the reasons for it, a way must be found for the work of the CfC to go on. And by “the work of the CfC”, I mean what both factions say they are interested in: the spiritual formation of families, the housing of poor ones—these must by all means be done. But where dirt-poor families are concerned, I would put their housing needs before their spiritual ones. As the old Latin dictum has it (it must have been thought up by another village sage), “primum vivere, secundum philosophare—to stay alive comes first, to philosophize [or theologize too?] second.”
I guess more spiritual persons than I will vehemently say nay to that bit of folk wisdom, maintain that the spiritual must come first at all costs before the material. I’ll have no trouble agreeing with them—in the order of ultimate priorities. But in a situation of dire and immediate need for shelter and food? I’m afraid I’ll have to say the physical and the material will have to be attended to first. This is what many of us who work in the Church’s social action apostolate have found from painful experience. It is simply not the right thing to do to talk about spiritual matters to people whose empty bellies cry out to be filled. Or whose make-shift, open-to the-elements hovels degrade—and make hard the living of—their dignity as human beings and as children of the one Father of us all.
The parallel the man made between the desperate need for food and the equally desperate need for shelter came back to me with head-battering force. How spiritual can a family get living over a stinking estero or in one of those under-a-bridge “condos” that are the scandal of Manila? A decent house to bring up a family in—that’s an essential, I would think, for ordinary human living and, yes, for ordinary spiritual well-being as well.
Getting direct help from the devil—the thought was most intriguing. And another just as intriguing popped up to mind unbidden: Why should the devil go against his nature and agree to do a good deed? For a human, redeemable “devil”, I thought to myself, it could be out of a desire to make reparation for sins; or simply out of ordinary Filipino awa—something that I would think should come naturally to most of us. But for the real, unredeemed and unredeemable devil? No problem, I concluded: It would be out of sheer malice—to wreck havoc on some moral theologian’s inflexibly righteous certitudes! I should have asked my Igorot philosopher for his opinionated but, I do not doubt, common-sense verdict?
The real scandal, I further concluded, was not the money gotten from the “devil” of a pharmaceutical firm, but the necessity to welcome it because Christians—the saints—were not being sufficiently forthcoming with their charity. “I was a stranger and you took me in; I was without a roof and you helped me put one over my head—and my family’s. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
And with that bothersome if holy thought, I fell into a fitful, troubled nap.
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