Nel 1380 nella terra desolata di Nieva, nella provincia di Segovia, in Spagna, si dice che la Madonna sia apparsa a un pastore di nome Pedro Amador. La Vergine gli disse di andare dal Vescovo di Segovia e chiedergli di scavare il terreno nella roccia del luogo dell’apparizione. Pedro tornò su quella roccia con il vescovo, i devoti dei fedeli e dissodò la terra. Lì, dal sottosuolo, trovarono un’immagine della Beata Vergine Maria che si dice fosse stata sepolta in quel luogo quando i Mori invasero la Spagna nel 711 d.C.
Se leggiamo letteralmente le prime traduzioni in filippino, la leggenda dice che questa Madonna è la Vergine “presa dal sottosuolo” del paese di Nieva, Spagna. E quindi, nella devozione popolare, la Virgen dela Soterraña, la Vergine della Nieva, venne considerata la protettrice della terra; contro tuoni, fulmini, tempeste, terremoti e altre calamità.
La Virgen dela Soterraña divenne una devozione popolare nelle Filippine quando Don Antonio Tuazon portò un’immagine della Beata Madre e Binondo dove subito fece celebrare una novena. Divenne persino la santa patrona dei meticci di Manila (cinesi-filipino) durante l’invasione inglese del 1762. Tuazon, in realtà, era un immigrato cinese di Fukien (Fujian), chiamato Son Tua che si stabilì a Binondo, Manila nel XVIII secolo. Arrivato nell’arcipelago si dedicò al commercio navale accumulando rapidamente immense ricchezze grazie al suo senso degli affari e alla riconoscenza riservategli dalla casa regale di Spagna per il suo contributo militare contro gli Inglesi. A quanto pare, divenne poi l’uomo più ricco delle Filippine alla fine del XVIII secolo.
Anche se la devozione a Binondo è poi scomparsa, oggi è rimasta una sua traccia nella Diocesi di Kaloocan, come devozione “sotterranea”, nella cattedrale di San Roque, Diocesi di Kalookan, e ha una sua festa dedicata che si celebra l’otto settembre.
Come un cinese abbia portato questa particolare devozione nelle Filippine è tutto da scoprire. Appare tuttavia possibile che Son Tua abbia conosciuto la religione cristiana in Fukien, una regione attraversata dai missionari provenienti dall’Europa e dove il cristianesimo era arrivato anni prima con per mezzo di Giulio Aleni (1582-1649) e comunità di frati francescani. Il ruolo di una immagine tutelare cinese dal nome Tǔdìpó, “Gran madre della terra e del suolo”, potrebbe poi essere stato “trasferito” in una delle tante statue devozionali che i missionari, in questo caso spagnoli, si portavano appresso.
The non-Islamized tribes of the Philippines were animistic communities headed by the chieftain or datu. He or she in many cases was the ruler, lawgiver, and sometimes a high priest at the same time. The people believed that virtually everything such as trees, creeks, rocks, etc. are inhabited by spirits. According to a British anthropologist, Edward Burnett Tylor (1974), who called this religious belief “animism” in his book, Primitive culture, such a belief system is a natural development that dates to prehistoric times. Tylor argues that primitive people experienced in visions, dreams, and hallucination the presence of dead relatives which made them infer that lifeless bodies were inhabited by souls or anima. Ultimately, they believed that these souls continued living and dwelt as spirits in rivers, trees, rocks, skies, etc.
Other anthropologists, thought, however, that primitive men of Paleolithic times were not that intellectually sophisticated as proposed by Tylor as to think in terms of spiritual explanations, but rather they simply inferred based on their sentiments and intuitions that animate objects do have lives and wills of their own while inanimate objects may likewise have lives and wills in that they somehow behaved in some mysterious ways that made them appear alive. But they did not distinguish the soul and body as two separate entities.
Later, many of these nomadic groups became farming villages. Therefore, they started practicing “paganism,” or the Neolithic polytheistic beliefs that there are gods and goddesses with individual responsibilities in all aspects of nature. Daniel Quinn, makes a distinction between “animism” and “paganism”:
“It’s easy to distinguish animism from paganism. Paganism is a farmer’s religion (“pagan” means “of the country”). There were no farmers here until about ten thousand years ago. Before that, the religion of humanity was animism (and it still is among tribal peoples).It’s not, in fact, a religion in the way most people think of religion [i.e., organized religion]. It’s based on no “religious” belief. Rather, it embodies a worldview: the world is a sacred place, and humans belong in that sacred place. The religions of our culture (the “major” religions) perceive the world to be a place of illusion and evil—not a sacred place, but rather a place to be escaped from in order to reach some “better” place that is our true home. At the same time, the religions of our culture perceive humans to be fundamentally flawed, so that if the world were a sacred place, humans wouldn’t belong in it. In the view of our culture’s religions, humans are miserable creatures living in a miserable place”.
