Two much ado seeming to spoil Pope Francis visit to the Philippines:
ONE: From what they see after pausing and zooming in the video footage of the visit, Pope Francis seemed to have refused Noynoy to Kiss His Ring. What’s the spin?
Pope Francis did not want Noynoy to kiss his ring, so it seemed twice when Noynoy met him as he arrived in the airport and for the second time when the Pope went to pay respects at Malacanang Palace. This was reported and discussed on TV after a video footage was voyeurized este analyzed.
Indeed TV viewers could get different ideas and opinion. A bad one is that Noynoy as Head of State does not know protocol. But why should Pope Francis refuse him when he did not when the Vice President kissed his ring? Three things come to mind: One, there is really nothing substantive or newsy about it, it is just being busesero of some people with selfish agenda; two, it is not exactly about protocol, watch the video (link supplied below) when former PM Shimon Peres of Israel and current President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine and Host Pope Francis welcomed them to the Vatican. The three had exchanged beso beso as a matter of cordial welcome among Heads of State and as gesture of trust and friendship.
Lastly the third point, it could be a personal thing both for the President and the Pontiff. To Noynoy being first and foremost a Catholic, it is the thing to do like making the sign of cross when entering a Catholic Church regardless of whether one is a janitor or the country’s President. But to Pope Francis, perhaps, just perhaps the feeling is that Noynoy does not have to do that for reasons of stature or feelings of affection like when he embraced warmly Cardinal Tagle. From the western tradition shaking hands it seems for Pope Francis suffices for two heads of state. However, Noynoy just did not get it the first time, so the next time they meet Noynoy tried again to kiss the Pope’s ring. The Pope I think finally gave up and allowed him to kiss the ring before he climb the plane for Rome.
If I am to make busisi of this attempt to call attention to an insignificant thing and elevate it to newsworthiness, I will say the power and symbolism of the Pope’s ring is about calibrated human goodness and wrong doing. Calibrated because for head of states or heads of government, the ring’s power to bless or forgive does not cover but exempts them because of the hugeness of the good they can do, or the enormity of wrong doings they can inflict on their people. A shepherd’s ring is for common members of the flock and may exclude the leader of the flock.
The links with the timing of the particular frames: Kissing the ring . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn9CaBEY8MA . . . ; beso-beso with heads of state, pope Francis as superstar AT 4:35 OBAMA; 4:51 SHIMON PEREZ; 4:55 Mahmoud ABBAS of PALESTINE; 12;54 the SYNOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ft7y6QzG4
TWO: It is uncalled for, even unfair for a Pope to imply or even suggest that Filipinos in general, the poor in particular breed like rabbits?
NOT REALLY for those minds capable of synthesis. What the international press (Google it) reported crossing continental divides actually says: “Catholics don’t need to breed like rabbits..”; “birth control ban doesn’t mean breed like rabbits..” ; “No Catholic need to breed like rabbits . . “ etc. Out of the 20 million results from Google I will guess nowhere has Pope Francis categorically said that “Filipinos are breeding like rabbits.” I can’t blame the very few wannabe nationalistic heroes who claimed Filipinos are alluded to because of the fact (by statistics) that the Catholic population comprises more then 80% of the total population which is probably much smaller now.
Albert Einstein was not a Pope but when he said that “God does not play dice with people’s lives” no Filipino then made a ruckus to claim that Einstein was suggesting that God was a gambler. Albert and Francis both have disciplined and synthezising minds, deductive in perspective. Both look at concepts and realities not as bedbugs or headlice but as elephants, in cosmic dimensions.
In the mid-eighties there was an Asian Catholics’ fervent wish for an Asian Pope to join the ranks of Italian, Polish and other European Popes.
