Pelaez at the chapter cites canon law and Trent, chasing the trail of an argument through tomes and memorials to a faraway throne: The Church in these islands—a Church of our own.
At his parish, Gomes hurries to his Mass like a student, a scholar eternally in class. He turns to his townsfolk, his people, and sees a purpose, a mission, his certainties.
Burgos is in his study, buried in books, awake and too mindful of all the looks cast his way from the shadows, and what they say: Burgos is going to get his someday.
Tracing the breviary’s worn page, Gomes sighs: a tiredness more than age deep in his bones, he offers, looking up to the stars, a holiness from ledgers and boxes of cigars.
The tributes pile high from page to page
to her, glorious in every age—
and yet she lies silent, in ruin still
after fire and flame had eaten their fill.
The censures ring out line by line
crying punishment levied by God or time—
yet love and faith live on as best they could
amid rubble, glass, charred stone and wood.
Now Notre-Dame stands, as if for the sake
of half-remembered lessons and cold hot takes
in twisted litanies and internet games
where noble and commoner once loved her name.
Who is she, coming with stars in her hair,
a bright smile on her tired face, worn and lined with care,
who once wore her sorrows as a veil of tears
but now stands, shining stronger than all our fears?
— I am the Queen of Heaven and Earth
who knows pain and sorrow, laughter and mirth,
and I bore the living God, broken and killed,
who rose on Easter morn, a promise fulfilled.
And who is he, rising with the sun on his face,
whose body bears the scars and scarlet trace
of a wicked fate, now marching like an army in array,
setting light to the whole world on his way?
— I am the root and stock of David, the bright morning star,
from whom came all things that were, will be, and are;
I am the love giving all I have to give,
I am the promise fulfilled, and I live.
— 3 April 2018
I’m not sure if it’s also practiced in other countries, but in the Philippines, we have an Easter tradition known in Tagalog as “Salubong” and in Cebuano as “Sugat”; the Spanish, who brought Catholicism and all the beauty and poetry of its traditions and rituals to our shores, referred to it as “Encuentro,” but all these words mean a “meeting” or “encounter.” It represents the meeting of Christ and His Mother after the Resurrection. (full description on DeviantArt)
I’m on Reddit a lot. It’s been around for a long time now– since 2005, according to our friend Wikipedia– but I’ve honestly only started visiting it regularly since late 2014, which is a shame: it’s a great site, occasionally weird, but very amusing and informative if you know where to look.
Looking through the comments on some of the more contentious posts, it becomes apparent that generally speaking, a lot of Redditors (the site’s members) come from a secular point of view– in some cases, an actively anti-theistic point of view. A cursory glance at the Aletheia Observatory makes it clear that I come from a completely different point of view from them– theistic, Christian, Catholic (apparently the worst of the worst). Perhaps we do not move in the same circles, live in the same areas of the world, believe (or disbelieve) in the same things, but I’m fairly certain that we live in the same world, only, we see different things and see things differently.
This being the case, beyond Reddit and the Internet, what separates believers from non-believers?
Believers and non-believers
I do not for a moment believe that all non-believers are like Richard Dawkins, or as a more extreme example, like the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. With very few exceptions, most atheists and agnostics I know and have been in touch with are generally good, decent, honest people. They are not out to completely purge modern society of religious faith and belief, and they have reasons for doubting and disbelieving that have just as much validity as the religious beliefs held by people of faith.
Pictured: Not the average atheist
Similarly, in my experience, most believers are not like the Heaven’s Gate cult or the Westboro Baptist Church (which in my view is neither Baptist nor a church, but that’s another story entirely). They are by and large good, decent, honest people, save that they believe and accept certain things– like the existence of God– which on principle atheists do not, or cannot.
Pictured: Not the average believer
The main difference between believers and non-believers, so I’ve found, is not that believers use their powers of reason and non-believers do not, as the sneering, contemptuous Internet atheists would have us believe; neither is it that non-believers are damned to hellfire and brimstone and believers are assured of Heaven, as the smug, pontificating Internet fundamentalists would say– inaccurately, I should think, since from a theological standpoint, short of a divine revelation, there is no way to be sure. The main difference is the obvious difference: non-believers do not believe in God, for their own reasons, and believers do, again for their own reasons.
