(Delivered at Conference 1 of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ annual holy retreat held at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay City on the theme “Synod Spiritualiy: Embracing Ecology in the Light of Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum” on July 2 to 4, 2024)
The theme given for us to reflect on is this: “Synod Spirituality: Embracing Ecology in the Light of Laudato Si and Laudate Deum.” Bishop Pablo David, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) stated its objectives: to “reflect on a dual emphasis on fostering a synodal Church that listens and responds to the Spirit, and on embracing responsibility towards creation as guided by Pope Francis’ teaching.” This guide prompts us ask two main questions:
- How does the synodal spirituality (and the reflections in the recent Synod) lead us to the care of our common home in our theology, spirituality and pastoral practice?
- How do the encyclicals of Pope Francis — Laudato Si and Laudate Deum — lead us to concrete responses in the Philippine Church of our times?
To lead us to these reflections, we divided the theme into different topics in the next two days. The third day would be “Conversations in the Spirit” to be facilitated by Bishop Gerry Alminaza who has also worked closely with us.
- Synodality and our Common Home: Voices and Silences
- Jesus and the Cosmos: Reflections on Ecological Theology
- Becoming Synodal Communities after Laudato Si
- New Pathways of Integral Ecology and their Challenges to the Philippine Church
Our first topic is “Synodality and our Common Home.” There are two graces we would like to ask from the Lord in this conference: (1) the grace to reflect on some documents of the Synod on Synodality and locate some of its central intuitions; (2) the grace to see what the Synod says on the care for our common home, on its utterances and silences.
We start with a reading from the Scripture, a short reflection about it (Luke 24: 13-35). I have chosen this resurrection narrative as a paradigm for synodal spirituality. There are four things that this gospel passage this tells us: First, the two lonely disciples were desolate at Jesus’ death. But their hearts began to burn because someone, even if he was a stranger, began to listen. He did not start preaching; he started listening. Second, the two disciples were looked up to in the early church because they were witnesses to the resurrection. Authority is grounded on witness not on power. Third, the two disciples went to Jerusalem “at the same hour” in order to tell the community about the Risen Jesus. Witness urgently leads to mission. Mission is proclamation to all.
We have heard and read a lot about the ongoing Synod on Synodality. What I propose to do is to look for some keywords in all these discourses to guide us in pastoral action. Let me suggest three central intuitions of the Synod: listening, authority and inclusion.
Listening
The first central intuition of the Synod is “listening.” As Pope Francis says: “A synodal church is a listening church, aware that listening is more than hearing. It is a reciprocal listening in which each one has something to learn.” The great Lutheran philosopher and theologian of the 1950s — Paul Tillich, said: “The first duty of love is to listen.”[1]
This is quite a challenging task for the churches and church workers. We are priests, religious, teachers and bishops. We were taught how to teach, not so much to listen. We were trained to preach. We are members of the ecclesia docens, the teaching church. The rest of the people belong to the ecclesia discerns, the learning church. There you go, even in the way that we have divided the church, listening is our main structural handicap in our structure. Though partially demolished by Vatican II, the structures remains in popular imagination and church everyday practice.
The results of our diocesan synodal assemblies was collated into a document by the CBCP and was submitted to the Asian Synod (“Salubong: The Philippine Catholic Church Synodal Report”).[2] This document tells us about our real voices of synodality in the Philippines. One comment there says that the Philippine church “could not listen”. Some structural indicators are: (1) the church’s communication process is top down; (2) “consultations are devoid of real conversations;” (3) at best listening is selective. “When the poor speak out or try to voice an opinion, they are simply ignored or set aside as unimportant. Donors are listened to, they are seen to be the ‘owners of the church’.”
The theme on listening has been so crucial to the last synod that it dedicated one section just on the theme “Towards a Listening and Accompanying Church” (SR, No. 16).[3] This is quite a long section; it talks about the qualities of a listening person and the sections in the church that needs our listening and accompaniment.
