Imitating Jesse Robredo

Commentary
By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
10:03 pm | Sunday, August 26th, 2012


The praise showered on Jesse Robredo by people from all levels of Philippine society should be a high-volume wake-up call for our political elite. They should be asking, “If I die, will anyone cry for me, as thousands did for Jesse? Will I be sincerely mourned? Will people stand a long time in the rain to get a chance to view my body?” They may very well answer, “Probably not. My family will mourn and a few close friends, but the ordinary people won’t mourn. What have I ever done for them? Why should they mourn?”

We hope the love shown for Jesse in his death will awaken them to the great chance God has given them to serve His people, especially the poor. It’s not only politicians who should examine their lives, of course. We all must do so. Socrates told us, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

May we suggest some matters that our political leaders can look into should they decide to be more like our late interior and local government secretary?

Please look on the urban poor with the more caring eyes of someone like Jesse Robredo. He found friendship there and people he admired.

Please look at the immediate project Jesse was engaged in with the poor. Initially, it concerns in-city, on-site housing for approximately 5,000 poor families on Manila estero, including the Estero de San Miguel, that runs by Malacañang just a stone’s throw away. Other houses are to be built in Quezon City for families living in Doña Imelda and Gulod. This housing is new. The usual relocation move was to ship families to distant places, such as Calauan 100 kilometers away. Such relocation fractures families and limits children’s education.

Jesse was willing to allow new approaches to housing the poor, which are also recommended by housing experts, including Felino “Jun” Palafox and Dean Gloria Teodoro and Albert Zambrano of the Mapua Institute of Technology School of Architecture. Mayors and government housing agencies have opposed the new approaches because they shatter long-standing arrangements.

As I watched 10 young girls from Estero de San Miguel sing in Malacañang in honor of Jesse, I thought, these young children are as naturally gifted as any other children, but they are from poor families and live in slums, and will never realize their potential. They smile shyly now and cry as they sing “Hero.” What they and the children of our poor farmers, fishermen, tribal people and workers need is a massive shift of resources from some projects the country now supports to the welfare of the poor and near-poor, or at least 50 percent of our people.

Why will we spend approximately P30 billion to build an elevated highway connecting NLEx and SLEx, so people can get from a Clark Field-Subic Bay airport to Makati in less time than it takes now? When such an amount of money will go a long way to meet our school construction needs, provide books for all, and reward good teachers?

Why are we giving 40-80 hectares of land in the reclaimed areas off Parañaque and Pasay to casino gambling? Do we fully realize the social and political dangers of inviting into the country a vast increase in casino gambling? “A bad tree cannot give good fruit.” Instead of casinos, can’t we give 30 or so hectares of the land to our poor?

We ask our political leaders and our business and religious leaders to visit the urban poor areas and get to know the poor as real persons, like Jesse Robredo did. It doesn’t mean we will not see the petty thieves, drunks and cruel people who share the poor areas with the good men and women. We will also see that the poor are often their own worst enemies. They vote for unreliable politicians, for example. Find what is valuable among the poor and why Jesus has anchored our salvation to the help we offer the homeless, hungry, sick and thirsty poor (Mt: 25).

Lastly, Jesse believed that a strong national democracy needs a strong, democratic base among the poor. He would not work for a more prosperous nation without working to bring the poor along as co-beneficiaries with the well-off. If we want democracy, we must work for equality.



Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).

Open Letter For Mr. Mike Enriquez of GMA 7

15 Agosto 2012


Miguel Castro Enriquez
Senior Vice-President for Radio
GMA Network

Minamahal naming Ginoong Enriquez,

Pagbati!

Kami po ay mula sa iba’t ibang grupo ng mga maralita na naninirahan sa estero ng Maynila. Kami ay mga masugid ninyong tagapakinig.

Nitong mga nakaraang araw laman ng pahayagan, radyo at telebisyon ang usapin na pwersahang pagpapaalis sa mga maralita dahil kami di umano ang sanhi ng pagbaha sa lungsod. Ito ay bunsod din ng pahayag ng pamahalaan na papasabugin ang mga kabahayan ng mga maralitang hindi sasang-ayon sa paglipat sa mga relokasyon.