And somewhere along the spectrum, Beliebers are fans of Justin Bieber, while Bo-Lievers are fans of WWE’s Bo Dallas. 😉
It isn’t my place here to evaluate the validity of the reasons why believers and non-believers believe or disbelieve; some of these reasons might be logical, some more absurd. But the fact of the matter is that believers and non-believers hold these convictions because to them, these ideas make sense, and by making sense, they make the world and the totality of existence make sense.
This is important to remember: ideas like these are first principles, like the notion that all men are created equal, with free will and inalienable rights. These are ideas that, accepted and held, are the foundation on which everything else that comes next are built on. Ideas like these have and give meaning, and therefore, they make everything else fall into place. In Filipino, our word for “meaning” is kahulugan, from the root word hulog which means “to fall”– the meaning behind these ideas make everything else fall into their place in the universe.
This is what separates us, in a sense, but in order to understand each other, it isn’t where we should begin and end.
The larger, wider world
As I said before, both believers and non-believers live in the same world, only, we see different things and see things different, owing to the different foundations of our worldviews (awesome word, really descriptive). We view the world through different lenses and with different eyes, and therefore have a different understanding and appreciation of it, which often and unhappily leads to conflict and divisions among us.
Modern societies give primacy of place to dialogue in resolving conflicts– to sitting down and discussing wrongs and what might be done to correct them. But dialogue cannot begin and end with differences, because if our dialogue is limited to these and only these, then this is pointless and fruitless, an exercise in futility.
This being the case, a dialogue between believers and non-believers should necessarily acknowledge the obvious: yes, there are differences between us; to pretend otherwise would be absurd. But no, differences aren’t the only things we have. The most significant thing we have in common is larger than Reddit, larger than the Internet, larger than a million technical quibbles over details: it’s the larger, wider world.
Believers and non-believers are humans– I’ve yet to hear of non-believing trees, turnips, or rabbits. So far as we know, trees and turnips have no dogmas or notions of orthodoxy or heresy, and rabbits . . . well, they seem to believe in celery, in eating, and in the safety of their warrens, but other than that they seem to be quite open-minded; further than this, we can say no more.
Anyway, believers and non-believers being human, we live in human societies and communities, and imagined or not, these structures are immediate realities, for what it’s worth, and along with them come everything else: medicine, food, science, technology, government, taxes, all the many large and small headaches and pleasures of life. Medicine and the advances of scientific research, for good or ill, affect the lives of both believers and non-believers; believers and non-believers alike need food, shelter, and education to survive and thrive in the modern world, and I’m quite sure at one point or another, believers and non-believers alike have cursed taxes, shook their heads at the ineptness and self-interest of public officials, worried over the rising cost of market goods and utilities. Whatever else we might disagree on, this world and the society we live in are the temporal and spatial realities we share, and which we may for better or worse affect.
This being the case, perhaps the first step towards understanding between believers and non-believers is to recognize that we live in the same world; to live not simply in tolerance, but in acceptance. When this is admitted, who knows where we may find ourselves?
Aletheia Observer, signing out. Be careful out there!
– A.O.
P.S.
Comments? Questions? Drop me a line in the comment box or email me at aletheia.observatory@gmail.com 🙂
Anyway, here’s Tiffany Jo Allen with a cover of “Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones 🙂
Apologies: I’m writing without a written outline again
FOR SCIENCE!
A disclaimer, before everything else: when it comes to religious faith, especially the Catholic Church, I’m probably the least qualified person to talk about such matters. As far as possible, I go to Mass every Sunday, though, regretfully, I haven’t always been able to go. I can’t always make heads or tails of the Church’s internal politics (they’re a messy affair I’d rather avoid 😀 ). I carry a rosary in my pocket whenever I go out, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most perfect example of the faith. My experience of the Church is our local parish, my family, and the news stories and feature articles on the Internet. A more tame, down-to-earth experience, perhaps, but it’s one I wouldn’t trade for anything else 🙂
Which brings me to this post: in the news this month, speaking at the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, Pope Francis made positive comments regarding the theory of evolution and the Big Bang, saying that they weren’t incompatible with the teachings of the Church, and Britain’s Independent, erm, somewhat blows it out of proportion 😉
How the Independent read it
First of all, why did the Pope make such remarks? The remarks were made at the unveiling of a bust of Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican, where a plenary session was held from 24-28 October on the theme, “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” To my knowledge, the full text of His Holiness’s remarks hasn’t been released yet in English translation, but the Vatican’s website has it in Italian here. I suppose, then, that he made these remarks because the plenary session was centered on the theme of nature and “evolving concepts” of it–thus tying it to the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, which deal with the origins of human life and how the universe and the world as we know it came into existence.
