God save the Pope

Pope Francis is arriving next week to a crowd of Catholics ready to give him the warmest cheers. That the Pope is well loved in the Philippines is not surprising. 

Pew’s survey shows that 95% of Filipino Catholics have a ‘favorable’ view of the Pope. Among youth respondents of the recent Veritas Truth Survey, at least 84% feel “happy,” “blessed,” or “excited” that Francis is visiting the Philippines. Not bad for a religious institution faced with declining church attendance.   

But not all share the same level of anticipation. 

Some are skeptical and they have valid reasons for being so. The Pope is, after all, the head of a religious institution that continues to rule out the equal participation of women and the LGBT community in its leadership. For better or worse, commentators have taken up the task of exposing the theological conservatism of Pope Francis that betrays what appears to be his media-celebrated liberalism.

There are also those who wish to redeem Francis from misinterpretations. What I thought were cool Pope t-shirts recently became the object of institutional anathema for bearing “misleading” and “erroneous” statements. In a Baudrillardian sense, some defenders of the faith warn us that the Pope we may have fallen in love with does not exist in reality.             

So it’s either we save ourselves from the Pope, or we save the Pope from ourselves.            

But this dilemma is useless. The Pope is still well-loved and the more important question to ask is what makes him so among many Filipino Catholics. The answer unravels for us the lingering aspirations of today’s faithful. 

The answer is simple. The Pope’s actions speak louder than his own words or even the words of many of his Filipino clergy. In the past years, much of institutional Catholicism in the Philippines has involved itself with politics and the perennial condemnation of sexual immorality. All these have neglected the fact that at the end of the day – whether the issue is divorce, homosexuality, or reproductive health – the one who suffers is not an abstract social system but a real mother, child, or sister.  

In this light, to embrace the leper, to visit the sick, to kiss the infant, and to ask “Who am I to judge?” are powerful gestures indicating that the suffering individual now has the attention of the man in white. Therefore, to attempt to redeem the Pope from misinterpretations of his statements or to umask his conservatism misses the point of why he matters. 

Missing the point

Call it crass commercialism but those t-shirts nicely capture the sentiments of many Catholics today who are open to religious, racial, and even sexual diversity. When they were quashed, church officials missed an opportunity to read where many Catholics are coming from.  

My view is that like their counterparts elsewhere, many Filipino Catholics today do not care whether their beliefs and practices align with the doctrinal position of the magisterium. Especially among young people, many are convinced that right living is more important than right believing.

As a recent survey shows, a sizeable proportion of young Catholics disagree with the Church’s involvement in political issues, the Church’s positon on RH law, and the teachings that the use of contraceptives is sinful and that homosexual acts are morally wrong. But at the same time, many of these Catholic youth are drawn to volunteer work or community outreach where they find fulfilment of their spirituality. In my own study, I have called this religious disposition “Golden Rule Catholicism,” which I will elaborate in my next Thought Leaders piece.  

The attempt to save the Pope from misinterpretations regrettably antagonizes the many who are drawn to his visible moments of humility and sincerity. To me, these are attributes that characterize the condition of being Catholic especially for young people these days. They have found in Pope Francis that which they could not find in the oftentimes inaccessible rituals and promulgations of the Catholic Church, no matter how theologically profound they might be. Authenticity is what they have found in him.

If one thinks about it, to call Francis the People’s Pope is an implicit critique of the very religious institution he represents. Reminiscent of the times of the original St Francis, perhaps it is the institution that first needs to be saved. – Rappler.com

Dr Jayeel Serrano Cornelio is a sociologist of religion trained at the National University of Singapore and Lancaster University. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and is now the director of the Development Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University. Follow him on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio.