CONFESSIONS OF A RECOVERING CATHOLIC

By Edwin de Leon

During my parochial high school years, practically everyone was on the same socio-economic level.  This helped us to be less sensitive with our lot. The staff was distant and generally aloof; rapport in an all-boys school with mostly women teachers is not the ethos promoted in Catholic schools. The priests of the day were nothing more than a “Guardia Civil” pacing the corridors,  looking for errant souls, or carrying on “retreats” to scare the crap out of us.  There was no sliver of humour with this crowd, surly and dour as they come.  My bias kept me unenthusiastic about the priesthood. As an early religious skeptic, I was singularly alone in my thoughts. When you are in a “religious gulag,” you are captive in your skepticism.

 I would argue that the Philippines is in that unenviable position.  Years and years of being a colony gave us submissive DNA. On top of this, our religious preoccupation reinforces our inferiority complex.  “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you…” one of many ( kneeling, bowing, ” Kyrie eleisons “)   “liturgical flattery,” recited thousands of times, to an imaginary icon, has all the potential of transforming some people into an empty shell.  The so-called “EDSA People Power” was nothing more than a docile expression of our servility and timidity. And would you know it, it was led by a Cardinal and a bevy of nuns. ( If we had a Thatcher or a ( Golda) Meir  in our midst, we would not have had Marcos heading to Hawaii for R & R )

 I suspect our overall diffidence’s impact is our continuing laggard position among ASEAN countries regarding the economy, education, and culture.  Instead of strutting their stuff or being head over heels with Karaoke and telenovela,  our young people ought to learn from the young pro-democracy activists of Hong Kong.  Then maybe we will not get the kind of treatment China is heaping on our hapless lot. We are the regions laughing stock.

In my subsequent tenure with other Catholic schools ( either as a student or faculty ), it was common for clerics to assume a school’s administration, regardless of whether they were trained educators.  There was a tendency for the rest of the staff to pander to these mostly foreign clergy.  They see themselves as a favour to the locals or, as in some cases, the white folks have a superiority mindset in the presence of people of colour.   At any rate, one of the by-products of “obey and submit” is a populace steep with authority bias.  A white man, a titled person, a rich man, has instant credibility in the eyes of people who  have been taught to obey and submit throughout their lives.

 “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”

Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, and Johannesburg.

Literally or figuratively, I would argue that we have lost far more than land,  and that is the generations of Filipinos who fell for “religious colonialism.”  https://opinion.inquirer.net/111694/praying-wrong-god > PDI, March 13, 2018,   We have been asking nothing significant or extraordinary, just maybe a longer life expectancy  ( North Koreans live longer than we do !) or just good governance. Despite the billions of unanswered and repetitive prayers, we have developed a dependency,  forever waiting for things to get better.

 We have become victims of the “Truman Syndrome,” a delusion that we are players in a reality show controlled by a deity that we can pray to for favours or that we can venerate for Brownie points.  As one would have guessed it,  the self-proclaimed infallible gurus at the Vatican has put a sweetener ( or an escape clause depending on context ) by invoking ” free will”  ( there is none, but that’s another article ).  It is a further insult to many of our poor countrymen, the ones who most suffer greatly from millennia of theological sophistry. And so on it goes; the traveling Truman Show has now moved to Africa to continue its relentless assault on human frailties.  Africa? Why not go to China, with 1.3 billion ( and less than 1% Catholics ) people. The mostly atheist Chinese do not take kindly to supernatural mambo-jumbo. “Zhù hǎoyùn”  Good luck!

It is a fair question on how an entire population gets sucked into a religious vortex and seems unable to get out of it.  Vietnam, on the other hand, was also in a spiritual orbit while under the French.  Now, after a victorious war with the U.S., confident Vietnam rapidly took itself out of this religious chokehold and became one of the most atheistic countries in the world.  It has now surpassed the Philippines and many ASEAN countries in their economy. Its citizens’ special effort is to compete in direct foreign investment destination, manufacturing, and tourism.  By all accounts, they are having tremendous success.  It was as if somebody held their shoulders and shook them out of delirium.

