By Fr. Robert Barron
wordonfire.org
As I was coming to the end of Ron Howard’s latest movie, “Angels and Demons,” I felt like shouting out to the screen, “no, no, you’ve got it precisely backward!” The central theme of the film, based on Dan Brown’s thriller of the same name, is the battle between “science” and Catholicism. It appears as though an ancient rationalist society, the Illuminati, which had been persecuted by the church in centuries past, is back for revenge. They’ve kidnapped four cardinals and placed a devastating explosive device under St. Peter’s and they’re threatening, as a conclave gathers to elect a new Pope, to obliterate the Vatican. To the rescue comes Professor Robert Langdon, a cool agnostic from Harvard, who helps to unravel the mystery after he’s given access to the archives to which the Vatican had heretofore denied him access (presumably for his mischief in the Da Vinci Code!). As the plot unfolds, and Langdon cleverly uncovers the sinister plot of the scientists, one is tempted to say, “well, for once the bad guys are the rationalists and the victims are the faithful. Ah but not so fast (spoiler alert). In fact, we discover, the whole thing has been concocted by the evil camerlengo, an ultimate Vatican insider, who has revived the old tale of the Illuminati and organized the wicked scheme in order to create a scapegoat against which he could engage in heroic struggle and so engineer his own election as Pope! I swear I’m not making this up.
Without going into any more of the goofy twists and turns of the story, can you see what prompted my cri de coeur about getting it backward? In point of fact, it is not Catholicism that feels the need constantly to revive the struggle between science and the faith, but rather secular modernity—and Ron Howard’s movie itself is exhibit A. There is a stubbornly enduring myth that the “modern” world—especially in its scientific expression—emerged out of a terrible struggle with backward-looking Catholicism. And thus many avatars of modernity feel the need on a regular basis to bring out the Catholic church as a scapegoat and punching-bag, as if to re-enact the founding myth. Of course, the central act in this drama is the story of Galileo’s persecution at the hands of the ignorant and vindictive church, and so Brown and Howard bring the great Renaissance scientist front and center: Langdon is almost suffocated by wicked Vaticanisti while he diligently researches in the Galileo archive, and at the end of the film, a grateful Cardinal rewards the intrepid scientist with a long-hidden text of the master. Well.
Though these facts are well known, and though I’ve rehearsed them before, it appears that they bear repeating. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas were early advocates of Aristotelian science; Copernicus, the popularizer of the heliocentric understanding of the solar system, was a priest; Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics and a chief forerunner of Darwin, was a monk; many of the founders of modern science—Newton, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz—were devoutly religious men; the formulator of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins was a priest. Perhaps most importantly, the modern physical sciences emerged precisely in the context of a Christian culture, where the belief in creation and hence in universal intelligibility was taken for granted. And today, the supposedly sinister and anti-scientific Vatican sponsors a number of observatories and supports societies at its pontifical universities devoted to dialogue with the sciences at the very highest levels. Despite the tragedy of the Galileo incident, prompted by the ignorance and in some cases ill-will of certain churchmen at the time, Catholicism is not the enemy of science and feels absolutely no compulsion to define itself over against science as though the two are locked in a kind of zero-sum game. It is a longstanding conviction of the Church that since God is one and since all truth comes from God, there can finally be no conflict between the truths of revelation and the truths discoverable through the exercise of human reason. And so the church rejoices in whatever the empirical sciences uncover and expects no conflict between those discoveries and its own faith, rightly interpreted.
What I found particularly galling about the film is that Robert Langdon not only solves the mystery but also effectively protects the church from itself. This, of course, is the modern fantasy in full: “science” emerged from Catholicism after a terrible battle but still has the graciousness and magnaminity to offer its help to its benighted and defeated rival. Ugh! Truth be told, the wound caused by the Galileo incident is being constantly picked open, not by the Vatican, but by representatives of secular modernity; the “battle” between religion and science is now pretty much a shadow-boxing affair, radical secularism shaking its fists at a phantom.
Go see “Angels and Demons” if you like a thriller or you enjoy computer-generated images of the Vatican; but please don’t be taken in by its underlying philosophy.
21 May 2009
Dan Brown's America
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: May 18, 2009
The New York Times
The movie treatment of his novel, “Angels and Demons,” is cleaning up at the box office this week. The sequel to “The DaVinci Code,” due out in November, might buoy the publishing industry through the recession. And if you want to understand the state of American religion, you need to understand why so many people love Dan Brown.
It isn’t just that he knows how to keep the pages turning. That’s what it takes to sell a million novels. But if you want to sell a 100 million, you need to preach as well as entertain — to present a fiction that can be read as fact, and that promises to unlock the secrets of history, the universe and God along the way.
Brown is explicit about this mission. He isn’t a serious novelist, but he’s a deadly serious writer: His thrilling plots, he’s said, are there to make the books’ didacticism go down easy, so that readers don’t realize till the end “how much they are learning along the way.” He’s working in the same genre as Harlan Coben and James Patterson, but his real competitors are ideologues like Ayn Rand, and spiritual gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. He’s writing thrillers, but he’s selling a theology.
Brown’s message has been called anti-Catholic, but that’s only part of the story. True, his depiction of the Roman Church’s past constitutes a greatest hits of anti-Catholicism, with slurs invented by 19th-century Protestants jostling for space alongside libels fabricated by 20th-century Wiccans. (If he targeted Judaism or Islam this way, one suspects that no publisher would touch him.)
But Brown doesn’t have the soul of a true-believing Enemy of the Faith. Deep down, he has a fondness for the ordinary, well-meaning sort of Catholic, his libels against their ancestors notwithstanding. He’s even sympathetic to the religious yearnings of his Catholic villains — including, yes, the murderous albino monks.
This explains why both “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” end with a big anti-Catholic reveal (Jesus had kids with Mary Magdalene! That terrorist plot against the Vatican was actually launched by an archconservative priest!) followed by a big cover-up. A small elect (Tom Hanks and company, in the movies) gets to know what really happened, but the mass of believers remain in the dark, lest their spiritual questing be derailed by disillusionment and scandal. Having dismissed Catholicism’s truth claims and demonized its most sincere defenders, Brown pats believers on the head and bids them go on fingering their rosary beads.
In the Brownian worldview, all religions — even Roman Catholicism — have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It’s a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized “religiousness” detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.
The polls that show more Americans abandoning organized religion don’t suggest a dramatic uptick in atheism: They reveal the growth of do-it-yourself spirituality, with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away. The same trend is at work within organized faiths as well, where both liberal and conservative believers often encounter a God who’s too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they’re making or how many times they’ve been married.
These are Dan Brown’s kind of readers. Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.
But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.
For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.
Published: May 18, 2009
The New York Times
The movie treatment of his novel, “Angels and Demons,” is cleaning up at the box office this week. The sequel to “The DaVinci Code,” due out in November, might buoy the publishing industry through the recession. And if you want to understand the state of American religion, you need to understand why so many people love Dan Brown.
It isn’t just that he knows how to keep the pages turning. That’s what it takes to sell a million novels. But if you want to sell a 100 million, you need to preach as well as entertain — to present a fiction that can be read as fact, and that promises to unlock the secrets of history, the universe and God along the way.
Brown is explicit about this mission. He isn’t a serious novelist, but he’s a deadly serious writer: His thrilling plots, he’s said, are there to make the books’ didacticism go down easy, so that readers don’t realize till the end “how much they are learning along the way.” He’s working in the same genre as Harlan Coben and James Patterson, but his real competitors are ideologues like Ayn Rand, and spiritual gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. He’s writing thrillers, but he’s selling a theology.
Brown’s message has been called anti-Catholic, but that’s only part of the story. True, his depiction of the Roman Church’s past constitutes a greatest hits of anti-Catholicism, with slurs invented by 19th-century Protestants jostling for space alongside libels fabricated by 20th-century Wiccans. (If he targeted Judaism or Islam this way, one suspects that no publisher would touch him.)
But Brown doesn’t have the soul of a true-believing Enemy of the Faith. Deep down, he has a fondness for the ordinary, well-meaning sort of Catholic, his libels against their ancestors notwithstanding. He’s even sympathetic to the religious yearnings of his Catholic villains — including, yes, the murderous albino monks.
This explains why both “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” end with a big anti-Catholic reveal (Jesus had kids with Mary Magdalene! That terrorist plot against the Vatican was actually launched by an archconservative priest!) followed by a big cover-up. A small elect (Tom Hanks and company, in the movies) gets to know what really happened, but the mass of believers remain in the dark, lest their spiritual questing be derailed by disillusionment and scandal. Having dismissed Catholicism’s truth claims and demonized its most sincere defenders, Brown pats believers on the head and bids them go on fingering their rosary beads.
