BISHOP Pablo Virgilio David, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), admonished the priests, bishops and other church leaders to take heart their role in the Church as representatives of the "Synodal God in the Body of Christ" and not only as "ordained ministerial priesthood" who are lording it over the church members.
"While bishops are indeed successors of the apostles, this title might make us forget that we succeed the apostles precisely to lead the Church to grow into a community of missionary disciples, meaning, an apostolic community," said David in his homily during the closing of this year's National Synodal Consultation.
The meeting, which ran from July 4 to 7, 2022, was an occasion for the church officials, church worker and laity to discuss the various issues affecting the Catholic Church in the current times.
As the Catholic Church concluded its celebration of the 500th Year of Christianity in the Philippines with the "Year of Mission," David reminded the church leaders that the mission "is not a mandate only of missionary congregations; it is the business of the whole Church, both local and universal."
"In fact, we can dare say a Church that is not in mission is not a Church," David added.
The CBCP official said that "a Church that practically reduces the priesthood to the ordained ministerial priesthood will never grow into a missionary Church."
"In that mode of thinking that has practically revived the clericalization of the temple priesthood of the old dispensation, the laity will never imagine themselves as part of what Vatican II calls common priesthood of the faithful," David said in his homily.
"They will tend to remain as followers of the clerics whom they will expect to play the role of 'Alter Christus,' as if they had been ordained to substitute for Christ," he added.
According to David, it would be "most tragic" for the Church if the bishops and priests neglect "the role of nurturing the rest of the Church to grow in the common priesthood of the faithful."
"We, the ordained, are supposed to be facilitators of that communion that alone can empower the whole body of the faithful, ordained and lay, for participation in the life of the corporate Christ, and represent him in our shared mission to witness to the liberating good news of the kingdom of God," he said.
"This will never be realized if our laity are conditioned to think of themselves permanently as followers, or worse, as onlookers," David added.
David also warned church leaders and priests that if they continue to define themselves as "shepherds" and the laity as "flock," the latter "will never take part in the Church's corporate mission of shepherding the last, least and lost in this world."
"In that kind of a paradigm, they will clericalize us, put us on pedestals and expect us to evangelize them, to lead them, to bless them, to tell them what to do, because we call ourselves their Christ substitutes," said the bishop of Kalookan.
The CBCP head emphasized that this kind of thinking can bring disillusionment to the laity, particularly when "they hear of clerical administrative and sexual abuses, when they get to realize that we are as human as they are."
"In a clericalistic Church, the laity will never think of themselves as part of a Church that evangelizes, saves, and leads, a Church that is gifted to give, blessed to be a blessing, a community of disciples in mission, like 'salt of the earth and light of the world,' or like a little yeast in a mass of dough," he said.
Despite being predominantly Catholic, political observers have seen how the Catholic Church seemed to lose its "political clout," as shown in the victory of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son and namesake of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, whom the Catholic Church helped overthrow in 1986 through the EDSA People Power Revolution.
Dr. Jayeel Cornelio, an Ateneo de Manila University associate professor, said the Catholic Church is "still behaving very old school."
"I think their influence lies somewhere other than the national stage," said Cornelio in a report from Bloomberg.
"History can teach a lesson. Maybe the national stage isn't where they should be concentrating now and should return to the community level. A big majority of Filipinos, most of whom are Catholic, voted for Bongbong. All the pontification fell on deaf ears," added the professor.