By the time the Spaniards came to the Philippines, some native tribes had already become farming communities with paganism as their religion. Other communities in certain parts of the archipelago were already Islamic in religion, particularly in Mindanao and some parts of the Visayas and Luzon. The early Christianization of the Philippines was rather slow. The first recorded baptism occurred in Cebu in 1521 during the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan who is said to have discovered the archipelago. In the course of time, the Christianization process spread to the different islands and areas of the Philippines, but its success was partly due to the tolerance allowed by political and religious authorities for the natives to embrace Catholicism while simultaneously incorporating some elements of their animistic and pagan practices. These give rise to what is known in the Philippines as folk Catholicism or folk Christianity. As King (2002, 5) says: Animism is a term for any religion in which souls of dead people or spirits of nature play an important role. . . . (like) offerings and special festivals may be held to honour the souls of the dead. Followers . . . also may worship spirits believed to exist in fields, hills, trees, water, and other parts of nature. . . . This often happens, for example, in the religious practices of Southeast Asian folk traditions.
Cult of the Child Jesus (Sto. Niño)
Images of the adult Jesus are venerated like the image of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo Church, brought by the Augustinian Recollects from Mexico to the Philippines between the 16th and 17thcenturies, and the Crucified Christ. The image of the Child Jesus, however, is also venerated. As was said: “Worshippers bathe images of the Santo Niño, or Holy Child. They clothe the statues with rich brocade, treating the Child Jesus as a princely guest in their homes.” They believed the Sto. Niño can help them in times of need can protect them from danger. The devotion of the Child Jesus in Tondo had the fluvial parade with children dancing with merriment. But some “devotees treat their images like spoiled babies,” like mannequins, or like favourite pets. Some businessmen display the Santo Niño image sided by side with the Buddha image for good luck.
Ferdinand Dagmang, who is a priest himself, describes how a group of people express their devotion to the Santo Niño in Calumpang, Marikina. He says:
“ In this ritual their recognized leader and educator in faith (Mang Bening) was believed to be used as a medium by the Santo Niño and sometimes by Jesus and on rare occasions by God the Father. In most of their meetings where the Santo Niño presents himself through Mang Bening, healing was the central event where the “God-man encounter” happens. In instances where Jesus appear, there usually is no healing session but a pangaral, an exhortation or hortatory message on how to conduct one’s life or how to deal with one’s kapwa (fellow human being).When God the Father in Mang Bening appeared, the setting becomes that of “fear and trembling” where the Father castigates the errant members or the more hard-hearted ones among the group……My literature study on the topic led me to the discovery of the pre-Hispanic rituals of sapi among native babaylans (or catalonan, baglan, baylanes, mambunong, etc.). These indigenous priestesses (and sometimes priests) of yesteryears were the recognized mediums of anito (spirit) worship….I found out that in pre-Hispanic times religion was healing and healing was areligious ceremony that the folks usually held in places called simbahan, their place of worship….…In this sapi [or langkap, talaytay, suklob, sanib, tungtong] ritual, the babaylan was supposed to be possessed by a benevolent anito (spirit) who brings blessings and healing to sick people. Prayers and sacrifices were the normal offerings to the benevolent anito who is supposed to be more powerful than the malevolent ones. Within these ritual-meetings, people would also ask the anito in the babaylan other favours like protection of their crops from locusts or their lives from the dangerous buwaya [crocodiles] that inhabit their rivers….
In pre-Hispanic times, some persons would have the experience of being “filled”(possessed) by spirits, sometimes by benevolent ones. In our present context, both the medium and the spirits are Christianized. The spirits are now the saints and the divine persons of the Trinity”. [edited]
Dagmang tries to explain this phenomenon of the sapi in a positive light by quoting some Biblical verses. John to Jesus: “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Jesus: “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mk. 9:38-40).
In 1984 the Boston College biblical scholar, Pheme Perkins, wrote. “The theological task of articulating the significance of resurrection for twentieth-century Christians still remains to be undertaken” (Resurrection, Doubleday, p. 30).
Despite her own and many fine publications since then, her judgment still stands.
The grossly inaccurate discussion of this topic by journalists in Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report at Easter time in 1995 suggested that even as scholars increasingly make their research available to the public, the message still needs to be more clearly articulated.