There is one part in the concrete proposals that catches my attention: “Listening and accompaniment are a form of ecclesial action, not just the actions of individuals.” It is not just personal and attitudinal. It must also be practical and structural. This means that discernment and accompaniment — structural forms of listening — needs to be present in the different levels of our communities. The Synod describes this discernment process as “conversations in the Spirit” and it fills all the pages of the Synthesis Report (SR No. 2d, 2h, 2j, 10b, 14e, 16c, 20a).
Practically, however, it might be good to examine the structures of our church meetings — from the parishes, to schools and diocesan curia. These meetings are supposed to be avenues for communal discernment. But “communal discernment is not our strength,” the Salubong document says. As in the churches, meetings become mere venues for “information dissemination whereby [people] are heard under the guise of consultation but in reality, it is only a means for ratification and immediate execution.” At best, we mimic the corporate ethos not only in its hierarchies but also in its processes.
The other side of listening is speaking. For many of us, “to speak” is not an automatic capacity. We need to encourage our people — lay people, religious, even priests — to speak. Maybe even bishops.
I can still remember that during the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis told the bishops “to speak boldly,” to speak honestly. He calls this parreshia. Many in fact find it hard to express, to argue, to ask — especially to ask. Why is this so? Because our social location does not train us to speak up, to ask questions, to express our feelings, to assert. Those of us who come from the lower spaces in the social ladder are quite timid and shy. And even if we muster some courage to speak, we stammer, we hesitate, we perspire. One sociologist calls this the effects of our “dominated habitus.” And when priests talk down on parishioners, we reinforce this dominated habitus.
Thus, there needs to be basic structures and mechanisms to encourage honest and open exchange of views on the ground. Feedback sessions (e.g., “what was helpful or not helpful”); ownership processes (e.g., “what insights have emerged so far;” “is there any question”); or invitations to participate (e.g., “where can you contribute”); group work (e.g., “who can share work on this?”) — are concrete empowering spaces for people to learn how to listen and speak.
In the Synthesis Report, there are defined listening and feedback structures suggested for the bishops and dioceses: regular review of bishops’ performance with regard to his style of authority and economic administration, functioning participatory bodies. “A culture of accountability is an integral part of a synodal Church that promotes co-responsibility, as well as safeguarding against abuses… There are calls to make the Episcopal Council (can. 473 §4), the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Eparchial Pastoral Council (CIC can. 511, CCEO can 272) mandatory, and to make the diocesan bodies exercising co-responsibility more operational, including in legal terms” (SR No. 12 j-k).
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, the retreat facilitator of the Synod told them about the motto written on the walls of their Dominican school in Baghdad: “Here, no questions are forbidden.” What a way to encourage students to speak, being assured that even uncertain and silly questions are OK. But also, what a way to train us teachers and preachers how to listen, even to seemingly “silly” questions. This is quite opposite to what I heard from one professor in the beginning of his class who said: “I only entertain sensible questions.” His students were silent and afraid of him the whole semester. What a lonely class it was.
I have been looking for a biblical metaphor of synodality. One that is most attractive to me is the journey to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35). Those two distraught disciples spoke their hearts out — their pains, their frustration, their banishing hope. And there was someone, a stranger, who listened. Conversely, they also listened to him as he explained to them the Scriptures, and their “hearts were burning” even as he spoke. It was the first “conversation in the Spirit.” If our parishes and dioceses can be roads to Emmaus, it might solve some of our problems. Like the experience of the disciples, our conversations are often painful. But transparency and openness can give us hope. Often we find ourselves on opposite sides of the table in the beginning. But honest and sympathetic listening can lead us beyond our cherished positions. We may be surprised, in this conversation in the Spirit, God will touch our hearts and inspire us to go beyond what we have ever imagined.
Authority
The second keyword is authority. A synodal church (and school) is one whose leaders are visionary and creative, collegial and collaborative. But in the Salubong documents, majority of the comments are on areas of leadership and authority: (1) priests are “authoritative and powerful;” (2) some have attitude problems; (3) they scold people in public and do character assassination in the pulpit; (4) others are involved in abuse scandals.
