Faith and Freedom

Thursday, 14 July 2011 06:14

Written by Neric Acosta

Religion, it is said, is organized to provide a sense of security in an otherwise insecure, uncertain world. The belief in things unseen or in a divine order in the universe or in various mythologies is translated into a corpus of doctrine or dogma, the better to explain or accept the mysteries of human existence and imbue meaning and direction to an ephemeral life on earth.

We affiliate ourselves with organized religion or are born into it by virtue of culture, tradition, history, family lineage, or choice. We become part of what an author calls a “mythic membership” in a congregation of believers. We derive solidarity and embrace belonging from this membership and validate such with the richness of rite and ritual, of text and symbols – and obediently follow leaders in positions of priestly authority, even infallibility.

Buffeted in a sea of uncertainty and fear, adherents of a particular faith or religion find anchor and solace in all these. Culture and custom are built around this search for stability and identity. That is why religion, even in an age of so-called secularism, is a powerful social force, driving individuals, communities and societies to act on the basis of faith, belief, or doctrine – and often, excluding those who think differently. Taken to a dangerous extreme, how many conflicts and wars over history have been caused or waged in the name of religion, even as every organized religion preaches tolerance, acceptance and respect?

These thoughts come to the fore today in light of the two defining flashpoints in the country’s life, causing deep divides and acrimony in the body politic. The first, of course, is the raging debates on the reproductive health bill in the legislature. Beyond the discussions that revolve around health policy and the availability of information and the access to services for family planning, the legislative measure is mired in polarizing debates, not least because the institution of the Catholic Church has long taken it upon itself to almost singularly prevent such a policy initiative from being enacted to law. The influence of bishops and priests is pitted against the demands of sectors or groups in society for state support for reproductive health information and services that serve to address family planning or AIDS prevention or sex education in schools.

The constitutional principle of separating Church and State is tested most bitterly in an issue such as this. The latter argues that it is government’s primary responsibility to act on addressing the needs of its citizens, regardless of creed or religious affiliation, via public policy and law – including needs that impinge on making informed individual choices on sex, sexuality, contraception and child-bearing. The Church refuses to yield ground on these fronts, arguing on account of doctrinal tenets that these are fundamentally issues of morality and ethics, which they insist are necessarily the domain of institutional religion and supersede the domain of public law.

How the pending vote on the RH bill in Congress will turn out will significantly determine not only the directions of public policy in this regard, but the future directions of social change for the country. The resolution of an issue like the reproductive health – and the larger implications on population, poverty and development – will be a watershed point in the nation’s life, redefining in critical ways the role of the state or of religion in an age of modernity, secularism and globalization.

The second issue that has hogged the nation’s headlines of late is that of priestly authority running afoul of avowed tenets of poverty and modesty, and what this represents for a country that is predominantly Catholic – and poor. Several bishops, as revealed by the Philippine Charities Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), sought direct assistance and received swanky sport utility vehicles from the previous administration. This kind of exchange or alliance between the institutions of state and religion gave rise to a transactional relationship that may have well have been a major factor in staving off serious opposition to the previous administration’s scandal-wracked government. The support of the Catholic Church was seen as crucial to the survival of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who faced numerous calls for her impeachment amid allegations of widespread corruption and electoral fraud.

To see figures of religious authority facing elected senators of the republic on a formal, televised probe into the use of government resources – in this case, expensive vehicles – for the use of church leaders in various dioceses makes for a seminal, if jarring, study in the continuing tension between binaries of institutional influence and control in a so-called transitional society such as ours. Traditional authority emanating from religious dogma or faith-based organization vis-à-vis modern authority deriving from the democratic exercise of an electorate’s choice of its leaders. Unquestioned power vis-à-vis accountable power. The ossified terms of customary, religious leadership vis-à-vis the imperatives of transparent, modern governance.

The directions of social change will not, of course, be as stark or clear-cut. Religion and tradition will continue to provide moral anchor and psychic security at the level of the individual and community in a world or dizzying change. But one thing is certain: as the bishops appearing before the Senate recognize, age-old moorings will have to adapt to this changing and more complex world of greater freedoms and more responsibilities.

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