In the Brownian worldview, all religions — even Roman Catholicism — have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It’s a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized “religiousness” detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.
The polls that show more Americans abandoning organized religion don’t suggest a dramatic uptick in atheism: They reveal the growth of do-it-yourself spirituality, with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away. The same trend is at work within organized faiths as well, where both liberal and conservative believers often encounter a God who’s too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they’re making or how many times they’ve been married.
These are Dan Brown’s kind of readers. Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.
But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.
For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.
13 May 2009
The Task of the Next Generation of the Catholic Commentariat
Rev. Fr. Robert Barron
Posted: 1/27/2009 9:21:48 PM by Word On Fire
.......
Here is a belated re-posting of an important observation on certain movements within the Catholic Church. Father Robert Barron calls attention to a changing of the guards among the so-called Catholic commentariat, himself one of today's leading commentators on things Catholic, deftly engaging pop culture with solid theology.
.......
This past year, we have witnessed the deaths of a number of prominent commentators on things Catholic. William F. Buckley, who died last spring, was, of course, primarily a political observer, but he also frequently and incisively weighed in on ecclesial and theological matters. Tim Unsworth, who passed away several months ago, was a long-time writer on religion for the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter. And within just the past few weeks, Cardinal Avery Dulles and Father Richard John Neuhaus—stalwarts on the Catholic right—went to their maker. The deaths of these major players in the religious commentariat prompts some reflections on the changing nature of the Catholic intellectual conversation in our country.
For the coterie of Catholics that is now fading from the scene, the dominant fact was the Second Vatican Council. That coming together of bishops, abbots, theologians, and members of the press was, as John O’Malley recently argued, “the greatest meeting of all time,” and historian Barbara Tuchman characterized it as the most significant event of the twentieth-century, surpassing in importance the two world wars and the dropping of the atomic bombs. It is not surprising in the least, therefore, that it preoccupied the minds and hearts of an entire generation of Catholic intellectuals. Vatican II has been described as the council of the church, for ecclesiology and liturgy were its major themes. How does the church worship? What is the nature and purpose of the church? How is the church governed and structured, and what is the correct manner of its relationship to the modern world? These were the central questions that beguiled the minds of the council fathers. Some have argued that Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae was even more determinative of the Catholic conversation than were the conciliar documents themselves, but discussions of that famous letter often turned on the fundamentally ecclesiological question of the range of the magisterium’s authority.
And so, in the wake of Vatican II, the commentariat turned with enthusiasm to a range of ad-intra questions: women’s ordination, the possibility of married priests, changes in the liturgy, developments in regard to the exercise of episcopal authority, sexual ethics, the nature of Catholic marriage, the adjustment of Catholic practices to modern styles, etc. To be sure, there were a variety of views on these matters, from hard left to hard right and every possibility in between, but the focus was on the household of the church. I remember these arguments well, since they dominated the years that I was coming of age. I recall the church of the late sixties and seventies as a community at war with itself, struggling to get its own affairs in order. But through all of this, the members of the Vatican II generation—whether on the left or the right—seemed to hold to the basic narrative of Catholic Christianity. There did not appear to be major disagreement in regard to God’s existence, the Trinity, the sacraments and the eucharist, redemption, Mary and the saints, eternal life. The center held.
But my growing conviction is that, as the Vatican II generation fought with itself over intra-ecclesial matters, the basic story became less and less convincing to the culture. As the commentariat bickered about the household of the church, they, perforce, spent little time presenting a compelling, coherent version of Catholicism to a world grown increasingly skeptical, secularized, and materialist. Mind you, I’m not suggesting for a moment that the questions they debated were unimportant or that they themselves were anything less than serious in their endeavors, but I am arguing that something extremely important was allowed to slip on their watch.
And therefore I believe that it is the task of the coming generation of Catholic intellectuals to offer a convincing apologetic for the basic narrative of the faith. To a scientific culture, we have to show how only a properly transcendent and intelligent cause can explain the contingencies and intelligibilities of the finite world. To a materialist culture, we have to show that, in the words of our present Pope, Logos is more metaphsyically basic than mere matter. To a skeptical culture, we have to show that belief in the resurrection of Jesus is intellectually coherent and historically defensible. To a bored culture, we have to demonstrate that life in the Spirit is a high adventure, corresponding to the deepest longing of the human heart. The new Catholic commentariat has to return, I believe, to the style of the first preachers and teachers of the faith, those who were trying to beguile the bored and materialist culture of their own time with the impossibly good news of a God who raised his son from the dead.
As we say farewell to a generation of Catholic intellectuals, we realize that for the next generation, important work remains.
Posted: 1/27/2009 9:21:48 PM by Word On Fire
.......
Here is a belated re-posting of an important observation on certain movements within the Catholic Church. Father Robert Barron calls attention to a changing of the guards among the so-called Catholic commentariat, himself one of today's leading commentators on things Catholic, deftly engaging pop culture with solid theology.
.......
This past year, we have witnessed the deaths of a number of prominent commentators on things Catholic. William F. Buckley, who died last spring, was, of course, primarily a political observer, but he also frequently and incisively weighed in on ecclesial and theological matters. Tim Unsworth, who passed away several months ago, was a long-time writer on religion for the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter. And within just the past few weeks, Cardinal Avery Dulles and Father Richard John Neuhaus—stalwarts on the Catholic right—went to their maker. The deaths of these major players in the religious commentariat prompts some reflections on the changing nature of the Catholic intellectual conversation in our country.
For the coterie of Catholics that is now fading from the scene, the dominant fact was the Second Vatican Council. That coming together of bishops, abbots, theologians, and members of the press was, as John O’Malley recently argued, “the greatest meeting of all time,” and historian Barbara Tuchman characterized it as the most significant event of the twentieth-century, surpassing in importance the two world wars and the dropping of the atomic bombs. It is not surprising in the least, therefore, that it preoccupied the minds and hearts of an entire generation of Catholic intellectuals. Vatican II has been described as the council of the church, for ecclesiology and liturgy were its major themes. How does the church worship? What is the nature and purpose of the church? How is the church governed and structured, and what is the correct manner of its relationship to the modern world? These were the central questions that beguiled the minds of the council fathers. Some have argued that Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae was even more determinative of the Catholic conversation than were the conciliar documents themselves, but discussions of that famous letter often turned on the fundamentally ecclesiological question of the range of the magisterium’s authority.
And so, in the wake of Vatican II, the commentariat turned with enthusiasm to a range of ad-intra questions: women’s ordination, the possibility of married priests, changes in the liturgy, developments in regard to the exercise of episcopal authority, sexual ethics, the nature of Catholic marriage, the adjustment of Catholic practices to modern styles, etc. To be sure, there were a variety of views on these matters, from hard left to hard right and every possibility in between, but the focus was on the household of the church. I remember these arguments well, since they dominated the years that I was coming of age. I recall the church of the late sixties and seventies as a community at war with itself, struggling to get its own affairs in order. But through all of this, the members of the Vatican II generation—whether on the left or the right—seemed to hold to the basic narrative of Catholic Christianity. There did not appear to be major disagreement in regard to God’s existence, the Trinity, the sacraments and the eucharist, redemption, Mary and the saints, eternal life. The center held.
But my growing conviction is that, as the Vatican II generation fought with itself over intra-ecclesial matters, the basic story became less and less convincing to the culture. As the commentariat bickered about the household of the church, they, perforce, spent little time presenting a compelling, coherent version of Catholicism to a world grown increasingly skeptical, secularized, and materialist. Mind you, I’m not suggesting for a moment that the questions they debated were unimportant or that they themselves were anything less than serious in their endeavors, but I am arguing that something extremely important was allowed to slip on their watch.
And therefore I believe that it is the task of the coming generation of Catholic intellectuals to offer a convincing apologetic for the basic narrative of the faith. To a scientific culture, we have to show how only a properly transcendent and intelligent cause can explain the contingencies and intelligibilities of the finite world. To a materialist culture, we have to show that, in the words of our present Pope, Logos is more metaphsyically basic than mere matter. To a skeptical culture, we have to show that belief in the resurrection of Jesus is intellectually coherent and historically defensible. To a bored culture, we have to demonstrate that life in the Spirit is a high adventure, corresponding to the deepest longing of the human heart. The new Catholic commentariat has to return, I believe, to the style of the first preachers and teachers of the faith, those who were trying to beguile the bored and materialist culture of their own time with the impossibly good news of a God who raised his son from the dead.