The problem is not only personal but structural. Pope Francis calls it “clericalism.” It is a sense of entitlement of “clerics as clerics.” To illustrate, I heard one young priest tell his parishioners: “I am the parish priest. I have the last word here.” As clerics, I think it is about time that we need to acknowledge the very precarious situation we are in. We find ourselves in a location of power — not only material power but also cultural and spiritual power. Ordinary people think that if they express disagreement with us, gabaan sila. If we do not handle this power responsibly, if we do not let go of some of this power and share it with the lay, “tayong mga pari ang unang gabaan.” I am thinking of the stewards of the vineyard who rejected the servants of the landlord. The gospel ended with the landlord saying: “I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit” (Mt. 21: 33-43).
Clericalism is also not just about the proverbial “bad apples in the basket.” It is also about the problem of the basket itself. Clericalism is about intoxication with power among the priests, religious and lay. It is a situation where we enclose ourselves with power, where we are not accountable to anyone. It is a location where we no longer listen to their questions, especially the more difficult ones. The problem is not only attitudinal but structural. Beyond personal traits, the problem is in our entitled location in the space of social power.
I am a cleric myself. So whatever I say here is also an act of self-examination. One of my favorite writers is the French philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. He talks about putting “a pebble in your shoes.” The word “scruple” actually means “pebble in the shoe.” Levinas says: “Be scrupulous. Put pebble in your shoes.” With the pebble, you cannot “remain standing but are ‘moved’ or ‘prodded’ to take the next step.”[4] Moreover, the pebble puts your every step into question. It leads you to ask: “Is this the right step? Am I not stepping on other’s shoes?” Sociology calls it “self-reflexivity.” Theology calls it “humility,” and in our context, “administrative humility.” It is the sense of openness and willingness to be put into question — as teachers, as administrators, as priests, as bishops.
What touched me in the Synod in Rome was the way they arrange their seats. The physical space is not only symbolic; it effectively turns the symbol into reality. The church is an equal community of sisters and brothers. “No one can be raised up higher than others,” not even the pope. “On the contrary, in the Church, it is necessary that each person “lower” himself or herself, so as to serve our brothers and sisters along the way.”[5] In contrast, do you notice the presidential tables after the fiesta mass in our parishes? In BEC forums, I ask our ordinary faithful one question: “Do you think that everyone is equal in the church?” The usual answer is a resounding “No.” And, as example, they point to the fiesta presidential tables on parish fiestas. This same scene is replicated in all our schools, seminaries and religious houses. We might as well check how our meeting spaces look like in our institutions. For all you know, even our organizational charts looks like a feudal castle!
One form of clericalism in our churches is lack of accountability. The Synthesis Report says: “Clericalism stems from a misunderstanding of the divine call, viewing it more as a privilege than a service, and manifesting itself in the exercise of power in a worldly manner that refuses to allow itself to be accountable” (SR, No. 11c). Being the microcosm of Philippine society, the church also has its share in the structures of corruption.
Even as we denounce corruption, we can see traces of it in our own backyards. The Salubong Report writes: (1) “Church management is perceived to be fraught with irregularities and inconsistencies;” (2) “inefficient in the administering of temporal goods;” (3) dismissive of the views and values of the marginalized poor; (4) “there is no accountability in matters of finances and no consultation with the faithful in the appointment of leadership roles;” (5) decisions are made only by the higher ups; (6) they “tend to favor the affluent and the powerful;” (6) lack of transparency in the decisions that are made.
Because the processes are top-down and unilateral, actions in the church are not sustainable. Some parish priests refuse to organize Parish Finance Council, despite being mandated by Canon Law. Some even refuse Parish Pastoral Councils, thus, leading his parish by himself. Some parish priests are “soloists;” they don’t want to sing in the choir. And to make it easier, they dissolve the choir.