After the bloodless peoples power revolt of 1986 (called EDSA I) this wish seemed to have increased in decibels and gained strength. Jaime Cardinal Sin, prelate hero of EDSA along with another popular Nigerian Francis Cardinal Arinze were mentioned in the international press as strong candidates to be successor to John Paul II. IT DID NOT HAPPEN FOR CARDINAL SIN. The purported evidence might be found in newspaper morgues covering the Cory Aquino era of governance to Cardinal Sin’s death due to diabetes complications during Gloria Arroyo’s incumbency. Jaime Sin at 76, had he not been too ill to go to Rome he could have been one of the candidates in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict. But and that is a big BUT, Cory and Gloria’s era of governance should also show in stark details what happened to Filipino Catholicism which may not be favorable to Cardinal Sin’s image as probable Pope. Freefall it was not but imperceptible slide.
And now after Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines, history so to speak is again on a mild wishful euphoria but I shall imagine it in another albeit bigger light as resurrecting a desire for a non-European but an Asian Pope in the person of Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle.
Pope Francis and Pope Tagle both with Jesuit “oxygen” in their veins as Shepherds of Rome
Searching the internet to see how Argentina and the Philippines as the two dots of papal source can somehow be connected; scanty information and knowledge feebly suggest there’s a connection even if only by a weak thread representing socio-economic and political dimensions. What happens in the Philippines may already have happened, are still happening or will surely happen in the future in Argentina and vice versa. If the search goes further to connect the dots with other countries in Europe for example France, Germany, or the UK, there is likely no connection in the past, the present or the future.
Mentally adventurous historians might conjecture –aside from just saying that bad history have tendencies to repeat itself– history like big jigsaw puzzle pieces are similarly cut and juxtaposed at different times to one or more countries across the globe. It is like saying that a piece of certain historical period in Argentina that nurtured the upbringing and maturity of a future non-Italian born Pope could have been a chunk placed in a particular period of Philippine history that also cared for and nurtured the first Asian Pope. Revisiting Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization in previous millennium might provide supportive evidence.
It is preposterous, heretic or even insane but at best laughable to say that: take the period in Argentina, the formative youth and priesthood years of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born 17 December 1936; study the country’s distinctive and systemic socio-economic and political ethos . Now do the same for the Philippines starting June 21, 1957 when Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle was born. Compare the symmetric events in the two countries: the broad but significant differences and similarities, the degree of poverty, the materialism of the elite, the national character of politics and disrespected politicians, huge public and foreign debts, the prevalence of Philippine squatters enclaves like Smokey Mountain, Baseco and Payatas and Argentina’s villas miserias like cidades de dios. Or the Archdiocese of Manila and the parish of Virgin de Caacupe in Buenos Aires.
In this millennium the typical age for election to papacy is from mid-seventies and older. Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Francis at age 77. If Luis Antonio will become Pope KahitSinongSanto at the same age, then he will be the first Asian Pope in 2035. A really long long way to go, thus giving Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle sufficient time to replicate in the Philippines the villa miseria parish of the Virgin de Caacupe where in the 15 years he has been walking the streets of the parish Cardinal Bergoglio had himself photographed with at least 25,000 parishioners.
To know whether Cardinal Bergoglio was really known to any of his parishioners, a woman at random was asked whether she knows the cardinal. The woman run, went inside her shanty and showed two pictures of her with the cardinal. Please read this link: http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-francis-gets-his-oxygen-slums
Today at age 58 Cardinal Tagle if he is to become the first Asian Pope, had at least 19 years to replicate in the Archdiocese of Manila the chunk of history of the Parish of the Virgin of Caacupe in the villas miseria of Buenos Aires. I may not know it but there might already be church-built (and financed) little chapels in the Baseco Compound, the former Smokey Mountain, Payatas, etc. That residents have photos or selfies showing themselves with priests or bishops doing pastoral work in their area. That there is no shortage of clergy to officiate masses in little churches as there are regularly officiating in big Mall Chapels. That mainit na sabaw or lugao kitchens had been established to mitigate the shame of eating pagpags or pangats.
Overseas in any country it is always a source of Filipino pride to see Pinoys populate choirs and the pews in Catholic churches. However, what Catholic foreigners see and admire may not mirror the moral aspects of elite Catholic faith at home.