Nais po namin ipabatid na kami bilang masugid ninyong tagasubaybay ay labis na nasasaktan sa mga binibitiwan ninyong salitang masasakit laban sa mga kagaya naming maralita. Mariin namin kinokondena ang mga pahayag ninyo tulad ng, “hinayupak kayo! Hindi nagbabayad ng buwis, at kayong mga Iligal settlers dapat kayong pasabugin!.” Ito po ay napakingan namin miyerkules , Agosto 15, 2012, sa inyong umagang programa.

Ang inyong programa ay pinapakingan ng milyung-milyong Filipino at ang mga inilalabas ninyong komento sa radyo ay nakadadagdag ng masamang pagtingin sa mahihirap na katulad namin. Ang anumang mga salitang inyong nasabi ay hindi na rin maaaring burahin sa isipan ng mga tao. Hindi rin namin matangap na ang isang tulad ninyong respetadong broadcaster ay tila hindi pinag-iisipan ang mga gagamiting pananalita sa himpapawid.

Nais namin ipaalam sa inyo ang aming saloobin at mga ginagawa naming hakbang para maitaas ang aming kalagayan:

1. Batay sa isinagawang survey ng Urban Poor Associates, isang NGO na nagsusulong ng karapatang pabahay para sa mga maralita, 74% ng naninirahan sa mga estero ng Maynila ay may mga trabaho. Kami ay mga vendors, ang iba ay mga security guards sa iba’t ibang establisyemento, mga janitors, at iba-iba pa.

2. Ang aming mga lokasyon ay malalapit sa aming mga trabaho at ang aming mga anak ay nakakatapos ng kolehiyo.

3. Bagaman, may ibang walang trabaho kaya hindi nakakapagbayad ng direktang buwis. Sana wag natin kalimutan na bawat binibili naming noodles, sardinas at bigas kahit maliit lang sa iyong pagtingin ay may nakapataw na buwis.

4. Kami ay naninirahan sa mga lugar ng mga maralita ng mahigit pa sa 20, 30 o marami pang taon. Kami ay isang komunidad. Kami ay nagtutulungan sa panahong kami ay may karamdaman. Ang ganitong pagsasamahan o tinatawag nilang “Social Capital” ay hindi basta basta naililipat sa isang  relokasyon kagaya ng Gaya-Gaya o Calauan.

5. Matagal na rin hindi ginagamit ang salitang illegal settlers o squatters sa mga tulad namin dahil ito ay isang uri ng diskrimasyon. Kami ay tinatawag na informal settlers, ibig sabihin matagal ng naninirahan sa mga maralitang lugar. At naaayon sa batas ng Urban Development and Housing Act,  na ang mga kagaya namin ay nararapat ng mapaisailalim sa mga proyektong pabahay ng gobyerno.  Gusto rin namin ipaabot sa inyo na ang mga pabahay ng gobyerno ay hindi libre ito ay binbayaran din ng mga maralita sa mas mababang halaga.

6. Nais din namin kayong maimbitahan sa mga relocation site upang kayo mismo ang sumuri sa mga kalagayan ng pabahay ng gobyerno. Mahinang semento at marurupok na bubong.  Ng nakaraang habagat grabeng pinsala ang natamo ng mga taga-Isla Putting Bato na nailipat sa Rodriguez, Rizal. Lumubog ang kanilang kabahayan sa relocation site. Inilipat sila sa doon dahil danger area daw pero mukhang death zone ang pinagdadalhan sa mga maralita. Walang hanap buhay at nalalayo ang mga pamilya sa isa’t isa dahil kailangan ang ama o ina ay magtrabaho sa Maynila.

7. Ang aming hanay ay nakikipag dyalogo din sa mga kinauukulan upang maisagawa ang on-site na pabahay sa amin. Kasama namin ang Palafox Associates, Mga mahusay na arkitekto  sa pagdesenyo ng pabahay na angkop sa aming lugar. Sa katunayan, ang aming mga lugar ay natukoy na ng pangulong Benigno Aquino para sa on-site housing. Meron na rin inilaan pondo para dito ang pamahalaan. Kami naman ay nag aayos ng mga requirements kagaya ng pagsosoil test, DENR clearance at iba pa.  Inaanyayahan din namin kayo na magtungo sa aming mga lugar at ipapakita namin sa iyo ang mga hakbang na aming ginawa para sa pagsulong ng on-site na pabahay.