Scholars are agreed that Jesus’ resurrection is not at all a miraculous return from the dead or something like a near death experience. The real differences in the reports and interpretations of the evangelists and other New Testament authors make it quite clear that there is no, single, unified picture of resurrection in the tradition.
From this perspective, it is very significant that the Gospel passage assigned for this great feast of Easter, John 20:1-9, is the story of the finding of the empty tomb! None of the resurrection appearances of Jesus was selected.
One purpose of the empty-tomb tradition is to remind believers that faith comes from hearing. John’s report that the Beloved Disciple “sees” (the empty tomb and folded wrappings) and “believes” (that Jesus has been raised rather than that his corpse has been stolen) seems to replace the angelic proclamation in other accounts that “the Lord is risen!”
Mary Magdalene represents the community grieving over Jesus’ death and needing consolation. Her report that “they” have stolen the body very likely refers to enemies of Jesus but could also reflect the community’s concern about the charge that some Messianists stole the body to support their tale that Jesus was raised from the dead.
The early Peter tradition is of no help because, according to that report, he came to the tomb, found it empty, and returned to his friends without any understanding of what had happened (Luke 24:12). In John’s report Peter enters the empty tomb first, and then the Beloved Disciple’s reaction interprets what they both saw.
In this Gospel passage, faith in the resurrection of Jesus developed from the discovery of an empty tomb and not from an appearance of Jesus. It developed from what the first believers reported and how they interpreted what they experienced.
We are squeezing out the planet’s goods. Squeezing them out, as if the earth were an orange.
Countries and businesses from the global north have enriched themselves by exploiting the natural resources of the south, creating an “ecological debt.” Who is going to pay this debt?
In addition, this “ecological debt” is increased when multinationals do abroad what they would never be allowed to do in their own countries. It’s outrageous.
Today, not tomorrow; today, we have to take care of Creation responsibly.
Let us pray that the planet’s resources will not be plundered, but shared in a just and respectful manner.
No to plundering; yes to sharing.
(Each year, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation is observed on September 1. The international celebration marks the beginning of the Season of Creation, which extends to 4 October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.)
Federal agents raided a Philippines-based church in Los Angeles early Wednesday in a human trafficking investigation that led to arrests of two church leaders in what prosecutors said was a decades-long scheme to trick followers into becoming fundraisers and arrange sham marriages to keep them in the U.S.
The local leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church was arrested on immigration fraud charges in the early morning bust along with a worker who confiscated passports of the victims of the scheme, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Its founder, Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, ( who claims to be “the appointed son of God”) was briefly held by US customs officials in February 2018 after $350,000 in cash and gun parts were found in his Philippine-bound private plane.
Fundraisers who managed to escape from the church told the FBI that they had been sent across the U.S. to solicit donations for the church’s charity, The Children’s Joy Foundation, and were beaten if they didn’t make daily quotas, according to affidavit filed in support of the charges. Some described having to live in cars at truck stops.
An FBI agent investigating the case documented 82 sham marriages over a 20-year period and tracked $20 million raised between 2014 and the middle of last year that was sent back to the church in the Philippines.
“Most of these funds appear to derive from street-level solicitation,” according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Anne Wetzel. “Little to no money solicited appears to benefit impoverished or in-need children.”
In addition to raiding the church’s Van Nuys compound, agents were conducting searches at other Los Angeles locations and at two places in Hawaii linked to the church.
Calls to the church for comment were not immediately answered.
President Rodrigo Duterte has been known to have close ties with Quiboloy, the self-proclaimed appointed “Son of God.” Quiboloy was reportedly among those who supported Duterte’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The Philippines proudly boasts to be the only Christian nation in Asia. More than 86 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, 6 percent belong to various nationalized Christian cults, and another 2 percent belong to well over 100 Protestant denominations. In addition to the Christian majority, there is a vigorous 4 percent Muslim minority, concentrated on the southern islands of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan. Scattered in isolated mountainous regions, the remaining 2 percent follow non-Western, indigenous beliefs and practices. The Chinese minority, although statistically insignificant, has been culturally influential in coloring Filipino Catholicism with many of the beliefs and practices of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
The pre-Hispanic belief system of Filipinos consisted of a pantheon of gods, spirits, creatures, and men that guarded the streams, fields, trees, mountains, forests, and houses. Bathala, who created earth and man, was superior to these other gods and spirits. Regular sacrifices and prayers were offered to placate these deities and spirits–some of which were benevolent, some malevolent. Wood and metal images represented ancestral spirits, and no distinction was made between the spirits and their physical symbol. Reward or punishment after death was dependent upon behavior in this life.