As we say farewell to a generation of Catholic intellectuals, we realize that for the next generation, important work remains.
postscipt from the learning visit
3-7 May 2009
parol from pampanga................. P800.00
ticket to manila ocean park........ P500.00 (with promos)
sampaguita from child vendor...... P 10.00
green inspirations from marikina... priceless
lesson in politics from pampanga.. priceless
rousing words from mayor oca..... priceless
conspiracy with noel cabangon.... priceless
serendipity bus ride................... priceless ;)
much thanks to bcdi-bugs for organizing the trip,
and for galing pook for sponsoring the visit
to 3 top performing lgus:
marikina, pampanga, san fernando.
with prayers for building not just pockets or islands,
but an archipelago of good governance...
parol from pampanga................. P800.00
ticket to manila ocean park........ P500.00 (with promos)
sampaguita from child vendor...... P 10.00
green inspirations from marikina... priceless
lesson in politics from pampanga.. priceless
rousing words from mayor oca..... priceless
conspiracy with noel cabangon.... priceless
serendipity bus ride................... priceless ;)
much thanks to bcdi-bugs for organizing the trip,
and for galing pook for sponsoring the visit
to 3 top performing lgus:
marikina, pampanga, san fernando.
with prayers for building not just pockets or islands,
but an archipelago of good governance...
Prayer for Hya
As she turns 18, Father in heaven,
gift her with the capacity
to look at the world with clear eyes and wander,
to find happiness in simple things,
to stand by the goodness of her heart
and the greatness of her spirit,
to develop her sense of right and wrong,
to value family and true friends, and love always
even when her loved ones disappoint,
to learn from her mistakes
and rise from it a better person, and
to not stop dreaming and being filled with hope,
especially when times turn hard and life becomes trying.
Amen.
gift her with the capacity
to look at the world with clear eyes and wander,
to find happiness in simple things,
to stand by the goodness of her heart
and the greatness of her spirit,
to develop her sense of right and wrong,
to value family and true friends, and love always
even when her loved ones disappoint,
to learn from her mistakes
and rise from it a better person, and
to not stop dreaming and being filled with hope,
especially when times turn hard and life becomes trying.
Amen.
02 May 2009
The Shepherd's Flute
For my homily this Sunday, 4th Sunday of Easter, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday, I am including a story from Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopalian priest and theologian, from her sermon “The Shepherd’s Flute,” from her book Bread of Angels........
“On the night before Christ died, all of His sheep fell asleep. They had had a big meal and with the sound of the shepherd’s flute in their ears, they fell asleep. And as they slept, they shared a terrible dream: of wolves with clubs and torches who came out of the woods, led their shepherd away, and tore him to shreds on a hillside outside of town.
In the dream, they huddled for safety, unable to think, unable to move, and they stayed that way for three whole days, wondering if they would starve to death before the wolves came back to finish the job. But then on the third day, they heard a flute—far away at first, then drawing nearer—that woke them from their sleep, and they stood once again in the presence of their good shepherd.
Everything was the same again, but everything had changed. Looking around at each other, they saw what had happened. They had fallen asleep as sheep, but they had woken up as shepherds. As they slept, every one of them had been changed into the image of their master, and as they stood there staring at one another he handed them staves like his, and flutes, and sent them out to gather their own flocks. ‘Do for them as I did for you,’ he said, and played them a little tune as they set off to do just that.”
29 April 2009
The Proactive Prayer
Lord, bless my dreams
for they are big and mostly selfless.
Guard me from the corruption of
little minds and my bigger ego.
God, grant me the clarity
to recognize the things that cannot wait,
the discipline to accomplish them, and
the indifference to trust You
in everything no matter what happens.
Amen.
for they are big and mostly selfless.
Guard me from the corruption of
little minds and my bigger ego.
God, grant me the clarity
to recognize the things that cannot wait,
the discipline to accomplish them, and
the indifference to trust You
in everything no matter what happens.
Amen.
On Celibacy
advice to a friend on facebook:
some priests & religious are celibates by nature.
the majority, i believe, are not,
but they still choose the life
because through it they find
the fullest, greatest, most fruitful
expression of themselves.
this for me is what a "calling" means.
add to this the celibate advantage
of being more for more people,
thus, exposing love for what it really is,
a process of self-emptying, so one will
have more space for persons and grace to come in;
of becoming a sign of contradiction,
proclaiming the values of eternity
to a world that puts more premium
on seizing mostly, only, the here and now.
this for me is what our sacred tradition says
"celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom".
some priests & religious are celibates by nature.
the majority, i believe, are not,
but they still choose the life
because through it they find
the fullest, greatest, most fruitful
expression of themselves.
this for me is what a "calling" means.
add to this the celibate advantage
of being more for more people,
thus, exposing love for what it really is,
a process of self-emptying, so one will
have more space for persons and grace to come in;
of becoming a sign of contradiction,
proclaiming the values of eternity
to a world that puts more premium
on seizing mostly, only, the here and now.
this for me is what our sacred tradition says
"celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom".
24 April 2009
In Defense of Davao City's Peace?
Below is my email response in our ehemplo group to a member who forwarded the email of one Salvador "Doy" Valbuena, a businessman from Davao City ranting against a Commission on Human Rights who should have better things to do other than minding Davao City and its popular mayor. His email "In Defense of Davao City Mayor Duterte" was thought-provoking and apparently indicative of the sentiments of a large segment, if not the majority, of the city. When another replied "well said", I was even more provoked. Thus...
.......
i wish to be understanding to somebody
who has witnessed a lifetime of killings,
but should his standards be also followed
by a whole city, or a nation, for that matter?
peace and a city's livability
may have different meanings to different people,
but truth and right, remains true and right
no matter whether a majority,
or a plurality vote, dictates otherwise.
it is understandable to defend a man
who has made his people enjoy a measure of peace.
but it also comes with a price -
it is not just the summary execution of suspected criminals,
it is how general apathy and tolerance for bigotry
is killing the soul of the city.
there is more to humanity than just settling
for lesser evils and moral evasions.
there ought to be room for dreaming
of better ways of waging peace.
and what good is there in dreaming
if it is only within your reach?
but hey, who am i to judge?
i am not from davao. i have not lived their history.
i am just a dreamer from faraway bicol
who has said masses to fallen soldiers
and to activists who fell victims to extrajudicial killings,
who has witnessed a whole unwilling island
sold out by their government to foreign miners,
who has seen failure after failure of our vote-ed campaigns
for people not to sell their votes,
who has lost our valiant efforts to clean-up our electric coop
to the machinations of corrupt politicians.
so, much as i wish to let the good people
who wish to represent davao remain in their peace,
i will also keep dreaming and working
that their kind of peace will not infect the whole nation,
and those in davao who still stand otherwise.
.......
IF YOU FEEL THAT MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE IS DOING A GOOD JOB IN DAVAO CITY, PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. I PERSONALLY BELIEVE THAT OUR CITY IS INDEED A HAVEN FOR PEACE LOVING FILIPINOS AND I SHARE THE FEELINGS OF THIS WRITER.
On Mon, 6 Apr 2009 10:54:16 +0800 (SGT), "Salvador Valbuena" salvador.valbuena@ yahoo.com> said:
DEAR EVERYBODY,
I WROTE THIS LETTER LAST WEEK AFTER THE INVESTIGATION OF THE CHR COMMISSIONER DE LIMA AND SENT IT TO SOME LOCAL AND NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS AND TO FRIENDS AND CO AGENTS..YOU MIGHT NEED IT WHEN ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS ASK YOU ABOUT PEACE AND ORDER, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION ETC.
To the Editor,
I am Doy Valbuena, an Ilocano who happens to love Davao City so much, the most livable city in our country and in the world (this is my humble opinion). I love this city so much that it pains me to see outsiders come and tell us what to do with our very own Davao City. Imperial Manilans, Americans and Europeans come here and lecture us about morality, about what is right and wrong before God, about human rights, what is right and wrong governance.
The power of Mayor Duterte emanates from the people who elected him. It is just but proper that the people of Davao City must have the first chance to judge him. But have we not judged him by electing him for the longest time as Mayor of this city for about two decades now? Is this not the best indication that the will and the voice of the people have spoken? That the people of Davao City approve of his way of governance?