Reality has been staring us in the face for generations.  It does not take rocket science to see how religion has poisoned humanity. An ongoing stain in human history, from the Crusades and Inquisition into the wars and genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, Armenia, Rwanda,  East Timor, Myanmar, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc.  Religious conflicts between Shia and Sunni, Rohingya and Bengali,  Protestants ( at war even with themselves ) and Catholics, Hutu and Tutsi, Hindus, and Sheiks, Muslims and Christians, Palestinian and Jews, etc., etc.

 Between 1412 and 1712 (300 years ), I counted over 40 religious wars, revolts, and rebellions.  I have yet to read any actions started by Atheists among themselves.  What are they going to fight about?  The degree of unbelief? (Both Stalin and Hitler were raised Roman Catholics ) Under cover of neutrality,  the Vatican turned a blind eye to the  “Holocaust,”  the systematic genocide of the Jews.  Many would go on record to incriminate Pope Pius XII as an active collaborator with the Nazis in the process. ( the Vatican’s apologies to the Jews in 1998 did not address  Pius’ complicity )

For those who argue that religion has given us a whole lot more than conflicts, be that as it may, there are as many secular organizations involved in countless charities around the world.  The Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, Atheist Refugee Relief are some with worldwide reach.   Not a single religious charity that NGOs and other non-sectarian entities that are not covered everywhere today.  The successes of these groups are primarily due to their secular nature. 

Religion is a very divisive ideology between peoples.  Whether a  Jihadist or Inquisitor, they think that it is God’s will to crush the opposition.  It’s difficult to imagine that we would be a witness to the horrors of Nigerian kidnappings and the cruelty being inflicted on the Yazidis and the Rohingyan peoples in this day and age.  As you kneel and recite your rosaries, think about them and ask yourself if any of your prayers are helping any of them. Closer to home, how is this helping to lessen poverty and hunger?  Author Arthur Clarke ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ) said: “The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”  An even greater tragedy may be the corruption of the human gene pool.  If not through genetics, humanity’s ongoing religious and racial prejudices are products of mythological memes.

This increasingly shrill, anachronous, and tired religion is in desperate need of new content.

 Bishop John Spong’s ( former Episcopalian prelate of Newark, N.J. ) assertion is that Galileo has rendered God homeless, Newton handed His unemployment, and  Darwin delivered the “Coup D’ Grace“! Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration: “Gott ist tot” sums it all up.   COVID-19 has sharpened these assertions. Science has taken over what was once the purview of religion.  Nary a sight of a padre calling for Novenas or a “World Day of Prayer.”  I can only chuckle when I hear Franklin Graham (onTV) uttering some biblical rubbish in the face of over 300,000 COVID dead Americans. Humming “Amazing Grace” near any U.S. hospital is decidedly out of sync in today’s reality.

Instead of more ” Our Father,” it is refreshing to hear the Pope extoll the virtues of mask-wearing and social distancing. Many churches are closed or sold off ( the pre-COVID closures in Canada are estimated at nearly 1000 per year in the next ten years. ).  Open services with consequent increases in COVID 19 cases continue to plague many congregations in the U.S. (ABC News report at least 33 Pastors have died in the early onset of the pandemic ).   No amount of praying and venerating can make the virus raise a white flag. The 1918 flu pandemic had already proven that. This viral pandemic has underscored the futility of superstition and folklore.

Denominational education and groupthink continue to reinforce the religion that we were born into. People seem content being disengaged in the face of specious arguments, choosing faith over knowledge, obedience and submission over debate. The old prevailing religious worldview has been a retreat from reality, a disingenuous grand delusion. We have outlived its viability.  It was total folly to believe out of a compulsion to conform. 

 “It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can be just as powerfully sapped by an internal sense that societal conventions must have a sound basis, even if we are not sure exactly what this may be, because they have been adhered to by a great many people for a long time. It seems implausible that our society could be gravely mistaken in its beliefs, and at the same time, that we would be alone in noticing the fact. We stifle our doubts, and follow the flock, because we cannot conceive of ourselves as pioneers of hitherto unknown difficult truths. “

Alain de Botton, British Philosopher

As we enter a religionless world, only by engagement can we be at peace with ourselves.  A meaningful life is a lot less about our personal glory than making a positive difference in the lives of others.  Whatever coping alternative, we allow ourselves to be part of; we must never again give in to fear and emotional subjugation. 

Edwin de Leon ( edwingdeleon @gmail.com)