Anyone who had reputed power over the supernatural and natural was automatically elevated to a position of prominence. Every village had its share of shamans and priests who competitively plied their talents and carried on ritual curing. Many gained renown for their ability to develop anting-anting, a charm guaranteed to make a person invincible in the face of human enemies. Other sorcerers concocted love potions or produced amulets that made their owners invisible.
Upon this indigenous religious base two foreign religions were introduced — Islam and Christianity — and a process of cultural adaptation and synthesis began that is still evolving. Spain introduced Christianity to the Philippines in 1565 with the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi. Earlier, beginning in 1350, Islam had been spreading northward from Indonesia into the Philippine archipelago. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, Islam was firmly established on Mindanao and Sulu and had outposts on Cebu and Luzon. At the time of the Spanish arrival, the Muslim areas had the highest and most politically integrated culture on the islands and, given more time, would probably have unified the entire archipelago. Carrying on their historical tradition of expelling the Jews and Moros [Moors] from Spain (a commitment to eliminating any non-Christians), Legaspi quickly dispersed the Muslims from Luzon and the Visayan islands and began the process of Christianization. Dominance over the Muslims on Mindanao and Sulu, however, was never achieved during three centuries of Spanish rule. During American rule in the first half of this century the Muslims were never totally pacified during the so-called “Moro Wars.” Since independence, particularly in the last decade, there has been resistance by large segments of the Muslim population to national integration. Many feel, with just cause, that integration amounts to cultural and psychological genocide. For over ten years the Moro National Liberation Front has been waging a war of secession against the Marcos government.
While Islam was contained in the southern islands, Spain conquered and converted the remainder of the islands to Hispanic Christianity. The Spanish seldom had to resort to military force to win over converts, instead the impressive display of pomp and circumstance, clerical garb, images, prayers, and liturgy attracted the rural populace. To protect the population from Muslim slave raiders, the people were resettled from isolated dispersed hamlets and brought “debajo de las companas” (under the bells), into Spanish organized pueblos. This set a pattern that is evident in modern Philippine Christian towns. These pueblos had both civil and ecclesiastical authority; the dominant power during the Spanish period was in the hands of the parish priest. The church, situated on a central plaza, became the locus of town life. Masses, confessions, baptisms, funerals, marriages punctuated the tedium of everyday routines. The church calendar set the pace and rhythm of daily life according to fiesta and liturgical seasons. Market places and cockfight pits sprang up near church walls. Gossip and goods were exchanged and villagers found “both restraint and release under the bells.” The results of 400 years of Catholicism were mixed — ranging from a deep theological understanding by the educated elite to a more superficial understanding by the rural and urban masses. The latter is commonly referred to as Filipino folk Christianity, combining a surface veneer of Christian monotheism and dogma with indigenous animism. It may manifest itself in farmers seeking religious blessings on their rice seed before planting or in the placement of a bamboo cross at the comer of a rice field to prevent damage by insects. It may also take the form of a folk healer using Roman Catholic symbols and liturgy mixed with pre-Hispanic rituals.
When the United States took over the Philippines in the first half of the century, the justifications for colonizing were to Christianize and democratize. The feeling was that these goals could be achieved only through mass education (up until then education was reserved for a small elite). Most of the teachers who went to the Philippines were Protestants, many were even Protestant ministers. There was a strong prejudice among some of these teachers against Catholics. Since this Protestant group instituted and controlled the system of public education in the Philippines during the American colonial period, it exerted a strong influence. Subsequently the balance has shifted to reflect much stronger influence by the Catholic majority.
During the period of armed rebellion against Spain, a nationalized church was organized under Gregorio Aglipay, who was made “Spiritual head of the Nation Under Arms.” Spanish bishops were deposed and arrested, and church property was turned over to the Aglipayans. In the early part of the 20th century the numbers of Aglipayans peaked at 25 to 33 percent of the population. Today they have declined to about 5 percent and are associated with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. Another dynamic nationalized Christian sect is the lglesia ni Kristo, begun around 1914 and founded by Felix Manolo Ysagun. Along with the Aglipayans and Iglesia ni Kristo, there have been a proliferation of Rizalist sects, claiming the martyred hero of Philippine nationalism, Jose B. Rizal as the second son of God and a reincarnation of Christ. Leaders of these sects themselves often claim to be reincarnations of Rizal, Mary, or leaders of the revolution; claim that the apocalypse is at hand for non-believers; and claim that one can find salvation and heaven by joining the group. These groups range from the Colorums of the 1920s and 1930s to the sophisticated P.B.M.A. (Philippine Benevolent Missionary Association, headed by Ruben Ecleo). Most of those who follow these cults are the poor, dispossessed, and dislocated and feel alienated from the Catholic church.
