Wounded healers

TO Henri

Nouwen goes the cred it for the title that he placed though in the singular. No, this is not going to be a summary of that highly recommended, spiritually uplifting and pastorally important book. This is about the Philippine Church and our badly wounded nation.

I think that this has to start with us in the Church accepting our own woundedness. We bear scars, and there are also festering wounds afflicting the Body of Christ. This is very dramatically played out by Vigano’s attacks against Pope Francis, the long-running refusal of so- called “Traditionalists,” who insist they are Catholic but refuse to accept Vatican 2 and its reforms. But the Body of Christ is sore all over. Clergy abuse of the trust and confidence, especially of minors, is a gaping wound, and while the Church often loudly calls for “transparency” in state actions, there is a lot that is not transparent in our local Church in the Philippines: the handling of finances both at the parish and at the diocesan levels, the selection of members of the clergy for positions of responsibility and authority, the holdings of the Church in different corporations, etc. Too many secret deals, too many secret processes (“sub secretopontificio”), too many secrets in dicasteries and curiae.

But the Church must not be paralyzed into inaction by its own faults nor hindered by its frailties. After all, Jesus never promised the world a perfect Church. He was aware the Satan would sift the leaders of the Church like wheat, but when they had emerged from the test, they had to strengthen their brothers and sisters. He was aware that among his apostles there was jockeying for power. “Who is the greatest among us?” He also knew that in his company there would be traitors. “One of you will betray me.” It need not be Judas alone because anyone who has dipped his morsel in the dish with Jesus — and who, among us in the Church has not? — can very well be a traitor. Just after conferring on Peter the awesome power of the keys and declaring him the Rock on which he would build his Church, he chastises him severely — Get behind me, Satan — when Peter remonstrates against Jesus’ prophecy of the suffering and shame that awaited him. No, Jesus very well knew that he was leaving the world the treasures of heaven in earthen vessels. He was fully aware that he was sending forth as healers into the world those who themselves bore terrible wounds.

But throughout his ministry, Jesus addressed himself to the wounds of his people. He cured the sick, cleansed lepers and cast out the demons that visited untold misery on their victims. But there were social wounds to which he extended his healing hand. Tax collectors who were shunned by decent Jews became his closest collaborators, and prostitutes and public sinners could enjoy table fellowship with him. He heeded the pleas of despised Romans who begged for the healing of loved ones as much as heeded the entreaties of the Jews. And when he wanted to define the essence of office in the Church, he wrapped himself with a towel, took a basin and washed the feet of his followers.

The Church cannot and must not accept the woundedness of the Filipino nation as an ineluctable fact. Our country’s ills must be, for the Church, the plentiful harvest that awaits the ministration of laborers to do the reaping. While attempting to avoid a simplistic reduction of what, in fact, is a complex problem, one fact that stares us in the face is that of a polarized society: one group that enthusiastically (sometimes, rabidly) supports President Rodrigo Duterte, another that has anathematized him, and excluded even the mere possibility of any good from him. That fissure runs through every aspect of national life. And it is a polarization that feeds itself. The more viciously Duterte is attacked, the more tightly the ranks of his supporters draw towards each other, creating an impenetrable phalanx that can only be penetrated by a ministry that aligns itself not with any of the contending forces above but with the Word from above.

The Church has no right writing off any its members as beyond redemption, nor counting anyone as worthy of respect and solicitude. That would do violence to the nature of the Church, “the sacrament of the encounter with God.” It would in fact contradict the very essence of God: He for whom nothing is unsalvageable, nothing is beyond redemption. And when it must speak its prophetic word against extrajudicial killings, as it must do, it will, as with all prophets, do so with hope of the salvation both of the victims and of the perpetrators. If it must censure corruption in government and the coddling of the corrupt, as indeed the Church must, then the voices of the Church must do so never with arrogance, for they are not themselves beyond this fault!

The divide will only worsen when the Church takes sides. That is why it has been constant magisterial teaching that the Church will never align itself, overtly or covertly, expressly or by innuendo, with any partisan faction. When Benedict 16th received the credentials of the Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See, he had this to say:

“The Catholic Church is eager to share the richness of the Gospels’ social message, for it enlivens hearts with a hope for the fulfillment of justice and a love that makes all men and women truly brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. She carries out this mission fully aware of the respective autonomy and competence of Church and State. Indeed, we may say that the distinction between religion and politics is a specific achievement of Christianity and one of its fundamental historical and cultural contributions.”

In “DeusCaritasEst,” Benedict 16th writes what we cannot afford to pay any less heed to if we are to be faithful as Church:

“The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”

It would be good for clergy and laity together in the Philippines to be more attentive to the voice of Peter.