Why doesn't the Commission on Human Rights conduct a survey or referendum whether we, the people of Davao City as a whole, like how the mayor conduct himself on the issue peace and order and even specifically on the issue on human rights? I am very sure that majority of Davaoenos will come out voting yes in affirmation that will shame people from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) or shall I say Commission on Hypocritical Rectitude (CHR) masquerading as saviors of the people of Davao City . To tell us that we do not approve how Mayor Duterte runs Davao City is a great insult to the intelligence and courage of Davaoenos. If the Mayor is truly abusive of his power and has no respect for the rule of law and the right to peace and decency, I should be one of those who should be on the streets leading a rally of protesters as we wont to do during the First Quarter Storm when we fought the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos whom we thought then was the worst president this country ever had, only to find out that the worst were still to follow. (I led several street protests when we complained against the DPWH and the Union Cement when I was president of the Davao Constructors Association Center Inc.)
I heard the Mayor mentioned many times over, that Davao City is a city for peace loving citizens. If you are not a peace loving citizen, this place is not for you because you will not last long to enjoy living in our city. His paradigm of drug pushers and drug addicts are people who can rape their sister or mother or an 18 month old baby girl or kill their father or brother or friend or neighbor in wild abandon. Now, I myself ask the question, why do these people who have no regard for the life of others continue to live or how can these so called human rights advocates even favor their existence over that of peace loving citizens?
Am I saying that I favor summary executions? Of course not, this is against the commandment of God “Thou shall not kill”. How I wish we can all live in peace altogether living in pursuit of the summum bonum, the highest good for all. But alas, we are now left to choose by force of circumstance and select between lesser evils, whether to allow people who have no respect for life and the right of others to live and do it in wild abandon or to allow them to rest in peace forever and let peaceful loving citizens live happily ever after..
Now am I accusing the Mayor to be behind the killings? Of course not! That is for the court to determine. What I know is Davao City is the most peaceful and livable city I have seen on Planet Earth. (I have also traveled in several countries and continents of the world.) On the other hand, I am one among the many who believe that the Mayor is doing extremely and exceedingly well in the conduct of his duty in which he was elected for.
Madame Chairperson De Lima, you need not have traveled far. You should have looked around and you would have your hands full investigating cases of human rights violations in Manila . Aren’t you not the proverbial character in the bible that the Lord would have aptly put, "why can you see the mote in your brother's eye and not see the log in your own eye”. The truth of the matter is, you just wasted valuable public money by coming here to Davao City to investigate and tell us what is good for us… Is this not the height of self righteousness and presumptuousness? Is it not stealing from the budget of education and printing misspelled books resulting to higher rate of illiteracy and lack of good education, a higher form of violation of human rights? Is it not dipping one’s fingers on the coffers of government finances depriving people of food, medicines, basic necessities and other social services; teachers of their rightful pay and soldiers of their shoes, combat allowance and guns to fight insurgency, a higher form of human rights violation? Is it not the inability of government to provide employment for its people and allowing Filipinos to work abroad as slaves of the first world countries who often times maltreat them and who sacrifice their own well being, just so they can provide for the needs of their loved ones, resulting in the breakdown and disintegration of the basic unit of society - the family an institution we value so dearly, a higher form of violation of human rights? Is it not the promotion of government officials with dubious and proven record of malfeasance and wrongdoing because of loyalty and subservience, so that they can deliver the goods to the powers that be, a higher form of human rights violation?
For a young man who grew up and seen almost daily killings during my elementary years in Badoc, Ilocos Norte and having witnessed blood flowing down in my direction and with dead people all around during a town fiesta at a very young age of 11 when somebody sprayed 3 banana type magazines of his carbine rifle and emptying them all at the people in the auditorium…For a college student during the First Quarter Storm to have witnessed summary killings like that of my fraternity brod Billy Begg riddled with bullets from one whole Armalite magazine emptied in his lifeless body and street demonstrations from 1969 to 1973, culminating in the so called BARIKADA in 1971….. For a new college graduate to have worked in the hinterlands and logging areas of Mindanao in the 1970’s at the height of the operations of the MNLF, Ilagas and Bangsamoro Movement and having experienced being attacked from land and sea, and knowing a life of killing and being
killed almost on a daily basis…..
For an executive having seen Davao City during the time when Agdao was called Nicaragdao, during the height of NPA operations when policemen were killed in broad daylight and when a grenade was thrown at the inner sanctum of the San Pedro Cathedral wreaking havoc and causing the city populace to cower in fear… to name a few…..Madame Chair de Lima, I know from whence I speak. I know the difference between war and peace, between death and bliss. To consider Davao City as barbaric and a dangerous place to live in, is farthest from the truth. Davaoenos would be the first one to know. Leave us alone in peace in this place you abhor for I repeat it again, Davao City is the most livable and peaceful city in the world. To us, this is a place closest to paradise. A Paradise in the East.
Salvador "Doy" Valbuena
.......
i wish to be understanding to somebody
who has witnessed a lifetime of killings,
but should his standards be also followed
by a whole city, or a nation, for that matter?
peace and a city's livability
may have different meanings to different people,
but truth and right, remains true and right
no matter whether a majority,
or a plurality vote, dictates otherwise.
it is understandable to defend a man
who has made his people enjoy a measure of peace.
but it also comes with a price -
it is not just the summary execution of suspected criminals,
it is how general apathy and tolerance for bigotry
is killing the soul of the city.
there is more to humanity than just settling
for lesser evils and moral evasions.
there ought to be room for dreaming
of better ways of waging peace.
and what good is there in dreaming
if it is only within your reach?
but hey, who am i to judge?
i am not from davao. i have not lived their history.
i am just a dreamer from faraway bicol
who has said masses to fallen soldiers
and to activists who fell victims to extrajudicial killings,
who has witnessed a whole unwilling island
sold out by their government to foreign miners,
who has seen failure after failure of our vote-ed campaigns
for people not to sell their votes,
who has lost our valiant efforts to clean-up our electric coop
to the machinations of corrupt politicians.
so, much as i wish to let the good people
who wish to represent davao remain in their peace,
i will also keep dreaming and working
that their kind of peace will not infect the whole nation,
and those in davao who still stand otherwise.
.......
IF YOU FEEL THAT MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE IS DOING A GOOD JOB IN DAVAO CITY, PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. I PERSONALLY BELIEVE THAT OUR CITY IS INDEED A HAVEN FOR PEACE LOVING FILIPINOS AND I SHARE THE FEELINGS OF THIS WRITER.
On Mon, 6 Apr 2009 10:54:16 +0800 (SGT), "Salvador Valbuena" salvador.valbuena@ yahoo.com> said:
DEAR EVERYBODY,
I WROTE THIS LETTER LAST WEEK AFTER THE INVESTIGATION OF THE CHR COMMISSIONER DE LIMA AND SENT IT TO SOME LOCAL AND NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS AND TO FRIENDS AND CO AGENTS..YOU MIGHT NEED IT WHEN ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS ASK YOU ABOUT PEACE AND ORDER, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION ETC.
To the Editor,
I am Doy Valbuena, an Ilocano who happens to love Davao City so much, the most livable city in our country and in the world (this is my humble opinion). I love this city so much that it pains me to see outsiders come and tell us what to do with our very own Davao City. Imperial Manilans, Americans and Europeans come here and lecture us about morality, about what is right and wrong before God, about human rights, what is right and wrong governance.
The power of Mayor Duterte emanates from the people who elected him. It is just but proper that the people of Davao City must have the first chance to judge him. But have we not judged him by electing him for the longest time as Mayor of this city for about two decades now? Is this not the best indication that the will and the voice of the people have spoken? That the people of Davao City approve of his way of governance?
Why doesn't the Commission on Human Rights conduct a survey or referendum whether we, the people of Davao City as a whole, like how the mayor conduct himself on the issue peace and order and even specifically on the issue on human rights? I am very sure that majority of Davaoenos will come out voting yes in affirmation that will shame people from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) or shall I say Commission on Hypocritical Rectitude (CHR) masquerading as saviors of the people of Davao City . To tell us that we do not approve how Mayor Duterte runs Davao City is a great insult to the intelligence and courage of Davaoenos. If the Mayor is truly abusive of his power and has no respect for the rule of law and the right to peace and decency, I should be one of those who should be on the streets leading a rally of protesters as we wont to do during the First Quarter Storm when we fought the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos whom we thought then was the worst president this country ever had, only to find out that the worst were still to follow. (I led several street protests when we complained against the DPWH and the Union Cement when I was president of the Davao Constructors Association Center Inc.)
