E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Unpardonable mea culpa
Sunday, 06 22, 2008
The Church has issued an injunction against itself: “The Church will keep a hands-off policy on political movements and cannot be relied on anymore to lead another People Power revolt after restating its admission of mistake... on leading Edsa II that installed President Arroyo.”
To those who followed the exhortation of Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin seven years ago — whether blindly or out of conviction or as a matter of obedience to ecclesiastical entreaty — this turnaround is as shocking as it is unpardonable. It is like the Church as having addressed the people in this wise: “Don’t walk behind me; I will not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I might not be able to hear and understand what you are saying. Don’t walk beside me; I am not your friend anymore.”
So it has come to this: the Church, after having led a multitude to commit what it now considers Cardinal’s Sin’s mistake (or sin), is now abandoning that multitude after they have sinned.
What the Manila Archdiocese has done, in shunning political activism from hereon and shifting instead to activities designed to strengthen the political structure, is tantamount to shortchanging those whom it led and misled in 2001.
The Church does not err when it leads a movement to effect change in government. After all, no less than the revered Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, has said that the goodness of the will depends on the intention of the end. So, from a moral — and even political — standpoint, the Church was correct in 2001 when it called for a change, and convinced the people — the faithful as well as the faithless — to go along with it in that regard.
Its mistake in 2001 was not institutional, much less a mistake in interpretation of principle or dogma. It was the mistake in judgment — Thomas Aquinas’s “intention of the end” — as to who should take over the reins of power after the ouster of the “bad guys.”
After admitting it made a mistake in 2001, what to do now?
Should not the Church lead the way in correcting that mistake? The Church brought the people to this mess; it must bring the people out of that mess. If it leaves that multitude of 2001 to fend for themselves, what does that make of the Church now, but a political arm whose focus thrives at the expediency of the moment?
The Church, it seems, now finds itself between a rock and a hard place: crushed on the one side by the duty of being consistent in its principles or interpretation of dogma, and crumpled on the other by the self-imposed obligation of being consistent in its support for the political leadership it helped install.
But this situation need not be problematic. The Church can be consistent in the first, and the people will understand. For principles are principles; they are immutable. But the Church need not be consistent in the second. Political leaders are not infallible. If the Church had been wrong, as it now admits, in its judgment of helping install the political leadership in 2001, it can still redeem itself by being consistent in its call for standards of good leadership, and move forward to meet those standards. The Church itself admits that the political leadership plainly has not met those standards. If only for that reason, the Church must pursue the same tack it did in 2001.
An analogy: We might have voted for, say, a Lapid in the belief that he will resurrect the Dioknos and the Salongas in the Senate. But if Lapid does not turn out to be the senator we expected him to be, then the next time around he presents himself for re-election, he will not deserve our votes. Our standard for a leader in the first election is the same in the succeeding election. But our choice in the first election may not necessarily be our choice in the succeeding election, based again on our standards.
“Abandonment of its flock” would best describe what the Church has done.
Strengthening political institutions to solve and prevent political crises as a corrective measure can exist side-by-side with the political activism that was the mark of the Church in 2001. No one will quarrel with that. But abandoning altogether political activism as another avenue for change does not augur well for the interests of the people.
Political institutions can be reformed, just as political leaders can be changed. For instance, the institution of the presidency can be reformed. But if the occupant of the presidential seat gets too big for her britches, political activism should take over.
The Statement of the Church, instead, took the form of an endorsement for a bad leadership to continue in power: “We have always put the blame on people we have chosen to govern us. Today we have become more aware that despite efforts, successful or not, to remove the incompetent or corrupt, our problems have remained. We have looked at the enemy as only outside of us.”
The real enemy of the people is right there in the seat of power. Shall the Church stand idly by? To redeem itself, perhaps it should hearken to Saint Thomas Aquinas, who counseled us about three necessities in order to be delivered from evil and its consequences: to know what we ought to believe; to know what we ought to desire; and to know what we ought to do.
In 2001 the Church knew what it ought to believe, and took a lead in the fulfillment of what we ought to desire. Today, it would seem that the Church would not know what it ought to do. Even in the face of a grievous mistake — and I do not mean Cardinal Sin’s.
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