Christianity is About Embracing the Truth

I came across a feature story in one of our leading newspapers detailing how Filipinos can get started with another 500 years of Christianity. It began with how we should keep alive our time-honored religious traditions and customs, how our May festivities should venerate our Blessed Mother, and what to do when we troop to churches to say our novenas to our favorite patron saints.

Yes, we’re a people always proud of our being Catholic for a good 500 years since the Spanish conquistadores and missionaries set foot on our soil in 1521. Yes, we threw out a dictator in a bloodless “people power” revolution in 1986 invoking Mary’s wondrous “intercession”. Yes, we Filipinos are proud of the fact that more than 80% of our country’s population is Catholic. We’re proud that aside from East Timor, we’re the only Christian nation in Asia. But should we Filipinos be proud of all these? Should we? I don’t think so.

Hard truths

First off, our “brand” of Catholicism is, at best, ritualistic. It has been like that for as long as anyone can remember. We Filipinos think we’ve fulfilled our obligations as Catholics simply by going to church on Sundays, having our newborns baptized, preparing our kids for their First Holy Communion, holding hands and hyperventilating when we sing the “Our Father” at Mass, organizing marching bands, fireworks displays and processions in honor of our parishes’ patron saints, and risking life and limb as we join the procession of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila (a yearly Holy Week spectacle by any standard). We think we’re Catholic just by doing all these.

The truth is: we Filipinos should be ashamed of ourselves when we declare to the world that we’re Catholic or Christian. Why? Just take a look at how our leaders run our country’s affairs! They’re running our country on lies and half-truths. For example, spokespersons and spin doctors of our government say our hospitals can manage and treat the number of people afflicted with Covid-19. They say they were doing their best to stem the tide of transmission. Hogwash!

The truth is that the number of cases has overwhelmed our hospitals to the point of exhausting our underpaid doctors and nurses. What is worse, more than 38,000 (including our health care workers) have died in tents and parking lots waiting to be admitted.

Our top-ranking officials allowed red tape to rule over their obligation to urgently purchase vaccines early in 2020, disallowing the private sector and local government units to buy these vaccines on their own. The officials’ agenda: make money out of such red tape at the expense of the lives of their countrymen.

Take at look at how one ambitious candidate for the presidency had the temerity to say in an interview that his father’s ill-gotten wealth and heinous crimes were all “lies” concocted by his family’s enemies. This candidate had the nerve to tell viewers that his father did nothing wrong when he declared martial law in 1972 until he and his family were exiled to Hawaii. The truth is that his entire family has had an agenda all their lives – to stay in power perpetually. (Indeed, “agenda” is a word we’d want to avoid like a plague.)

Sad truths

Take a look at how our supposed leaders run our country by being entirely detached from reality (ditto for their supporters). They say our government is a sovereign state and will never allow other states to meddle in our affairs. They say that anyone involved in corruption will be fired.  Truth is: the highest official of the land has assumed the role of a “lawyer” for those involved in nearly every anomalous government transaction! Due process is literally suspended by the thousands of extra-judicial killings in which the police are involved. The constitutional authority of the Senate has been undermined. Press freedom is under siege.

When our journalists write that opposition leaders were jailed, the mass media were shut down and many others were tortured and killed by the military when martial law was declared many years ago, many react and say: nah, that didn’t happen. In fact, textbooks are awash with revisions of Philippine history during the martial law era – they want us to believe that all good things took place at that time. Unbelievable!

The uneducated among us think the current regime is a gift from heaven as evidenced by the high ratings it has earned in popularity surveys. Many of us just don’t get it! (It’s like saying: oh, I believe normal human beings have three eyes or apple trees bear oranges, or a spoon looks very much like a fork.)   A lot of things are messed up in our very Catholic nation! Most of our Catholic brethren live in virtual reality.

Truth is: Filipino piety has little or nothing to do with everyday living. On Sundays, most men hear Mass, and then from Mondays to Saturdays, they visit their two or three mistresses. On Wednesday, our “religious” women spend time in church and pray the novena to our Mother of Perpetual Help. But most of days of the week, they gossip about their neighbors. That’s how it is in these islands.

Seeing and embracing

I do think being Catholic/Christian means seeing and embracing the truth – that is, truths and facts over which we have no control. But it takes a lot of humility to embrace the truth, and that’s the hard part. Things will probably go better in our country’s affairs when our leaders and the majority of our Christian population realize one day we should all eat humble pie and admit we’ve acted like idiots or something.

Perhaps, God will find a way to make our country’s government leaders – who claim to be Catholic/Christian – not only see the truth, but also embrace the Truth (with a capital “T”). Most certainly, God who is the Way, the Truth and the Life will teach them how to humbly right the wrongs engendered by unjust and corrupt systems. We Filipinos have a habit of surrendering everything to Him after we have done all we can and still could not change things one bit – we call it “pagpapaubaya ng lahat sa Diyos.” I personally believe God will turn things around – whether they be through His permitting or ordaining will.