I heard the Mayor mentioned many times over, that Davao City is a city for peace loving citizens. If you are not a peace loving citizen, this place is not for you because you will not last long to enjoy living in our city. His paradigm of drug pushers and drug addicts are people who can rape their sister or mother or an 18 month old baby girl or kill their father or brother or friend or neighbor in wild abandon. Now, I myself ask the question, why do these people who have no regard for the life of others continue to live or how can these so called human rights advocates even favor their existence over that of peace loving citizens?
Am I saying that I favor summary executions? Of course not, this is against the commandment of God “Thou shall not kill”. How I wish we can all live in peace altogether living in pursuit of the summum bonum, the highest good for all. But alas, we are now left to choose by force of circumstance and select between lesser evils, whether to allow people who have no respect for life and the right of others to live and do it in wild abandon or to allow them to rest in peace forever and let peaceful loving citizens live happily ever after..
Now am I accusing the Mayor to be behind the killings? Of course not! That is for the court to determine. What I know is Davao City is the most peaceful and livable city I have seen on Planet Earth. (I have also traveled in several countries and continents of the world.) On the other hand, I am one among the many who believe that the Mayor is doing extremely and exceedingly well in the conduct of his duty in which he was elected for.
Madame Chairperson De Lima, you need not have traveled far. You should have looked around and you would have your hands full investigating cases of human rights violations in Manila . Aren’t you not the proverbial character in the bible that the Lord would have aptly put, "why can you see the mote in your brother's eye and not see the log in your own eye”. The truth of the matter is, you just wasted valuable public money by coming here to Davao City to investigate and tell us what is good for us… Is this not the height of self righteousness and presumptuousness? Is it not stealing from the budget of education and printing misspelled books resulting to higher rate of illiteracy and lack of good education, a higher form of violation of human rights? Is it not dipping one’s fingers on the coffers of government finances depriving people of food, medicines, basic necessities and other social services; teachers of their rightful pay and soldiers of their shoes, combat allowance and guns to fight insurgency, a higher form of human rights violation? Is it not the inability of government to provide employment for its people and allowing Filipinos to work abroad as slaves of the first world countries who often times maltreat them and who sacrifice their own well being, just so they can provide for the needs of their loved ones, resulting in the breakdown and disintegration of the basic unit of society - the family an institution we value so dearly, a higher form of violation of human rights? Is it not the promotion of government officials with dubious and proven record of malfeasance and wrongdoing because of loyalty and subservience, so that they can deliver the goods to the powers that be, a higher form of human rights violation?
For a young man who grew up and seen almost daily killings during my elementary years in Badoc, Ilocos Norte and having witnessed blood flowing down in my direction and with dead people all around during a town fiesta at a very young age of 11 when somebody sprayed 3 banana type magazines of his carbine rifle and emptying them all at the people in the auditorium…For a college student during the First Quarter Storm to have witnessed summary killings like that of my fraternity brod Billy Begg riddled with bullets from one whole Armalite magazine emptied in his lifeless body and street demonstrations from 1969 to 1973, culminating in the so called BARIKADA in 1971….. For a new college graduate to have worked in the hinterlands and logging areas of Mindanao in the 1970’s at the height of the operations of the MNLF, Ilagas and Bangsamoro Movement and having experienced being attacked from land and sea, and knowing a life of killing and being
killed almost on a daily basis…..
For an executive having seen Davao City during the time when Agdao was called Nicaragdao, during the height of NPA operations when policemen were killed in broad daylight and when a grenade was thrown at the inner sanctum of the San Pedro Cathedral wreaking havoc and causing the city populace to cower in fear… to name a few…..Madame Chair de Lima, I know from whence I speak. I know the difference between war and peace, between death and bliss. To consider Davao City as barbaric and a dangerous place to live in, is farthest from the truth. Davaoenos would be the first one to know. Leave us alone in peace in this place you abhor for I repeat it again, Davao City is the most livable and peaceful city in the world. To us, this is a place closest to paradise. A Paradise in the East.
Salvador "Doy" Valbuena
12 April 2009
The Joy of Easter
The joy of Easter is in seeing things with new eyes,
through Jesus who is the fullness of revelation of the Father.
The joy of Easter is in living the new life in Christ,
whose resurrection dispelled the fear of the great unknown: death, indeed, dispelling death itself.
The joy of Easter is the chance of a new beginning,
symbolized by the rite of renewal of our baptismal promises in the Paschal Vigil and Easter Sunday Masses.
Maogmang Pasko nin Pagkabuhay-liwat!
Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do
First Word: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.” (Lk 23,23)
The seven last words of Jesus start on the theme of forgiveness. He is crucified on the cross, severely bruised and in terrible pain, mocked and shamed by his tormentors, and the first words ascribed to him are “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do”.
These are words that do not fail to inspire and perplex. Even in the worst of suffering, Jesus still preached and embodied the Father’s mercy. The magnanimity of His expression is made more manifest if we reflect upon our own responses to situations of unjust suffering. Would we be so similarly instantaneous, Christ-like in our dispensing of forgiveness? Or would we view such response as an expression of giving-up too early, of resignation to the futility of our quest for justice?
I remember Rapu-Rapu and the sufferings of its people. The Diocese of Legazpi and many concerned groups and individuals, fought alongside them in resisting the large-scale mining operations of Lafayette on their island since 1999. Nowadays the mining operations project themselves as RRMI and RRPI. I remember the series of fish kills in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The fish kill in 2006 happened within the period of a DENR mandated test-run. I remember the arrogance and callousness of many government and mining company officials. I remember the suffering of the people – the dwindling fish catch, hunger, harassment, health problems, uncertain future, and the pain of hearing hard facts twisted and their sentiments misrepresented on national media.
Should the residents of Rapu-Rapu, and we who help them, also have to be so willing and ready to dispense forgiveness as Jesus did? How would such act benefit our cause? Forgiveness seems so out of touch with our situation. Or is it really? There is an admittedly strange attractive power, a sense of liberation even, when a victim utters Jesus' line.
To forgive doesn’t necessarily mean to give-up. To forgive may also mean to let go, or more precisely, to let God. To forgive is to acknowledge that though we seek justice and resist oppression, we can still go beyond our human claims and dispositions and seek affinity with the divine. To forgive is to trust that the power and providence of God is greater than the evil that resides in the hearts of those who do us harm.
To say that they do not know what they do does not mean being co-opted to our oppressors’ web of lies or dismissing their acts as mere human failings. For indeed they are still responsible for their actions. It is an acknowledgment rather that, despite their skills in manipulating truth and handling morally dubious negotiations, they are still practically ignorant of the great power of God working in all things. In short, it is an acknowledgment that there is hope for them still.
Am I just fooling myself when I say this? Am I in a state of wishful thinking? Let me tell you what is clear and present to me about the current mining situation in our country. It is the DENR that identifies sites as suitable for mining; and advertises those sites for mining investors, conveniently downgrading environmental harm. It is the DENR that grants MPSAs without consulting local residents, and ECCs even without social acceptability. It is the same DENR that admits it cannot sufficiently monitor the operation of mining companies; and then connives with mining officials to cover-up incidents of mishaps and fish kills. When a company like Lafayette fails, it is the DENR that scurries to look for other investors in order to “save” the project. And should we seek legal action, it is the DENR who will first receive our complaints and judge their merits.
Could we actually dream of receiving a fair hearing from the current DENR? Maybe not yet in the present nor in the near future, but I am still filled with hope that the situation can and will change for the better. Otherwise, the options left would either be indeed giving-up, or going over less enlightened paths.
Lastly, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do” are words spoken by Jesus to victims and their advocates as well. It is a gentle reminder that even as we fight for justice we cannot lose the best parts of our humanity. It is a solemn promise that just as Jesus Christ transcended hate and injustice, and then triumphed over sin and death, so we too will find our victory in the end.
What I Learned from My Batchmates
Rev. Fr. Francis D. Alvarez, SJ's Valedictory Speech
Commencement Exercises
Loyola School of Theology, AdMU
March 18, 2009
......
I am thrilled just knowing the many more homilies, retreats and reflections Francis will be giving as a priest. LST, the Society, and the Church in general, are "not any less blessed".
Congrats batch 2009!
Thanks to Weng Bava, SJ, for posting on LST's facebook group.
......
The fear of rigor, the fear of ugliness, the fear of change: At the beginning of the school year, during the Mass of the Holy Spirit, our then newly-installed Vice-Chancellor, Fr. Jojo Magadia, warned us of these three fears. At the end of the school year, as I graduate from Loyola School of Theology, I fear I have to add to his list of three.