Ginagawa po namin ang lahat upang ayusin ang aming pamumuhay. Hindi man magaganda ang aming bahay at nananatili itong eyesore sa mata ng karamihan. Ang loob po ng aming tahanan ay punong-punong ng pagmamahalan, respeto, at nangangarap ng magandang bukas para sa aming mga anak.

Nais po naming ipaalala sa inyo na ang mga binabatikos ninyo sa inyong palatuntunan ay kapwa ninyong Filipino na naniniwala at nakikinig sa inyong programa.

Dahil dito nais namin kayong huminge ng public apology sa lahat ng mga maralita. Naniniwala kami na iresponsableng pamamahayag ang inyong nagawa dahil naapektohan nito ang aming pakikipag-ugnayan sa pamahalaan. Napapalala din ninyo ang stigma sa amin samantalang ginagawa namin ang lahat upang isaayos ang aming kalagayan.

Kami ay umaasa na inyong tutugunan ang aming mga hinaing dahil naniniwala kami na malaking bulto ng pamamayagpag ng inyong programa ay dahil sa aming mga maralitang tagapakinig.

Maraming salamat.


Lubos na gumagalang,

Filomena Cinco
Pangulo
Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Legarda

Ricardo Narcilla, jr.
Pangulo
United 311 Chrislam Association

Angelita Marasigan
Pangulo
Nagkakaisang Magkakapit-bahay ng Estero De San Sebastian

Luisito Ramos
Pangulo
Soler Compound Neighborhood Association of Quiapo


Cc:

GMA Chairman and CEO lawyer Felipe L. Gozon
GMA President  Gilberto R. Duavit, Jr

A hill on the Mohawk River

Commentary

By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer


Hundreds of gravestones in neat white rows cover the crest of a hill overlooking the Mohawk River in upstate New York. It may appear to be a military cemetery—the kind the United States leaves behind in all the countries in which it has fought—but the men buried here were not soldiers. They were nonviolent, peace-loving, and, it must be admitted, only a few looked very much like warriors.

The hill overlooking the Mohawk once held Iroquois villages where French Jesuits arrived by canoe in the 17th century to evangelize the Indians. The Jesuits had little success, though one young woman, Kateri Tekakwitha, will soon be canonized. The Indians tortured and killed some of the missionaries, including St. Isaac Joques.

Centuries later, the missionaries gained control of the land where the Indian villages had stood and built a shrine in honor of the French Jesuits. They named it Auriesville. The bones of the laymen working with the Jesuits and killed along with them have never been recovered. These lie somewhere on that hill or in the valleys around it, along with the bones of the Indian chiefs, the few converts the missionaries had made, the young warriors dead in the ceaseless intertribal wars, the Indian mothers and children, some of whom died of diseases brought by the Jesuits and other white men. Along with them are the remains of 500 or so New York Province Jesuits who have died since the 1970s and lie in the neat white rows.

They are all there in the sunshine with the trees, summer clouds, flowers and songbirds. Sadly, there are no traces left of the Indians.

My brother Ned is one of the men lying there, one of the most recent Jesuits to be buried. We came to visit and say our prayers. Then I walked back and forth through the long rows of gravestones, reading each of them; I knew those buried there almost as well as my brother did.

They were all types of men—some were missionaries sent to the Caroline and Marshall Islands and the Philippines; others were parish priests, superiors, authors, scientists, and teachers. There were men who ran labor schools, greeted guests in the novitiate, ran world-famous aquariums, men who campaigned for peace and others who campaigned against pornography. Sometimes other Jesuits didn’t appreciate a man’s work. Peace work was criticized by some of them. Some Jesuits were well-known, others were not. Many were quite eccentric: The Jesuits give their members so much freedom, it is the rare man who doesn’t end up somewhat free-spirited.

