Like
Christ we should learn to weep as counselled by our Holy Father. But like Him
we should learn also to get angry at the prevailing injustice in our society,
no thanks to the Philippine clergy which hardly has been a Church of the Poor.
UST said the
Pope’s meeting with the Youth is open to the public. It however also forewarned
that the area reserved for them is limited and not everyone could be accommodated.
Being instructed that the designated gates for the public will open at 4AM, I
and my family woke up as early as 2AM during that morning of January 18, 2015
and had to walk distances considering that the roads were closed.
I like millions
of Filipinos have been following the Holy Father wherever he goes on TV and on
the streets for that chance even for a fleeting moment to see him as he passes
by on his way to his different engagements. But
we hoped that we would have a better look of him that morning. I was
specially interested to hear him as I and my wife have five young people with us, our children whose
ages range from 14 to 21. Surely I said to myself, my alma mater, after years
of being away, will welcome me back and allow me to set foot on its hallowed
grounds and give me and my family the opportunity to see and hear the Pope
longer and closer.
When we arrived
at the designated Dapitan gate at UST at about 4:15AM, we saw the faithful
already lined up in the hundreds of thousands. Nobody and absolutely nobody from
UST was there to give instructions. There was great confusion where to line up
and many ended up finding out that they where in the wrong line, reserved only to
participants with IDs. I was greatly perplexed why if the gates opened at 4AM,
the line reserved for the public was not moving for hours.
Shortly before
the Bishops arrived, the lines began to move little, which gave us much hope that we will
be able to pass through UST’s gates. But it suddenly stopped. I thus decided to
inquire. After walking and passing so many of us still patiently waiting in our
designated line, I reached the gate and asked who was in charge. Yet no one and
absolutely no one was there at the gate who could give me a response. At that
point, I began shouting in anger, “Who is in charge? Who is in charge? If you
will not let us in, at least have the courtesy and Christian Charity to tell us
so that we can just wait for the Holy Father along the streets on his way to
UST.
But no one and
absolutely no one inside UST had the compassion and mercy to attend to us and
just abandoned us outside. Responsible people of my beloved alma mater knew
many of us in the hundreds of thousands were waiting outside of the gates. Yet
no one and absolutely no one among them had the compassion of a Good Samaritan
to attend to us. When my wife saw the Bishops being allowed in, she asked, “Were
they not able to meet the Pope already and even shook his hand twice? Had they
not had their meeting with the Pope already at the Manila Cathedral? Yet there
they are again, surely to be given choiced seats inside UST.
I saw a priest
among them and said to myself that I could at least request him to ask who is
in charge so that we may be given the courtesy of knowing if we can no longer
go in. Yet the priest who was most undeserving of his sutana, concentrating on
the anger I felt, did not even bother to give me any assistance and told even
the police around to arrest me. That very moment I came to the realization what
most of the Filipino clergy are to us. Like the Levite in the parable, most of
the Filipino clergy and even our Bishops, have seen us millions of us poor,
exploited and oppressed Filipino Christians and just passed on the other side of
the road and even have been in complicity with our oppressors and exploiters,
by blessing their alms, the scraps that fall from the table of the rich who
treat us like Lazarus, promising them heaven, when what the poor need as the
Holy Father has well said is to reform the unjust social structures
which perpetuate our people’s
poverty.
For how does one explain after hundreds of years of being a Christian nation, no
significant change has taken place in our coutry.
Most sadly, the Philipine
Church or at the very least, the dominant Philippine Church was never a Church
of the poor. Cardinal Tagle has issued the call to go to the peripheries as
our Holy Father has counselled us to do. But should not that have been done long
time ago? Did not our Lord Jesus proclaim himself that it was his mission to preach the gospel to the poor, that he was sent to heal the brokenhearted,
preach deliverance to the captives, recovering sight to the blind and setting
at liberty them that are bruised?
Greatly frustrated,
I and my family went to a friend’s house, nearby to wait again patiently in the
street, so that we could at least see the Holy Father, even for a fleeting
moment again as he goes back to the Apostolic Nunciature. It was at our friend’s
house that I heard the Holy Father on TV speaking before our young people
telling them that they have to learn to cry. Too bad, he has spoken too late. Had
the people at UST heard him earlier, they would not have left us and abandoned
us in the cold as it was beginning to drizzle already that early morning.
Indeed, it is only with a compassionate heart that we shall see the sufferings of
our brothers and be a Good Samaritan to them, taking care of them.
Indeed we should
be like Christ who wept and was moved to compassion so many times. But as I
exhibited that morning, we like Christ should learn also to get angry, like the
righteous anger He exhibited when he overthrew the tables and drove the people
out of the temple who transformed his Father’s house into a den of thieves. The
Holy Father’s visit in Manila and Tacloban has shown the great faith of the
Filipino Christian, that not even rain or storm could prevent them from hearing
the Holy Father’s message of hope. Indeed Filipino Christians have great faith that
the Lord Jesus will not abandon them and He is one with them in their
sufferings. Sadly, this great faith, aggravated by the erroneous teaching of
many of our priests for salvation only in the afterlife, has been exploited.
I however hope
and pray that the Holy Father’s message will indeed sink deep and move us Filipino
Christians not only to compassion but to righteous anger and collective action at
the prevailing injustice in our society, which has kept the majority of our
people poor. We have the numbers and we
can surely effect change. I hope and pray that Cardinal Tagle will lead us and put
to realization the age old message of our Lord Jesus Christ which the Holy
Father has challenged us to act on when he spoke at the Palace, to hear the voice of
the poor, to "break the bonds of injustice and oppression which give rise
to glaring, and indeed scandalous, social inequalities" and to reform
"the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the
poor".