But it is not all bad news. There are glimmers of hope we see on the ground. I once attended a meeting of diocesan priests. At the end of the meeting, the bishop whom I know as a Canon Law, said to his priests: “I know what is in the Canon Law: that the parish priest has the final say in all the things in the parish.” Then, he said something that I was happily surprised: “Maybe there are uses to that provision in some critical time. But please do not apply that provision on a regular basis. How can you encourage people to speak if, in the end, what you have in mind will be followed anyway.” This is synodality on the ground: accountability of our communal decision-making processes. At the back of my mind, however, I was also thinking, if the church really wants to be synodal, maybe it is about time to revise the canon law.
Many people think that priests are a hopeless lot. But on the ground, there are many simple priests who live faithful lives as pastors on far away mountains. Some even offer their lives for their sheep. First in mind is Fr. Charlito Colendres of Infanta who tied himself with a rope to rescue his people from the raging flood. He was already out of harm’s way but came back for the rest who were trapped. He ended up being washed away by the flood after having saved them.[6] Fr. Rhoel Gallardo, a young Claretian priest, who did not leave his teachers during the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping in Tumahubong, Basilan. His nails were plucked out days before they shot him together with three of his teachers.[7]
And not all bishops like to sit in presidential tables. I was once giving a talk on BECs in one of the dioceses of Mindanao. After the talk, I still had to entertain some few questions at the sides. The good bishop waited for me. There were no presidential tables around. Everyone lined up. We both lined up together with the rest. And when our turn came, there were no more plates. Kinuha ng obispo ang dalawang takip ng kaldero, binigay ang isa sa akin at sinabi: “Naubusan na tayo ng plato. Takip na lang ng kaldero. Mas maganda, mas malaki ito.” While there are problems, there are also hope on the rough grounds.
Let me go back to the Emmaus story. The authority among the disciples does not so much rest in power but in service and witness. Mary Magdalene, a woman, was the first witness. Despite the fake news that she was once a prostitute, Magdalene had a special place in the early church. It was because she was the first to witness the resurrection. After Magdalene, Jesus showed himself to the two disciples to Emmaus, one of them was the man called “Cleopas.” I always thought that the other disciple was also a man. Many commentaries tell us that both the disciple were men. In fact, most pictures of the Emmaus narrative you find on the internet are two men walking with Jesus. But there is also a tradition which says that the other disciple was in fact a woman. She is Mary, the wife of Cleopas, who stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus (John 19: 25).[8] The two disciples were a couple, and after what happened in Jerusalem, they must have decided to go home to Emmaus, and maybe start again.
Real authority in our churches rests not so much on those who are in positions of power, those who have titles — but on those who have seen the cross in their lives and witnessed the resurrection. For among us, Pope Francis says: “the only authority is the authority of service, the only power is the power of the cross.”[9] This is where authentic power resides, the power of witness and service. In the post-Resurrection narratives, it is not Peter or the apostles who ran away. They came to the tomb last. Here, we have a lay woman Magdalene and a lay couple, Cleopas and his wife. I was thinking to myself, what an antidote this is to clericalism!
Inclusion
The third keyword is inclusion. If we want synodality, we have to include all. To be “Catholic” is to include all — as in all. “Catholic” comes from the Greek word “katholikos”, derived from καθόλου (katholou) which means “on the whole, according to the whole.” First used by Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 107), it means Jesus is present to the “whole” of the Church. The first meaning of the word “Catholic” was an assertion of Christ’s presence in everyone, with all as in all. But after schisms and the Reformation, the word shifts its meaning — from its sense of inclusion to the spirit of separation. Now, we have our Catholic church as against the Orthodox and Protestant churches. The air was charged with animosity, and it was mutual. We excommunicate them; they excommunicate us.
The exclusionary worldview goes beyond religions. There has been a reigning fear on anyone who is “different:” LGBTQ+, people with mental health issues, HIV-Aids, broken families, and single parents, PWDs, victims of human rights abuses, victims of extrajudicial killings, etc. The presence of these persons is at best tolerated, at most abandoned and misunderstood; at worst, discriminated and condemned. That is why the synodal process had taken extra care to reach out to the excluded. In fact, three large sections of the Synthesis Report were dedicated to them who society has excluded — people in poverty as protagonists (SR No. 4), migrants (SR No. 5), women (SR No. 6), etc.