I looked up from time to time as I walked through the long rows and realized: This is beautiful country. There are lakes, mountains and a forest bulging with pine, elm and maple. There are deer, hawks, and small furry animals none of us could identify. There are dark blue rivers and farm land sweeping down to the river banks.

I think the Jesuits are content to be there together in that earth with the tiny wild daisies that grow among the graves and the songbirds that sit atop them.

When we were young my brother never dreamed he would end up on that hill. I don’t think he would have imagined being anything but a Latin-Greek professor. He worked eventually with Fr. Dan Berrigan in the peace movement and then he set up with friends a soup kitchen that has grown into a very effective social center for poor people in the Bronx. On his tombstone—if the Jesuits allowed brief summaries of people’s lives on their tombstones—might be the words: “He tried to make peace. He fed the hungry.”

We walked away with peace in our hearts, leaving the French Jesuits, the Iroquois and the more recent dead to God’s warm and calming care.

The last stanza of “Amazing Grace” could have been written about the Jesuits of Auriesville and the Indians of the Mohawk River: “When we’ve been there ten thousand years/ Bright shining as the sun/ We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise/ Than when we’d first begun.”

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. Please send your feedback to upa@pldtdsl.net.

An alarming sermon

Commentary
By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer


While in the United States, my wife and I heard a sermon one Sunday that at one point sent shivers up and down my spine. The priest talked of a meeting he had attended in Florida with 200 or so priests from different parts of the United States. He explained that the meeting had been called to discuss the new Mass Missal, but that it quickly carried over into more current problems – for example, the nasty controversy between the Vatican and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the dispute over the basic meaning of Vatican Council II.

It was a lovely June morning and many in the church were probably thinking of the US Open Golf Tournament that would end that afternoon.  The priest was saying that Rome, according to the priests at the meeting, acted incorrectly in its efforts to control the free speech and actions of the LCWR, and was wrong also in its belief that Vatican II merely restated traditional doctrine in language more suitable for the modern world, and did not lay the foundation for important future changes in teaching, practice and explosive new eras of evangelization.

The priest didn’t mention the Pope but talked of “Rome” and the “Vatican,” but in such serious matters who can speak for Rome if not the Pope? The criticism of the Pope sent shivers up and down my spine not because the criticism was on target but because it could be correct and that papal error was being discussed at a quiet Sunday Mass, as if it were a very ordinary matter.

It was unsettling for someone raised long ago in an Irish American parish in the Bronx. The stern face of Pope Pius XII granting our family indulgences stared down at us from our living room wall as far back as I can remember. Popes then were treated with touching respect. The times have changed, for sure; now we discuss charges that, if correct, would make the Pope a heretic.

The accusation that the Pope has misinterpreted Vatican II is the stuff of schism. As far as this author knows, the accusation is unparalleled in Church history. If the Pope has made a poor analysis of Vatican II and is guiding the Church on the basis of that analysis, we are most probably in trouble. We may have been going in the wrong direction for years and may continue to do so for years to come. Perhaps we should have guessed something was wrong when Rome put an end to the Theology of Liberation in the early 1980s. This theology was part of the Church of the Poor crusade that blossomed right after Vatican II as if it were the special concrete result of the discernment and prayers of the bishops at the Council.

Instead of Vatican II’s optimism at that time, we hear talk now of a “remnant” possibility, meaning Rome may be willing to see the number of the Church’s true believers shrink in the face of  secularism and other problems until only a small number of Catholics remain. It seems a gloomy future for the Church that emerged with such hope from the Council in 1965.

One problem may be that Rome doesn’t appreciate the local Churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America and even the Church in the United States. Rome may be pessimistic about the future of the European Church, but the Asian, African and Latin American Churches are not pessimistic. Rome doesn’t seem able to allow the hopeful experience of these non-European Churches to guide or, at least, to help guide its thinking.
I looked at the people around me, including my wife. They didn’t seem upset in any way. There was less coughing than is usually heard during a sermon. At the end of the sermon the congregation applauded. I asked my wife later what she made of the applause, and she said it might have been that the people were grateful they had been taken into the priest’s confidence and told the truth, at least as far as the priest knew it.

How did the Church arrive at this situation?