What will happen when I am neck-deep in ministry? When my arms are weary as I try to juggle parish financial statements? When my chest is heavy as I listen to the pastoral council bicker yet again? When my legs buckle as I run from baptism to wedding to funeral, from labor meeting to sick call to children’s catechism, from evaluation seminar to beauty pageant to charity event? When, where once I tread with bright-eyed expectation, I find myself trudge with broken-hearted frustration, where will I be? What if I start cutting corners? We have been trained how to browse through the books in the library to nuance a complex article of the faith. This we need to do in order to come up with what Dr. Yap has always insisted on—accountable speech—even for just a Sunday homily. But what if instead of doing this, I just type words into Google? And what if Google fails me? What if I fall back on my class notes from my days in LST and realize that I had not paid enough attention in class? What if I misinterpret a precept of canon law and give the wrong advice? What if I blurt out the wrong thing while giving penance and a penitent who has not gone to confession for five years decides this is why he will not go again for five more?
As these fears ran amok in my head, what mercifully calmed them down was when I remembered how we prepared for the ad audiendas, that “board exam” future priests have to pass to receive faculties for confession. I remembered how at first we forgot to address serious sins. We forgot to give penance. We even forgot the formula of absolution. But slowly we learned. And soon, we were not just doing confession-by-the-numbers. Soon, we were giving sound pastoral advice, untangling the most convoluted cases Frs. Richie Genilo, Cel Reyes, and Rex Mananzan tried to ensnare us in. Many times, I found myself nodding—not off to sleep—but in agreement and in wonder. And I dreamt about the kind of wise, gentle, and understanding priests you, my batchmates, will surely be.
You, my co-learners, have taught me a lot. In the comprehensive exams, I had the opportunity to show what I learned from our professors. This morning, as we say goodbye to each other and to LST, I hope you allow me to share what I learned from you, my co-seminarians and co-religious here in LST.
In a famous homily, I never actually heard—only heard about (that’s how good it was)—Bro. Irvin Morastil, OMI supposedly struck a refrain that resonated not only with Fr. Manny Flores but with the rest of the Advanced Pastoral Methods class: “God is NOT good. He is very good.”
I spent the better part of the last Christmas vacation working on our graduation pictures for our yearbook. I was digitally reducing eye bags while also trying to recover from the sleep deprivation of Simbang Gabi. With Adobe Photoshop, I magically erased acne scars, deleted visible strands of nasal hair, and gave free electronic face lifts Vicky Belo would charge thousands for. I fiddled with hues, saturation, and luminosity to give each portrait a soft tone of angelic purity. Needless to say, I was proud of my handiwork, and as I showed you your pictures, I could tell that you all were impressed—except for Bro. Jonald Panganiban, OCD.
I handed him the hard copy of his grad. pic., and he asked, “Phinotoshop mo? (Did you Photoshop this?)” I puffed up my chest and declared, “Yes.” He scratched his head and suggested, “Baka pwede mong bawasan. (Maybe you can lessen what you did?)” I was aghast! Why? Who would want their pockmarks and their pimples and their warts seen?
But later that night, I realized that the blemishes and flaws I hid under pixels were so much a part of us, as much us as our dimples and clefts and other outstanding characteristics. Who would want to see these pockmarks, pimples, and warts? Well, God. The God who called us in spite of, maybe even because of, our imperfections. The God who has made use of and will continue to make use of our shortcomings and weaknesses for his greater glory. The God whom Bro. Irvin described so eloquently: The God who is not just good, but very good.
I remember serving at the diaconate ordination of Bros. Chris, Stanley, Rey, and Mark, CP. The joke, during our practice for the rite, was: With Stanley’s big tummy, would he be able to lie face-down during the litany? Would we have to alter the rubrics and allow him to lie on his side so that he will also be allowed to breathe?
During the ordination, I caught myself sneaking a peek at Stanley, and there he was, big tummy and all, yes—back slightly hunched, but head on folded arms, lying prostrate on the ground, asking God for mercy. And my thoughts went back to my own ordination. My stomach might not have been as big as Stanley’s, but my head was perhaps bigger. But overstuffed ego and all, I, too, was able to lie prostrate on the ground and beg God to accept my humble offering. Why? Because God is not good. He is very good.
I attended the diaconate ordination of Bros. Francis Ledesma and Topher Tejido. But before they even lay prostrate before God, Bishop Soc Villegas reminded us: We may wax lyrical about this great sacrifice that we make, but before God, we really have nothing to give. Yet when he accepts what we have to offer, we will have nothing more to ask. Why? We go back to the wise words of Bro. Irvin: Because God is not just good. He is very good.
Let me tell you about one other diaconate ordination. The first in our batch, actually: Seminarian Jayvee Zuñiga’s. On the day when Jayvee was entrusted with the Book of the Gospels, we were all excited, but I could not really decide whether “Congratulations!” was the appropriate greeting. Many of us knew why Jayvee was getting ordained ahead of schedule, earlier than the rest. His mother was dying of cancer. As Jayvee took his place behind the altar, I wanted to jump up and down, but I couldn’t. A few steps away in front of the same altar was his mother. And in a few days, she would be gone.
Rev. Jayvee’s thanksgiving speech then was all about the mercy of God. But what kind of mercy was this, I asked, when on a day meant for rejoicing, the air was heavy with foreboding farewell. On a day your spirit magnified the Lord, your heart was also troubled. “Our hearts are troubled.” And these very words were the ones Jayvee used when he later preached at his mother’s funeral. Bittersweet—as descriptive as that word is, it still does not capture what we experienced on the day of Jayvee’s diaconate ordination, when the alleluias and hosannas struggled to float but were drowned in the somber melody of “Inay.”
Later that night, I sought consolation in prayer. And I realized that many times in our ministry, this is how things will be. As we live out our ministry, we will find joy. We will find fulfillment. But we will not really be able to jump up and down because many times, our ministry will simply be to journey with people in their pain—an awesome privilege, an awful responsibility. In this, we will be confirmed in our vocations; in this we will find our purpose. Amidst pain. Bittersweet? As descriptive as that word is, it will not capture the experience.
But Jayvee’s story does not end there… because today is Jayvee’s mother’s birthday. And today, the son she dreamed so ardently to see ordained graduates summa cum laude. Watch that in a Hollywood movie, and you would say it’s too contrived. Read that in romance novel, and you would say it’s corny. But witness it happen in real life, and you can only say, it’s grace. It’s God.
This is not just Jayvee’s story. When Elmer gets ordained a priest tomorrow and begins his ministry, when our OCD brothers profess their final vows and live out their Carmelite vocations, when Irvin and Randy are sent to Basilan, Jolo, or Tawi-Tawi with or without military escorts, when Thomas goes back to China, Tran to Vietnam, and David, William, and Salai to Myanmar—places where the Church thrives in circumstances less friendly but not any less blessed, when the fears grip us and shake us and pound us prostrate to the ground bitter, there will be sweetness. There will be an amazing turn of events we could have never predicted, a summa cum laude ending that will tell us that God was in charge all along. “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.”
It will be as Fr. Manoling Francisco taught us in Eschatology: We don’t know what will happen. But we are sure that it will be good. Because, as Bro. Irvin has been teaching us all morning, God is not just good. God is very, very good.
Two weeks ago, I was in front of the computer, dialing down Photoshop settings, as Bro. Jonald requested, on our graduation pictures. They will never see print, because LST Batch 2009 will not have a yearbook. Because of the financial crisis, it seems too much of a luxury. Instead, we will have a cheap CD-ROM alternative at one-tenth of the cost. Why? Because the rest of the allocated budget, LST Batch 2009 has decided to give to scholarships. I will never forget the text messages I received when this idea was floated around. Messages which basically said: “Of course, I want a yearbook I can hold and flip through. But I have grown much from the formation I received here in LST. I want others to experience the same blessings. What is memory when you can leave a legacy?” Until the very end, you, my batchmates, are still teaching me.
As I undid the digital retouching on our photographs, and the flaws and imperfections of each face started asserting themselves again, I couldn’t help but remember the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same…
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
[But] I say more…
Looking at your faces, relishing what you have taught me, I knew why Hopkins could say more. And I say more with him:
…the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places
(I know of at least forty-two.)
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Men’s faces: Be they wounded, be they scarred, be they imperfect, God can still work perfectly through them. Through us. Because… from Hopkins we return to Bro. Irvin’s words one last time: God is not just good. He is very, very, very good.