I do not want to flood you with personal examples. But I hope you can permit one to bring home my point. Let me share with about my mother. She studied to be a teacher but did not finish. She had to take care of the eleven of us. We were already one classroom at home. With her sari-sari store, she helped my father take care of their big family. After a long life of hard work, she suffered from a severe thyroid cancer. On her last day, we were alone at the hospital room because my other siblings were at work. She talked to me like she was not dying. We were planning together on what to do when she goes home, on what livelihood we can give to help our neighbors who have no work. And then, she confronted me with a difficult question: “Di ba may PhD ka? Anong bang magagawa ng PhD mo para mapakain ang mga kapitbahay nating walang makain?”
That question haunts me until now, maybe to the end of my life: it is the pebble on my shoe. If I am a priest, if I have some education, those who have nothing should not be excluded from my radar of signification. It was my mother who taught me how to be a priest in the Church. My model of priesthood is not a cleric. She is a married lay woman who happens to be my mother.
Let us go back to the Emmaus story, the couple Mary and Cleopas, had to go back to Jerusalem to render account to the whole community. They did not keep the experience to themselves. They had to share it with the rest of the brethren. Witness urgently leads to mission. The good news cannot be kept to themselves. It has to be shared to all, “todos, todos, todos.” By the time they realized that it was the Risen Jesus, they had to go “at the same hour,” Luke writes. As in accountability, any delay in accounting is a form of corruption. When they arrived, the eleven were there. And they told everything that happened on the road.
Care for our Common Home: Silences in Synodality
But even as the whole church is trying its best to avoid self-referentiality and self-preservation by dialoguing with the excluded and different others, there is one area where it is silence, or at least generated less attention in the synodality discourse. In recent years, there has been a happy direction towards privileging the poor and the excluded in church documents and theologies. Think of liberation theologies, feminist theologies, migrant theologies, inculturation, interreligious dialogue, etc. But what generates less interest in the church are ecological theologies and the care for our common home. There is the same impression in the recent Synod.
The Federation of Bishops Conference (FABC) Continental Report to the Synod writes: “Listening to the cry of the poor and the earth were issues that were not treated adequately given that these are grave concerns for the peoples of Asia” (ACAS, 70).[10] The Salubong document mentions “common home” three times and acknowledges that there are problems of environment in the Philippines but tells us its own honest evaluation: “The church’s inattention to the environment also indicates its lack of understanding on the plight of the indigenous peoples and their needs” (Salubong, 5).
The Synodal Synthesis Report also talks about the same lack of responses to the cry of the earth: “Standing with those who are poor requires engaging with them in caring for our common home: the cry of the earth and the cry of those living in poverty are the same cry. The lack of responses to this cry makes the ecological crisis, and climate change, in particular, a threat to the survival of humanity” (SR No. 4).
This silence is alarming. Because if we look at this lone infographic of the UN Habitat Country Report 2023, Philippines ranks on top on world surveys: climate risks, extreme weather events, marine litter, etc.[11] As of the latest survey, there are four biggest environmental issues in the Philippines: air pollution, plastic pollution, marine pollution, sea level rise.[12] And environmental events that dominate the Rappler pages this year are mining in Sibuyan, Palawan, Romblon and Homonhon; oil spills in Oriental Mindoro; reclamation projects in Manila Bay, among others. These projects are going on even as we speak. Why the deafening silence? How can we not listen?
A synodality that does not take these ecological issues into account is not synodality at all. (1) Listening is not just about listening to the lay people or the cry of the poor; it is also listening to the “cry of the earth”. (2) Accountability is not just about parish financial accounting or accountability to the victims of abuse in our churches which we all need to do; accountability is also about stewardship of the common home that God has given to us. (3) Inclusion is also about including the cosmos in our pastoral plans, theologies and liturgies.