I think that ever since Vatican II, the Holy Spirit has intended to guide the universal Church through the Churches of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The intent of the Spirit, therefore, cannot be discerned by examining the Church in Europe. Immediately after Vatican II in 1965, there arose in Latin America the movement of faith centered on the poor called the Church of the Poor. In Asia in 1970, Pope Paul VI attended a meeting of Asian bishops in Manila, and the Federation of Asian Bishops Conference was started. It described the Church’s approach to the ancient religions and cultures of Asia as one of respect, and of eagerness to work with them on the great poverty of Asia. Work with the poor seems the common characteristic of Latin America and Asia.

In the Philippines, our religions and political futures are intertwined. Both must focus on the poor, it seems, if we are to have a peaceful, progressive and just country.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates with e-mail address upa@pldtdsl.net.

Trouble brewing

Commentary

By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:34 am | Monday, June 11th, 2012


My wife and I sat in the back of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, waiting for the social anthropologist Mary Racelis to arrive from Staten Island. It was a rainy weekday, so there were few people in the cathedral, mostly people like ourselves sitting quietly in their pews appreciating the soft amber lighting and prayerful silence. St. Patrick’s is the largest neo-Gothic church in the Americas, but it has always had a simple message for the people who come through its doors: “You are at home here. Whoever you are, you are in your Father’s house.”

It is hard now, however, with all the controversies in the Church, to sit at ease in the pews. The following stories and issues show in some ways how troubled our Church is. We didn’t go looking for these problems. New York is a world center of information. Every issue makes its voice heard here one way or another. You don’t have to look for issues in New York; they will find you.

We watched a TV documentary titled “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican,” which tells the story of seven women who were ordained Roman Catholic priests (validly but illicitly, according to Canon Law) and their plans to have more women priests and, eventually, more decision-making power in the Church through women bishops and cardinals. The seven women, who seemed mature, well-educated and articulate, were ordained by German bishops in the international waters of the Danube River. The women tell their life stories in the film. Nearly all say they had wanted to be priests since they were young girls; they believe God had been calling them to be priests, they said.

There are well over such 100 women priests in the world, and there are groups of women planning how to have more women priests and more women in powerful roles in the Church. They say that the Church would be a more tolerant and loving home for men and women if women had a hand in making the basic decisions. This must be an alarming development for Church leaders who have ordered Catholics to not even discuss women’s ordination.

The Vatican’s sharp criticism of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious—and, in a lesser way, of the Girl Scouts and Caritas International—is hard to understand. The nuns, for example, have been judged heroes in their lives of poverty and service of the poor by the American public. Ordinary men and women cannot understand why the Vatican can berate the nuns so publicly. The Vatican says the nuns have followed a pattern of “corporate dissent”—that is, they have, for example, not gone along with the American bishops in strong condemnations of same-sex marriage, or abortion aspects of President Barack Obama’s National Health Act. Americans tend to see this controversy as one that involves free speech and democracy, which are so highly valued throughout the world these days, as seen in the Arab Spring. The Vatican admits that the nuns are wholehearted warriors for justice and peace issues.

We saw an Italian movie titled “Habemus Papem,” which tells the story of a very personable and pastoral cardinal who is elected pope. Before he goes out on the balcony to meet the crowds in St. Peter’s Square, he has anguished second thoughts. He refuses to go out and manages to elude his aides and live with ordinary people for a number of days. While listening to conversations about their lives, he says to himself: “Why does the Church have difficulty understanding so much in the world these days?”

He returns and goes out on the balcony to meet the crowds. He tells them there are very many things to be fixed in the Church, but he is not the one who can fix them. He leaves the balcony and the movie ends.
An article by a Maryknoll priest which is circulating in New York claims that the basic argument in the Church today is over the meaning of the Vatican II Council. Persons who can be identified with the Vatican believe that the Council put traditional doctrine in a form more acceptable to the modern world, but it didn’t change or alter doctrine or tradition. Others say the Council not only found more appropriate language for its doctrine, but also went beyond that in believing that tradition in the Church can be “a foundation upon which faith can continually build and grow as its context changes.”

