blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The 1970s may be what some 40yish-50yish Pinoys would consider as their "Wonder Years". In a Marcosian age, where things were politically hushed up (and there was practically no entertainment whatsoever), Holy Week for us kids meant going to church (more accurately churches) in our sturdy, tank-like Vauxhall (you see we had a Brit car then). This also meant doing the Stations of the Cross.  Our grandparents who remembered the 13 Churches of Old Manila would regale us with tales of how they spent their Holy Week. On Good Friday, we all went to Pasig (which was a town then) and watch the Roman Catholic procession. If it were not proper Roman Catholic catechism from my mom, I would think those Catholic icons were straight out from a Dracula movie! Nonetheless, I always, until now, think parading those giant nails by which Jesus was pinned to the cross is too much for me. But that is Roman Catholic piety! My family is not 100% Catholic since some family members were Anglicans, ...

Garry Wills, an ex-Jesuit seminarian, masterful political historian of Nixon and Roman Catholicism wrote a series of controversial books in recent years. These are "Papal Sin", the apologetic and still noncorformist "Why am I Catholic?", "What Jesus Meant", "What Paul Meant", "The Rosary" and "What the Gospels Meant" Common to all these books is that they skewer Catholic stereotypes. While I believe that Wills is still largely on the orthodox side of the fence (hey he ain't a Jefferts-Schori Episcopalian!), he does make good Lenten reading. BTW the books (except the latest tome on the Gospels) are on sale at 50 pesos each at National Bookstore. I believe that they are too "heretical" for Pinoy Catholic tastes that NBS had to put them on sale. For I believe that Lent means skewering traditional Catholic stereotypes. In "Why am I Catholic?" Wills argues that Papal primacy evolved as the Spirit moved the...

The genius of the Catholic Church is that it can update its practices and expressions of belief no matter how long that may take. Paradoxically the Benedictine papacy has made great strides in recovering the traditions that Vatican II lost. But in this context, we read that Roman Catholic bishops in Italy want that there should be a fasting from electronic gadgets for Lent. And this includes SMS texting and iPods! Earlier on the Vatican released an updated list of the Seven Deadly Sins. Since I have a bit of traditionalist streak, I would prefer to use the old appellation "The Seven Cardinal Sins" :-) The Philippines has had one and we seem to be haunted by him still. The new list has drug trafficking, environmental destruction and obscene wealth on top of the old luxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia ira etc. The public saw this as a novel attempt by the Benedictine church to remind the planet that sins still matter. Some in public were made to reflect and some ridiculed t...

Anthropologists of religion say that once a religious ritual or practice becomes non functional, it dies. Sometimes it takes a war (the old religious rites of Intramuros died when the churches there were destroyed in 1945) or cultural changes (The Latin Mass is an example. When Vatican II closed, it signified a real religious cultural revolution. Very few lay today Catholics would trade in the vernacular Mass for the Latin Mass. Catholics today barely know a word of liturgical Latin.) Since Vatican II, priests have been creative enough to update lenten practices. A few diehards tried to preserve the pre-Vatican II rites and this resulted in a major international schism (the first since the Reformation). But it wasn't the Vatican II church that split into a zillion denominations. It was the conservatives. It was a sort of Protestantism in reverse. The Vatican II Catholic Church is one. So we see new updates to Good Friday practices especially in Manila. The "pasyon" has be...

Dear Bishops, Priests, Pastors, Self proclaimed "apostles" "brothers", "sisters" and "Messengers of God" As a Christian of the Catholic tradition in our country, I am sickened by the divisions you show because you have to find the "truth" but in reality you are just playing politics. Why should laypeople like me complain? The Christ of the Gospels have called you "whitewashed tombs". There is a way that you can all get out of this mess and ask God for forgiveness. I have always admired Pope John Paul II's decision to get all believers to pray at the holiest place in Italy, irregardless whether they believed in a mnotheistic God, or plytheistic gods or whatever. The present Pope, Benedict XVI then John Paul's PanzerKardinal did not very approve of this but John Paul evidently moved by the Spirit, pushed on. In 1986 John Paul called everyone to pray at Assisi at the Church of Saint Francis, the saint of peace, nature and...