“Our lands, forests, rivers cry out that they are being eroded, denuded and polluted. As bishops, we have tried to listen and respond to their cry. There is an urgency about this issue which calls for widespread education and immediate action. We are convinced that the challenge which we have tried to highlight here is similar to what Moses put before the people of Israel before they entered the Promised Land: ‘Today, I offer you the choice of life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life and then your descendants will live’.” (Deut. 30: 19-20)[13]
In the end, I think that synodality is not about us — it is not about “communion” among ourselves or “participation” inside our own isolated worlds. No, synodality is not about us. It about them whom we, the Church, have always excluded. It is about them whom the world has rejected — the poor, the hungry, the distressed, and last but not the least, the cosmos — they who are forgotten in this overly self-referential and anthropocentric world.
By Way of Conclusion: Back to Emmaus
As I started, so shall I end with the Emmaus story. How did Cleopas and Mary know that the stranger was the Risen Jesus? Though their hearts were burning as he explained to them the Scriptures on the road, they still did not recognize him. But during the break of the bread, their eyes were opened. It looks like they remembered about how he broke the bread at the Last Supper.
The late Fr. Catalino Arevalo, SJ, had a very interesting commentary on this text. I heard this from him when I was yet a young seminarian long time ago and I have not forgotten it ever since. “When Jesus broke the bread and shared it with them,” he said, “they recognized it was Jesus. Not only because he broke the bread and shared it. But because as he opened his hands, they saw the nail marks on them. All of a sudden, they knew it was Jesus.”
It might be good to remind ourselves of the risk Fr. Neri Satur took in defending the environment. He offered his life for it. In the end, the experience of the cross etched on the nail marks of our scarred and emaciated bodies — which is the sign of our commitment to the Kingdom — is the most credible mark of the resurrection in our lives. Through them, people will believe that Jesus is truly risen.
And this experience of the Paschal Mystery — that difficult theological word — the Paschal Mystery present in the church and its ministers but also in the groaning creation — is the only ground from which synodality can come alive.
(Fr. Daniel Franklin Pilario is a member of the Congregation of the Mission. He is President of Adamson University and professor of St. Vincent School of Theology in Quezon City. On weekends, he also serves as a minister of a garbage dump parish in Payatas, Quezon City. You may reach him at danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com)
[1] Paul Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice: Ontological Analyses and Ethical Applications (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960). Tillich writes: “In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening.”
[2] “Salubong: The Philippine Catholic Church Synodal Report,” https://synodphilippines.com/salubong-the-philippine-catholic-church-synodal-report/. Henceforth, Salubong.
[3] Synod of Bishops, Synthesis Report – First Session, in https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/assembly/synthesis/english/2023.10.28-ENG-Synthesis-Report.pdf. Henceforth, SR.
[4] Roger Burggraeve, “Affected by the Face of the Other. The Levinasian Movement from the Exteriority to the Interiority of the Infinite,” Dialegethai: Rivista del Filosophia, https://mondodomani.org/dialegesthai/articoli/roger-burggraeve-01
[5] Pope Francis, “Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops (17 October 2015), https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html
[6] “Co-workers Eulogize Priest Who Died Saving Typhoon Victims,” https://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/2004/12/08/coworkers-eulogize-priest-who-died-saving-typhoon-victims&post_id=25080
[7] “A New Filipino ‘Saint’,” https://worldmissionmagazine.com/archives/june-2018/new-filipino-saint
[8] See, for instance, the great biblical scholar and theologian NT Wright thinks so. Cf. NT Wright, Luke for Everyone (London: Westminster John Know Press, 2004).
[9] Pope Francis, “Ceremony Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops (17 October 2015).” https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html
[10] FABC, Final Document of the Asian Continental Assembly on Synodality, in https://fabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ACAS-Final-Document-16-Mar-2023.pdf. Henceforth ACAS.
[11] https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2023/06/5._un-habitat_philippines_country_report_2023_final_compressed.pdf
[12] “Four Biggest Environmental Issues in the Philippines in 2024,” https://earth.org/environmental-issues-in-the-philippines/
[13] CBCP, “What is happening to our beautiful land?”, https://cbcponline.net/what-is-happening-to-our-beautiful-land/