The discussions will come to a head in October, when there will be a Synod of Bishops in Rome to discuss “New Evangelization for the Transmissions of the Catholic Faith.” It will inaugurate a “Year of Faith.”
Ordinary Catholics in the back pews of St. Patrick’s will have a difficult time finding their way through the controversy. We suspect that many bishops will also have problems. What will it all mean for the Philippines? We hope it all leads to a Church that is more focused on the poor and becomes in time the Church of the poor.

At last Mary Racelis arrived, and we headed out into the rain to visit old friends at Fordham University and do some shopping. The real meaning of Vatican II would have to wait.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates.

Cleaner alternative offered to Tondo charcoal makers

By Noli A. Ermitanio
Philippine Daily Inquirer


Smoke gets in their eyes—and darkens the air over the city—every time the residents of Ulingan in Tondo, Manila, try to make a living.

But the community, which got its name from its 15-year-old charcoal-making industry, now a backyard venture for some 150 people, may finally be warming up to change.

Cleaner change, to be exact. Ulingan, a neighborhood within Barangay 105, has been chosen as a pilot area for a project that will test the viability of smokeless kilns, or “pugons,” a technology that can significantly reduce the polluting effects of what is traditionally a messy, toxic process of producing uling.

At least seven community leaders recently underwent orientation at a facility in Silang, Cavite, and an initial batch of smokeless kilns would soon be installed for them, according to the nongovernment organization, Urban Poor Associates (UPA).

The project is a joint initiative of the UPA and the Silang-based 1M Agro-Fuel Development Ventures, with the support of the archdiocese of Manila and the National Housing Authority.

UPA volunteer Jessa Margallo said charcoal-making remains a stable source of income for residents of Ulingan as households seek cheaper alternatives amid the rising cost of cooking fuel, mainly liquefied petroleum gas.

About 15 residents started this backyard business in 1997, using scrap wood collected by scavengers. Through the years, it has grown profitable enough to attract even outsiders to build their own pugon in the area.

The process is relatively simple: Scraps of wood are placed in earthen kilns, covered with sheets of galvanized iron and soil, and then heated by fire from underneath. It takes about 10 to 12 days to carbonize wood this way.

According to Margallo, Ulingan currently produces around 6,000 sacks of charcoal out of 360 tons of scrap wood each month. A charcoal-maker can sell each sack weighing 15 to 18 kilos for P180 to households and food establishments, and earn an average monthly profit of P6,000.

Before going into charcoal-making, resident Ariel Malalay used to do odd jobs, including picking through trash for recyclables sold to junk shops.

But since setting up his first pugon in 2000, Malalay had been able to support a family of six. Uling, he said, had kept his four young children in school and even allowed his wife, Irma, to open a sari-sari store.
“We got by through hard work,” he said with pride.

Their charcoal business now employs some of their neighbors. “Either we pay them in cash or we give them a share from what we produce,” Irma added.

But their methods remain stuck in the dirty past. The residents themselves admit that their children often get sick from all the smoke.

“It’s really suffocating,” Ariel said. “We sometimes put on masks, but they still prove useless with all the thick smoke.”

“Our kids would sometimes beg us to just leave this place,” Irma added.
Being in the middle of an urban sprawl, Ulingan has inevitably been the subject of complaints from residents in nearby areas. A few years back, the environment department and Manila city government shut down some pugons for violation of the Clean Air Act.

But despite this crackdown, old-style kilns continue to operate. “Since the government can’t offer an alternative, (authorities) can at least ask the residents to control the smoke,” said Marlon Llovido, the UPA coordinating officer who pushed for the introduction of smokeless kilns.

Developed by Juan Marquez of 1M Agro-Fuel, a smokeless kiln is made of concrete and basically traps smoke through a pipe for conversion into water vapor.

The new system also involves a machine that cuts the wood into uniform sizes, with the finished product coming out “like donuts,” according to one resident who saw a demonstration in Silang.

UPA said the long-term project envisioned for Ulingan would require an investment of around P2.7 million. This would include a facility that could house 10 smokeless kilns, a liquid smoke catchment system, and a warehouse.

“We will now check if these new kilns could be sustainable,” Llovido said.

UPA hopes that apart from the technology transfer, Ulingan residents can also form cooperative to further develop their businesses. It can reduce their dependence on loan sharks, for example, Llovido added.