Amen.
Commencement Exercises
Loyola School of Theology, AdMU
March 18, 2009
......
I am thrilled just knowing the many more homilies, retreats and reflections Francis will be giving as a priest. LST, the Society, and the Church in general, are "not any less blessed".
Congrats batch 2009!
Thanks to Weng Bava, SJ, for posting on LST's facebook group.
......
The fear of rigor, the fear of ugliness, the fear of change: At the beginning of the school year, during the Mass of the Holy Spirit, our then newly-installed Vice-Chancellor, Fr. Jojo Magadia, warned us of these three fears. At the end of the school year, as I graduate from Loyola School of Theology, I fear I have to add to his list of three.
What will happen when I am neck-deep in ministry? When my arms are weary as I try to juggle parish financial statements? When my chest is heavy as I listen to the pastoral council bicker yet again? When my legs buckle as I run from baptism to wedding to funeral, from labor meeting to sick call to children’s catechism, from evaluation seminar to beauty pageant to charity event? When, where once I tread with bright-eyed expectation, I find myself trudge with broken-hearted frustration, where will I be? What if I start cutting corners? We have been trained how to browse through the books in the library to nuance a complex article of the faith. This we need to do in order to come up with what Dr. Yap has always insisted on—accountable speech—even for just a Sunday homily. But what if instead of doing this, I just type words into Google? And what if Google fails me? What if I fall back on my class notes from my days in LST and realize that I had not paid enough attention in class? What if I misinterpret a precept of canon law and give the wrong advice? What if I blurt out the wrong thing while giving penance and a penitent who has not gone to confession for five years decides this is why he will not go again for five more?
As these fears ran amok in my head, what mercifully calmed them down was when I remembered how we prepared for the ad audiendas, that “board exam” future priests have to pass to receive faculties for confession. I remembered how at first we forgot to address serious sins. We forgot to give penance. We even forgot the formula of absolution. But slowly we learned. And soon, we were not just doing confession-by-the-numbers. Soon, we were giving sound pastoral advice, untangling the most convoluted cases Frs. Richie Genilo, Cel Reyes, and Rex Mananzan tried to ensnare us in. Many times, I found myself nodding—not off to sleep—but in agreement and in wonder. And I dreamt about the kind of wise, gentle, and understanding priests you, my batchmates, will surely be.
You, my co-learners, have taught me a lot. In the comprehensive exams, I had the opportunity to show what I learned from our professors. This morning, as we say goodbye to each other and to LST, I hope you allow me to share what I learned from you, my co-seminarians and co-religious here in LST.
In a famous homily, I never actually heard—only heard about (that’s how good it was)—Bro. Irvin Morastil, OMI supposedly struck a refrain that resonated not only with Fr. Manny Flores but with the rest of the Advanced Pastoral Methods class: “God is NOT good. He is very good.”
I spent the better part of the last Christmas vacation working on our graduation pictures for our yearbook. I was digitally reducing eye bags while also trying to recover from the sleep deprivation of Simbang Gabi. With Adobe Photoshop, I magically erased acne scars, deleted visible strands of nasal hair, and gave free electronic face lifts Vicky Belo would charge thousands for. I fiddled with hues, saturation, and luminosity to give each portrait a soft tone of angelic purity. Needless to say, I was proud of my handiwork, and as I showed you your pictures, I could tell that you all were impressed—except for Bro. Jonald Panganiban, OCD.
I handed him the hard copy of his grad. pic., and he asked, “Phinotoshop mo? (Did you Photoshop this?)” I puffed up my chest and declared, “Yes.” He scratched his head and suggested, “Baka pwede mong bawasan. (Maybe you can lessen what you did?)” I was aghast! Why? Who would want their pockmarks and their pimples and their warts seen?
But later that night, I realized that the blemishes and flaws I hid under pixels were so much a part of us, as much us as our dimples and clefts and other outstanding characteristics. Who would want to see these pockmarks, pimples, and warts? Well, God. The God who called us in spite of, maybe even because of, our imperfections. The God who has made use of and will continue to make use of our shortcomings and weaknesses for his greater glory. The God whom Bro. Irvin described so eloquently: The God who is not just good, but very good.
I remember serving at the diaconate ordination of Bros. Chris, Stanley, Rey, and Mark, CP. The joke, during our practice for the rite, was: With Stanley’s big tummy, would he be able to lie face-down during the litany? Would we have to alter the rubrics and allow him to lie on his side so that he will also be allowed to breathe?
During the ordination, I caught myself sneaking a peek at Stanley, and there he was, big tummy and all, yes—back slightly hunched, but head on folded arms, lying prostrate on the ground, asking God for mercy. And my thoughts went back to my own ordination. My stomach might not have been as big as Stanley’s, but my head was perhaps bigger. But overstuffed ego and all, I, too, was able to lie prostrate on the ground and beg God to accept my humble offering. Why? Because God is not good. He is very good.
I attended the diaconate ordination of Bros. Francis Ledesma and Topher Tejido. But before they even lay prostrate before God, Bishop Soc Villegas reminded us: We may wax lyrical about this great sacrifice that we make, but before God, we really have nothing to give. Yet when he accepts what we have to offer, we will have nothing more to ask. Why? We go back to the wise words of Bro. Irvin: Because God is not just good. He is very good.
Let me tell you about one other diaconate ordination. The first in our batch, actually: Seminarian Jayvee Zuñiga’s. On the day when Jayvee was entrusted with the Book of the Gospels, we were all excited, but I could not really decide whether “Congratulations!” was the appropriate greeting. Many of us knew why Jayvee was getting ordained ahead of schedule, earlier than the rest. His mother was dying of cancer. As Jayvee took his place behind the altar, I wanted to jump up and down, but I couldn’t. A few steps away in front of the same altar was his mother. And in a few days, she would be gone.
Rev. Jayvee’s thanksgiving speech then was all about the mercy of God. But what kind of mercy was this, I asked, when on a day meant for rejoicing, the air was heavy with foreboding farewell. On a day your spirit magnified the Lord, your heart was also troubled. “Our hearts are troubled.” And these very words were the ones Jayvee used when he later preached at his mother’s funeral. Bittersweet—as descriptive as that word is, it still does not capture what we experienced on the day of Jayvee’s diaconate ordination, when the alleluias and hosannas struggled to float but were drowned in the somber melody of “Inay.”
Later that night, I sought consolation in prayer. And I realized that many times in our ministry, this is how things will be. As we live out our ministry, we will find joy. We will find fulfillment. But we will not really be able to jump up and down because many times, our ministry will simply be to journey with people in their pain—an awesome privilege, an awful responsibility. In this, we will be confirmed in our vocations; in this we will find our purpose. Amidst pain. Bittersweet? As descriptive as that word is, it will not capture the experience.
But Jayvee’s story does not end there… because today is Jayvee’s mother’s birthday. And today, the son she dreamed so ardently to see ordained graduates summa cum laude. Watch that in a Hollywood movie, and you would say it’s too contrived. Read that in romance novel, and you would say it’s corny. But witness it happen in real life, and you can only say, it’s grace. It’s God.
This is not just Jayvee’s story. When Elmer gets ordained a priest tomorrow and begins his ministry, when our OCD brothers profess their final vows and live out their Carmelite vocations, when Irvin and Randy are sent to Basilan, Jolo, or Tawi-Tawi with or without military escorts, when Thomas goes back to China, Tran to Vietnam, and David, William, and Salai to Myanmar—places where the Church thrives in circumstances less friendly but not any less blessed, when the fears grip us and shake us and pound us prostrate to the ground bitter, there will be sweetness. There will be an amazing turn of events we could have never predicted, a summa cum laude ending that will tell us that God was in charge all along. “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.”
It will be as Fr. Manoling Francisco taught us in Eschatology: We don’t know what will happen. But we are sure that it will be good. Because, as Bro. Irvin has been teaching us all morning, God is not just good. God is very, very good.
Two weeks ago, I was in front of the computer, dialing down Photoshop settings, as Bro. Jonald requested, on our graduation pictures. They will never see print, because LST Batch 2009 will not have a yearbook. Because of the financial crisis, it seems too much of a luxury. Instead, we will have a cheap CD-ROM alternative at one-tenth of the cost. Why? Because the rest of the allocated budget, LST Batch 2009 has decided to give to scholarships. I will never forget the text messages I received when this idea was floated around. Messages which basically said: “Of course, I want a yearbook I can hold and flip through. But I have grown much from the formation I received here in LST. I want others to experience the same blessings. What is memory when you can leave a legacy?” Until the very end, you, my batchmates, are still teaching me.
