EARLIER it was “Pagan Christians.” In his homily last Sunday in Italy it was “Christian parrots” that Pope Francis used to call Catholics who “go to mass every Sunday” but “don’t help the poor, don’t visit the sick… etc.”
This year’s feasts of the Sto. Niño and the Black Nazarene are in the books. Again, bishops gloated over these as tremendous expressions of the Filipino’s deep faith in God. We cannot begrudge that of bishops because they are there precisely to provide society with a religious and/or moral view.
But reality has other dimensions or other points to view from. Ritual worship, for instance, has a psycho-social dimension. Hence I can and must begrudge bishops, clergy and highly positioned laity for viewing these feasts exclusively as faith events or from a purely religious point of view.
Yes, there is a lot of faith involved in the devotion to Sto. Nino and to the Black Nazarene. But these rituals of faith, one must note, happen within a widely divided society where the majority are poor and the minority rich, yet most of them Christians or at least God-believers. Sorry, bishops, we are not united in Christ except maybe in words. The harsh reality is we are divided by the injustice or neglect we inflict on the “least of Christ’s brethren.”
This brings up the question “Where is this faith coming from” for, as my friend Arnold Van Vugt recently reminded us in SunStar Cagayan de Oro, there are supposed to be no marginalized members in a truly Christian society where Christ’s followers (imitators and not just worshippers) are supposed to take care of one another.
Because society is divided, the answer of the few devotees who are prosperous, educated and healthy would be different from that of the many devotees who are poor, ignorant and sickly. Could the latter’s devotion to Sto. Nino or the Black Nazarene perhaps be coming from the depths of their desperately poor lives that drive them to beg for God’s direct intervention?
This question is more crucial with the Black Nazarene. Where is the faith coming from when devotees trample on people and do not care who they hurt just so they can touch the image of the Black Nazarene with a piece of cloth? How can “learned” bishops call this an expression of faith when the Bible is clear about Christian faith being best expressed in good works towards others, clear about Charity topping Hope and Faith?
The Catholic hierarchy should undertake a serious search for the answers. By routinely declaring these “spectacles” as expressions of faith they blindside themselves from Jesus’ core message of love for one another and run the risk of building a community of what Pope Francis calls “Christian parrots.” That’s no community at all.