“This is one way for the urban poor to be empowered and be able to stand on their own feet,” he stressed.

Nuns, bishops, and ‘King Lear’

By: Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer


Just as the pain of pedophile priests and sex scandals was easing in the Catholic Church, along came another possibly more unsettling problem: the Vatican’s harsh criticism of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in the United States. The LCWR coordinates the work of 80 percent of that country’s nuns.

The Vatican, after acknowledging the nuns’ fine work in helping poor people, criticized them for not condemning, as the bishops had, same-sex marriages and President Barack Obama’s National Health Act, which threatens to require Church institutions to pay for birth control and abortion services. The leaders of the LCWR will meet at month’s end to frame their response. The Vatican appointed an archbishop to oversee the actions of the LCWR until the matter is resolved.

There is no question who the general public supports in this debate. There have been six or seven articles in the New York Times alone, defending the nuns. Nicolas Kristof, an NYT columnist, wrote: “If people were asked who has more closely emulated Jesus’ life, the average sister or the pope, the nuns would win hands down.”  It’s not exactly the point at issue—the Pope might agree with the statement—but it indicates how much people admire the nuns for their lives of service and how poorly they regard the bishops and their claims of authority.

There are articles in newspapers telling of the nuns’ work in New York City with the poorest and most endangered women—those who have been trafficked, drug addicts trying to recover, recently released from prison, beaten by their husbands, pregnant without family support, homeless, or prostitutes trying to start a new life.

The nuns I talked with said that they were not surprised by the Vatican’s tough words and that for a long time, the bishops and nuns had been drifting apart. They feel they have changed with the times while the bishops have not. The LCWR prays and reflects for long periods before it makes decisions, the nuns also told me. It takes into account the charism of the nuns (the purpose for which they are instituted), the pros and cons of the issues, and the nuns’ individual convictions. It is painful, the nuns said, to do all this only to be told they have done something wrong and should follow instead the opinion of bishops who have no deeper understanding—maybe far less understanding—of the problem than the nuns do.

A nun suggested I read Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” saying it might help me understand the viewpoint of the nuns. In the play, King Lear decides to retire to some degree and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He tells them he will give the biggest share of land and wealth to the daughter who loves him most.

The two elder sisters tell the old man they love him, “more than eyesight, space, liberty, life, race, beauty and honor.” The old king gives them huge tracts of his kingdom. The youngest daughter, Cordelia, says she loves him as a daughter should, but since she will soon marry, she cannot love with all her heart. The king comments, “so young and so untender,” and swears he will never care for her again.

The cranky, arrogant and foolish old man soon finds he has made a huge mistake. The two elder sisters and their husbands try to oust the king completely. Cordelia helps him, but in the process is killed. In the last scene of the play the old king kneels beside Cordelia’s body and cries: “Why should a horse, a dog, a rat have life/and thou no breath at all? Thou’ll come no more. Never, never, never, never, never.”

There are lessons for everyone in the Vatican-LCWR dispute, but especially for those given great authority in the Church and government. Tradition has shaped two descriptions of how men and women in their high positions should act: Public officials are regularly called public servants, and the Pope, as the highest authority in the Church, is called servus servorum Dei, or servant of the servants of God.  The word “servant” best describes what people in authority should be.

In a democracy the people give authority to mayors and presidents, expecting these officials to act as servants (katulong) for the citizens. Officials are not the people’s bosses, though you might not realize that listening to them talk or watching them act. They are charged with helping citizens build a safer, more equitable and prosperous country by listening to how the citizens want to do this, and by arranging the appropriate activities.

In a democracy, and in the Church, authority is expected to guarantee that the poor are given priority. “As they have less in life, they should have more in law,” President Ramon Magsaysay once said. Officials are required to help the poor. If the poor request housing and the government can provide it, the government official in charge must provide it in the way the people want, unless there is something seriously wrong with the type of housing planned by the poor.

Authority is given to men and women for service. Christians can look to Jesus’ action at the Last Supper when he washed the feet of his apostles, as described in the Gospel of John, to understand this truth.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates with e-mail address upa@pldtdsl.net.