As I undid the digital retouching on our photographs, and the flaws and imperfections of each face started asserting themselves again, I couldn’t help but remember the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same…
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
[But] I say more…
Looking at your faces, relishing what you have taught me, I knew why Hopkins could say more. And I say more with him:
…the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places
(I know of at least forty-two.)
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Men’s faces: Be they wounded, be they scarred, be they imperfect, God can still work perfectly through them. Through us. Because… from Hopkins we return to Bro. Irvin’s words one last time: God is not just good. He is very, very, very good.
Amen.
06 April 2009
Remembering Tom Green
(March 19, 1932 - March 13, 2009)
From Fr. Danny Huang's Facebook:
When I woke up this morning, I was shocked to discover—from Facebook updates, of all things—that Fr. Tom Green had passed away. I had known, of course, that he was sick; but the suddenness of his passing away still came as a sad surprise.
Soon after I had texted my condolences, the present Rector of San Jose Seminary, Vic de Jesus, kindly called me up long distance to inform me of the details of Tom’s passing: how Tom had come home from the hospital last night; how one of the seminarians had peeked into his room this morning and found him sitting in his chair, with his pipe on his chest. He went very quickly, which is a real mercy.
I first met Tom Green thirty years ago. In my senior year at the Ateneo, school year 1979-80, I was in Fr. Green’s philosophy of language class. It was a wonderful course, and thirty years later, the fact that I can still remember so much—of the logical positivists, of Wittgenstein, that language is inescapably metaphorical, that some concepts are essentially contested—is surely testimony to the outstanding clarity and excellence of Fr. Green’s teaching.
My second encounter with Fr. Green was through his books. Opening to God, which I read twice—once as a college student, and more seriously, as a novice in the Society—was a deeply influential book in my life. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that it taught me how to pray. I read all his other books too, but my personal favorite, the book which I think is his best and wisest, is When the Wells Run Dry.
Two key insights from that book have remained with me through the decades. The first insight: that darkness happens, not just in prayer, but in life, to move us, in his words, from “loving to truly loving.” I still recall, more or less accurately, a sentence from the book, in which he reflects on a married couple’s promise to love each other “for better or worse”: “The better, the good times are there to teach us the joy of loving; the worse happens to teach us to love truly.”
The second insight: at the end of the book, Fr. Green uses the image of floating (as contrasted with swimming) as a metaphor for the mature life of faith. You give up control over your life (“swimming”); you remain active (otherwise you would sink), but you allow yourself to be led; you let go and entrust yourself to the unpredictable flow of the sea of love that surrounds you, and you let it take you where it wills.
My third and most lasting encounter with Tom Green happened in the eight years, from 1996 to 2004, when we lived together in the same community and worked on the same formation team in San Jose Seminary. At that time, we were also co-faculty members of Loyola School of Theology. From 2000 to 2004, the years I served as Rector of San Jose, Fr. Green was my Vice-Rector. He had the room right above mine in those years.
For eight years, we shared meals and attended many staff meetings together. With the rest of the Jesuit team, we processed hundreds of applications to the Seminary; sat through hours of semestral and yearly evaluations of seminarians; discussed and occasionally argued over Seminary policies. Almost every Monday evening, for eight years, we had common prayer together in the BVM chapel on the third floor of San Jose, and after prayer, shared a special meal in the Jesuit community recreation room.
When you live that long with another Jesuit, you get to know him quite well. I got to know about Tom Green’s legendary regularity of life. He followed the same schedule or cycles almost every day, every week, every year. If it was 130 PM, he could invariably be found in his rocking chair on the fifth floor reading the papers. If it was the third (I forget which, actually) Sunday of the month, he would have Mass in Balara or for the L’Arche community. If it was summer vacation, then he would be giving a retreat somewhere in the United States. And woe to you, if you moved that rocking chair, as one unwitting minister did!
I remember pleasant and witty Jesuit banter from those rec-room meals involving Tom Green. Once, Roque Ferriols was talking about Jesuit Bishop Honesto “Onie” Pacana, but kept on referring to him as “Honey Pacana.” The rest of us—Art Borja was there, I remember—corrected Fr. Roque and told him that the bishop’s nickname was pronounced “Onie” not “Honey.” When Roque said that he had always thought the bishop’s nickname was “Honey,” Tom Green quipped in a deadpan way: “Oh, I thought you were just close.” That brought the house down.
Tom was not perfect, I discovered. (His devoted lay friends, “the Golden Girls,” who took such good care of him, also knew that.) He tended to want things his way. He got cross and cranky when things did not go the way he wanted them to. He could express his opinions a bit too dogmatically. He did not admit his mistakes easily.
And yet, I appreciated his presence in the community and on the Seminary formation team. He was a very generous (he had so many directees!) and wise spiritual director. He was a man of very good and balanced judgment where persons were concerned, and I always valued his perceptions of applicants or seminarians. When I consulted him as Vice-Rector on issues of the Seminary, I usually received very sensible counsel.
By the time I got to San Jose, Tom was a grandfather figure to the seminarians, and his cheerful and easy manner of dealing with them, and the personal witness he gave of a man who had grown old—and happily so—in the priesthood was something, I think, of inestimable value for San Jose. Having been part of San Jose for over three decades, he had become for generations of Josefinos, an icon, a living link between the past and the present, a symbol of their happy years in the Seminary. With Tom’s passing away, an era in the history of San Jose comes to an end, a presence that cannot be replaced has been lost forever...
In all my years as Rector and as Provincial, Tom always told me that he hoped he could die in San Jose. He got his wish. I am glad for him. Now, I trust that he is in the presence of the One whom he wrote about, spoke about and served so faithfully and generously for so many years. Now, I trust the darkness has become light for him, and, with a joy no words can describe, he can let go and, at last, float.
....
http://www.jesuits.ph/articles/tomgreenremembered
FR. THOMAS H. GREEN, S. J. died on Friday morning, March 13, at San Jose Seminary. Fr. Tom would have been 77 on Thursday. He entered the Society on 7 September 1949 and was ordained a priest on 19 June 1963. Requiescat in pace.
Wake:
San Jose Seminary Chapel
Ateneo de Manila University
Loyola Heights, Q.C.
Daily wake Masses will be celebrated at 8:00 p.m.
Funeral Mass:
Thursday, 19 March at 8:00 a.m.
University Church of the Gesù, Ateneo de Manila University
Interment:
Sacred Heart Novitiate Cemetery
Novaliches, Quezon City
immediately after the Funeral Mass
09 March 2009
Opposition to US-RP Balikatan exercise snowballs
Not that I am nitpicking, but three things are inaccurate with this article:
1. My family name is misspelled. The post below already has the correction.
2. I didn't celebrate Mass during the rally. I don't even think a Mass was held there that time.
3. I am not the official spokesman of the diocese. I just, once in a while, repeat what my bishop says.
The views and opinions are just about right.
My take on a later blog.
.......
http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/7625
LEGAZPI CITY, February 27, 2009– Calls to consolidate efforts by multi-sectoral groups against the planned US-RP Balikatan military exercises this April, has snowballed following a three-day rally held here.
Diocese of Legazpi spokesman, Rev. Fr. Rex Paul Arjona said parishes will continue to document people’s reactions to Balikatan exercises and the possible human violations that go with it.
Arjona celebrated the Mass during a multi-sectoral rally that include militants and support groups called Oragon-Bikol; Kabataan Makabayan Laban sa Balikatan and Ban Balikatan organizations.
The protesters, who marched from Daet, Camarines Norte and Matnog, Sorsogon converged in Legazpi City’s historical land mark, The Battle of Legazpi.
Partylist Representative and Lower House Assistant Minority Leader, Liza Largoza Maza has expressed gratitude to Bishop Administrator Lucilo B. Quiambao for showing concerns about possible increase of prostitution of women as Balikatan Exercises is nearing.
Maza has earlier denounced the intensive military operations and grenade firing by the 901st Brigade of the Philippine Army in Barangay Balanac, Ligao City.
The Feb. 18 incident razed houses that left one-year and four-month old girl, Rafaela Polborido, and six other children, including three mothers injured.
Aside from Maza, militant representatives Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, Rafael and Mariano of Anak Pawis, have also talked to Bishop Quiambao after joining the rally and pushed for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement. (Elmer James Bandol)
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