The current challenge to the supremacy of the Catholic church comes from a variety of small sects — from the fundamentalist Christian groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, to the lglesia ni Kristo and Rizalists. The Roman Catholics suffer from a lack of personnel (the priest to people ratio is exceedingly low), putting them at a disadvantage in gaining and maintaining popular support. The Catholic church is seeking to meet this challenge by establishing an increasingly native clergy and by engaging in programs geared to social action and human rights among the rural and urban poor. In many cases this activity has led to friction between the church and the Marcos government, resulting in arrests of priests, nuns, and lay people on charges of subversion. In the “war for souls” this may be a necessary sacrifice. At present the largest growing religious sector falls within the province of these smaller, grass roots sects; but only time will tell where the percentages will finally rest.
The violent attacks on Catholic priests, resulting in the killing of three and the serious wounding of one in the last seven months, represent an alarming development in our nation’s life. It crosses a line that generations of Filipinos have respected even in revolutionary times. Two of the murders were committed inside chapels, while the priests, dressed in religious vestments, were about to celebrate the Mass or had just given their final blessings to their flock. Perpetrated inside a place of solemnity, in the context of a religious service, these attacks strike the keen observer as being aimed not just on the person of the priests but on what they represent.
There is no word to describe these killings other than brazen. These murders stand out for the disrespect, effrontery and contempt for religion they convey. It is difficult to comprehend the significance of these unspeakable acts — why they are happening at this time and what they portend — without noting President Duterte’s own unceasing verbal attacks on the Catholic hierarchy and the clergy. It would be irresponsible to suggest that he ordered these killings in the way he has repeatedly ordered the elimination of drug suspects. But, one can’t help wondering why he has used the presidential podium to rationalize these murders by highlighting the alleged moral failings of the murdered priests.
Is Mr. Duterte echoing a hitherto unverbalized radical change in Filipino religious belief and discourse? Or, is he using his current popularity and influence to mainstream the deeply personal resentment he harbors against the Catholic Church and the clergy? Or, is this still part of a strategic and measured attempt to silence the opposition by instilling profound fear in anyone or any group that dares to oppose the direction and methods employed by his presidency? Without any doubt, religious beliefs and practices in our country have become more diverse and less dogmatic over the years. One may even make a case of the general decline in religious fervor and conformity among Filipinos.
More to the point, there is now a growing number of Catholics who are prepared to challenge the Church hierarchy’s voice on moral and political matters. Still, these cannot be equated with the waning of religious belief and practice, nor as a sign of the decline of Catholicism as a public religion.
Church attendance and religious observance in our country remain high, spilling out of the churches into crowded shopping malls. Our people have brought the strength of their faith to the countries where they have moved as migrants, often rekindling religious worship where it has long lain dead. For all that we say, in despair, about the lack of fit between the religious beliefs we profess and the misconduct we seem to engage in routinely in our everyday lives, it cannot be denied that we continue to reserve a big place for the holy in our lives. That is why I am at a loss to understand how our people can laugh at their President’s derisive and mocking comments about their faith, their Church, and their bishops and priests.
Is this how the fascist mindset is born? Robert O. Paxton (“The anatomy of fascism”) wrote: “The legitimation of violence against a demonized internal enemy brings us close to the heart of fascism.”
I am not a regular churchgoer myself, but I take offense when someone as powerful as Mr. Duterte, from a position of literalist ignorance, mocks the religious faith I inherited from my elders. As the nation’s highest official, he should be more restrained when speaking about other people’s religious beliefs. Innocuous remarks about other faiths have historically sparked wars, and, as we have seen, could still trigger violent reactions in our time. Modern constitutions, including ours, have incorporated a profound sensitivity about faith matters. Magistrates, often oscillating between the primacy of the freedom of expression and the urgency of preserving public order, have had to articulate its imperatives under changing circumstances. My favorite is a line from a high court ruling written in 1996 by the late Justice Isagani A. Cruz: “An atheist cannot express his disbelief in acts of derision that wound the feelings of the faithful.”
I must end these reflections with a disclosure. Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David, bishop of Caloocan and current vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, is my brother. I cannot help worrying about his personal safety. He has been vocal about the rampant killing of drug suspects in his diocese and about keeping the doors of its churches open as sanctuaries for the frightened, the oppressed and the powerless. Some crazy admirer of Mr. Duterte’s so-called war on drugs might think that getting rid of priests like him is a form of public service.
My brother is so clear-eyed about the path he has chosen that I have hesitated to even tell him to be cautious. I believe in what he does. More than ever, he needs to exemplify courage. Recently, he turned to his Facebook account to respond to a seminarian’s apprehension that the killing of priests might discourage young people from pursuing a religious vocation. He replied: “Fr. Paez, Fr. Ventura, and Fr. Nilo were not ‘victims’; they opted to be ‘martyrs,’ meaning witnesses, from the start. They responded freely to the invitation to choose the path of Jesus, knowing full well that it could cost their lives. This is what martyrdom is about. It is not about dying for a cause; it is about living out that cause, no matter if it means suffering and death.”
Mr. Duterte will find, to his dismay, that it is impossible to win a war against martyrs.
There is something new about the jihadi terrorist violence of the past two decades. Both terrorism and jihad have existed for many years, and forms of “globalized” terror – in which highly symbolic locations or innocent civilians are targeted, with no regard for national borders – go back at least as far as the anarchist movement of the late 19th century. What is unprecedented is the way that terrorists now deliberately pursue their own deaths.
Over the past 20 years – from Khaled Kelkal, a leader of a plot to bomb Paris trains in 1995, to the Bataclan killers of 2015 – nearly every terrorist in France blew themselves up or got themselves killed by the police. Mohamed Merah, who killed a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, uttered a variant of a famous statement attributed to Osama bin Laden and routinely used by other jihadis: “We love death as you love life.” Now, the terrorist’s death is no longer just a possibility or an unfortunate consequence of his actions; it is a central part of his plan. The same fascination with death is found among the jihadis who join Islamic State. Suicide attacks are perceived as the ultimate goal of their engagement.
This systematic choice of death is a recent development. The perpetrators of terrorist attacks in France in the 1970s and 1980s, whether or not they had any connection with the Middle East, carefully planned their escapes. Muslim tradition, while it recognizes the merits of the martyr who dies in combat, does not prize those who strike out in pursuit of their own deaths, because doing so interferes with God’s will. So, why, for the past 20 years, have terrorists regularly chosen to die? What does it say about contemporary Islamic radicalism? And what does it say about our societies today?
The latter question is all the more relevant as this attitude toward death is inextricably linked to the fact that contemporary jihadism, at least in the west – as well as in the Maghreb and in Turkey – is a youth movement that is not only constructed independently of parental religion and culture, but is also rooted in wider youth culture. This aspect of modern-day jihadism is fundamental.
Wherever such generational hatred occurs, it also takes the form of cultural iconoclasm. Not only are human beings destroyed, statues, places of worship and books are too. Memory is annihilated. “Wiping the slate clean,” is a goal common to Mao Zedong’s Red Guards, the Khmer Rouge and Isis fighters. As one British jihadi wrote in a recruitment guide for the organization: “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington … not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and, most painfully, convert your children who will then go on to champion our name and curse their forefathers.”
While all revolutions attract the energy and zeal of young people, most do not attempt to destroy what has gone before. The Bolshevik revolution decided to put the past into museums rather than reduce it to ruins, and the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has never considered blowing up Persepolis. This self-destructive dimension has nothing to do with the politics of the Middle East. It is even counterproductive as a strategy. Though Isis proclaims its mission to restore the caliphate, its nihilism makes it impossible to reach a political solution, engage in any form of negotiation, or achieve any stable society within recognized borders.
The caliphate is a fantasy. It is the myth of an ideological entity constantly expanding its territory. Its strategic impossibility explains why those who identify with it, instead of devoting themselves to the interests of local Muslims, have chosen to enter a death pact. There is no political perspective, no bright future, not even a place to pray in peace. But while the concept of the caliphate is indeed part of the Muslim religious imagination, the same cannot be said for the pursuit of death.
I have come to realize that the process of inculturation is a very tedious, painstaking and a lifelong process. But then, I’m reminded by the song of Fr. Jerry, SJ which says: “Live One Day at A Time”, and I take one step at a time and, with my strong faith that nothing is impossible with God, then everything will be in order in God’s own time.
It’s almost fifty years since Vatican II had talked about inculturation but until now the Church is still struggling for it to really take root. Again, it’s a lifelong process. Our five-day session is not a guarantee that we will indeed be into this kind of initiative. What I enjoin with my co-journeyers is to commit ourselves to embrace the challenges of “letting go” and speaking out as the spirituality of inculturation involves.
Letting go of the peripheral experiences that need to be changed and speaking out about the truth and authenticity that nourishes and nurtures the richness of our own cultures, to support the cause of those in the margins and those demeaned. Letting go of the stumbling blocks such as syncretism, anthropological poverty and the feeling of inferiority imposed on us by our colonizers.
Being colonized for almost 500 years is not easy to undo, but only through patient, painstaking, step by step process of inculturation- where members of indigenous or traditional societies are led and are willing to rediscover and reclaim their cultural heritage and identity including indigenous spirituality.
We are also challenged to engage with passion, on the tasks of inculturation of theology such as: relativizing the inherited cultural expressions of the faith, putting our culture in its right perspective, de-stigmatizing and re-valuing them in the context of present day challenges and re-interpreting the faith with indigenous categories.
As pastoral agents and sharers in God’s mission, we are challenged to engage in the hermeneutics of appreciation focusing on the affirmation of the good qualities, giving priority on grace over sin, and the goodness of God as the original blessing. Returning to our roots will energize us, reclaiming our “Treasures”, that is, that which is good, that which is right and which is life-giving.
We are called to “ripple out” as far as it can reach all the “gems” that we have acquired here in our Euntes journey. Let us engage in a truly human conversation to let the “Divine Light” permeate in and through us, as a nation, as a people of God, and truly experience and relish God’s “Kagandahang Loob.” GOD BLESS US ALL!
Alcune chiese di stile barocco costruite dagli spagnoli dopo il loro arrivo in questo arcipelago di 7000 e più isole, 400 anni fa, sono ancora in piedi. I muri fatti di grossi pezzi squadrati di tufo grigio o rosastro, le facciate con i loro motivi floreali molte volte scelti dagli stessi muratori, le pareti interne annerite dal fumo di chissà quante candele votive, le piccole finestre che lasciano penetrare poca luce ma anche poco caldo e i fedeli seduti o inginocchiati su vecchie panche ci fanno capire quanto è antica la fede cristiana nelle Filippine.
La religione nelle Filippine è popolare. Le feste sono affrontate con grande passione, tra processioni, danze per strada e novene celebrate prima ancora del sorgere del sole. Santo Nino, il Cristo Nazareno, la Madonna del Perpetuo Soccorso e le decine di Santi danno alla gente, molte volte povera ed indebitata, malata e indebolita, alcuni giorni di gioia e di allegria, di condivisione del cibo e dei sentimenti. Pakikisama, direbbero, cioe’ stare in compagnia. Ma non sempre è così.
Non ci può essere una pacifica coesistenza in un sistema dove forze aliene e mediatiche portano con incompresibile testardaggine modelli di vita consumistici, dove l’unico fine sembra essere e solo quello della ricerca della felicità personale. Può avere un’inizio molto frivolo come un semplice gioco d’azzardo e finire nel consumo smoderato di bevande alcooliche. D’azzardo si gioca pure quando la famiglia si indebita per trovare un posto di lavoro all’estero per il figlio o la figlia. Emigrare è il sogno più diffuso tra i giovani filippini. I genitori si indebitano per mandare i figli a scuola e trasformarli in infermiere o marinai, destinati in Canada o su una nave di crociera. Sognano, in questo modo, di ricevere da loro, nell’arco di pochi anni, centinaia di dollari tramite un bonifico o la Western Union. Si pone la fiducia nei soldi e per ottenerli si sacrificano le forze migliori o ci si fa corrompere dal mercato illegale del lavoro, oppure si corrompe.
E’ questa la parte tenebrosa della società che la Chiesa Filippina deve affrontare. Il metodo usato non è cambiato da quasi quarant’anni, da quando il primo MSPC (Mindanao Sulu Pastoral Conference) nel 1973 ha proposto e poi realizzato ( inizialmente solo per le diocesi del sud) un network di comunità di base. Ancora oggi si parla di comunità ecclesiali di base come unico modo di essere Chiesa Filippina, immagine più vicina a quella del Regno di Dio. Una Chiesa (ma anche un mondo) ristretto a piccole comunità fatte di famiglie vicine che poi si allargano a una fratellanza più universale e trasparente. Dove i principi morali praticati in famiglia possano prevalere su quelli socioeconomici, dove le forze dello sviluppo si chiamano giustizia, carità e solidarietà, dove i poveri non sono invisibili, come ogni governo e società vorrebbe far credere.
Non è semplice e la Chiesa Filippina mentre invecchia deve sempre guardarsi alle spalle, generazione dopo generazione, per vedere se la gioventù che segue, il 50 per cento della popolazione, è ancora lì o a cambiato strada. Per capire se riesce a consegnare loro la convinzione e la volontà di portare avanti il progetto del vangelo su questa terra. Se non ci saranno avrà persa la sua funzione di guida e le comunità ecclesiali di base saranno solo un bel ricordo del passato.
Le antiche chiese, edifici sacri, rimangono. Nuove chiese vengono costruite per accogliere un numero maggiore di fedeli. Si parla di circa 60 milioni di filippini su 92 milioni, famiglie intere, che parteciperanno alla novena, celebrata prima dell’alba dal 16 al 24 dicembre, in preparazione al Natale. Movimento di fedeli unico al mondo. Per molti questa è la vera immagine della chiesa filippina. E’ un immagine che piace, che mette pace nell’animo, ma solo per pochi giorni. In fondo diventiamo sempre quello che riusciamo a ricordare, ma se fosse solo questo sarebbe troppo poco.
In the Philippines, Holy Week celebrations are famous worldwide for voluntary crucifixions that have always been condemned by the local Church. Less known is instead is the personal preparation of each believer in the recitation of the Pabasa ng Pasyon (Passion of Christ in Tagalog) a chant-like song imported from Spanish missionaries, passed down for centuries from father to son. The Pabasa is a chant that tells of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus and was composed in the seventeenth century by Spanish missionaries, adapting the European biblical tradition to the oral and melodic traditions of the indigenous Filipinos however the actual Pabasa is no more rooted in the Spanish language. The illeterate people asked for a version in local dialect so that they could become familiar with the events regarding Jesus.
The first version written in Tagalog language dates back to 1704 and was made by Gaspar Aquino de Belen, an native of Batangas in the service of the Jesuits in Manila. It was entitled Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin na Tola ( The poem of the Blessed Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord). Another popular version of the Pasyon the “Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni JesuCristong Panginoon Natin na Sucat Ipag-alab nang Puso nang Sinomang Babasa” (The History of the Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord that will set afire the heart of whosoever reads it), has been published by an unknown writer in 1814. It starts with few stanzas about the Creation of the World and it ends with some words about the Apocalipses of Juan. This text continues to be used to the present day among the Tagalogs . The group of Pasyon singers is usually divided into two and the singing would alternate between them. The verses are structured in five-line stanzas, with each line containing eight syllables. A complete stanza can be chanted in only one breath. For instance:
Tanto rin naming lahat na / Bayang tinubunan Niya / Ito ay taga Galilea / Tawong Duk-ha at hamak na / Naquiquisunong talaga . (We all know, too / The town he hails from / He is from Galilea / A man poor and lowly / Who shelters in others’roofs)
Today the pabasa could go on for three days, depending on the melody and if most of the Pasyon is read. Usually it starts at 6 a.m. and finish by 10 p.m., but some Pabasa continue until early in the morning of the next day creating some problems when powerful amplifiers are used to spread around the singing in the nearby surrounding keeping awake people who, instead, prefer to sleep.
Maria Cristina Lapara, a Catholic from Manila, said: “I have recited the Pabasa since I was a child. I learned this traditional song from my grandparents, who were illiterate but very religious and participate wholeheartedly in the passion, singing without written texts”. She added; “I tell my children to pray with their heart and recite the Pabasa and I hope that in future they will continue this tradition.” During Holy Week, Maria Cristina gets up every morning at three o’clock to recite the song. “At this time – she says – we must maintain an atmosphere of sobriety and spiritual reflection, we should not make noise on the streets, it is not a time of celebration.” The woman points out that there are many ways to recite the prayer alone, in pairs or communities, for a few hours or days. Many families provide food for all those involved in the recitation of the song, while in rural villages the faithful gather in the street, where every day from 6 am to 10 am both young and old together recite prayers. Even in the prisons of the country inmates are expected to recite the song (First time visitors to the jail during Holy Week are amazed to find detainees taking turns in the Pabasa). For Maria Cristina, the Pabasa allows the faithful to share in Christ’s sufferings and is useful especially for the poor to remember the sacrifice of Jesus and his Resurrection, finding the strength to face their daily difficulties with hope. “The Pabasa is not only way to fulfil the precepts of Lent – says Fr. Fernando Caprio of the Archdiocese of Manila – it is also a way to follow Christ and be witnesses of faith around the world and helps us remember that Christ shines in all the circumstances of our lives.