I’ve noticed that the media, much like ordinary people, tend to look at events and interpret them according to a certain understanding the world–what we might call the “general narrative.” For instance, as the Aletheia Observer, my understanding of the world is informed by my religious, social, and family background. I think that otherwise sane, healthy people always have a tendency to be silly, unreasonable, and insensitive at times– it isn’t because they’re naturally and irredeemably evil. Quite the contrary– they are naturally good and have free will, and because they are free they will naturally choose what is good, for themselves and everyone else (now that I think of it, this kind of sounds like Confucius and Mencius, doesn’t it?). When they do things that are wrong, it’s because they’ve forgotten this essential thing, and so they’ve gone off-track.
In a similar way, the Independent has a general narrative of things, and this is what comes into play in this article, as well as others concerning religion in general and the Church in particular. In the case of Pope Francis and the Church, the narrative seems to go thus,
Pope Francis has very liberal tendencies– he just might be the man to “bring the Church into the 21st century”
Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI was an intolerant conservative, whose work Francis will undo
The Church is backwards, anti-science and anti-freedom
In the article, all of these things come into play: the author recounts the Pope’s words on evolution and the Big Bang and how “God is not a magician with a magic wand”– and takes the opportunity to take a shot at Benedict and portray him as a sort of evangelical fundamentalist. The author once again brings up the misunderstood story of Galileo to portray the Church as anti-science (there’s an article about it here, written by an atheist), and alludes to the fact that the remarks were made at the unveiling of a bust of Francis’s predecessor at the Pontifical Academy, and that the Pope lauded his predecessor for his contributions to theology and love of learning, but it was worded in such a way that made it sound condescending.
This general narrative, I think, is unfair, not only to the Church and Pope-Emeritus Benedict, but also to Pope Francis. All of them deserve better.
Ghosts and an unusual detail
A lot of religion news stories have “ghosts”– details that are important to understanding a story which are somehow mysteriously misplaced or missing. The charitable explanation is that the journalists covering the religion beat might be rushing, and thus don’t have the time to read through things like Church documents that explain the what and why of doctrines (understandable– they do sometimes tend to be unwieldy! 😀 ); the more uncharitable explanation is that there’s something in the water at J-School and the newsroom.
For me, one of the most disappointing ghosts in this story is the lack of any mention of two influential medieval-era Catholic theologians: St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo, both of whom are honored with the title “Doctor of the Church.” Centuries before Darwin was even born, Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor,” advanced the notion that God is the “First Mover”– the One who set everything in motion. This understanding of God doesn’t rule out the possibility of evolution, since He could also have set evolution in motion.
More tellingly, St. Augustine actually proposed a version of the theory of evolution, on the idea that God’s creative act does not preclude the possibility that He would use natural means to create the body of Man– only the notion that the soul also evolved seemed more improbable.
Also, the article mentions the theory of the Big Bang,” which was proposed by a Belgian Catholic priest, Monsignor Georges Lemaître of the Catholic University of Louvain.
An unusual detail in the story is the re-casting of the much-maligned and misunderstood Pope Pius XII from arch-conservative (he’s been called “Hitler’s Pope” for his perceived silence during World War II) to a pope opening the Church to the world. There’s something you don’t see every day 😉 In response to the opinions of the Nouvelle Theologie (New Theology), he released the 1950 encyclical letter Humani Generis“concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine,” which touches on the concept of evolution and how it wasn’t incompatible with the idea that God created Man.
These details are important, but kick up the word-count, sadly to the point that the facts are misrepresented.
From the back pews
I’m certainly not a scientist or a theologian, and I’m just viewing this “from the pews,” so to speak. Not even from the front pews, but the back pews. What struck me most in this story is its unfairness to Catholic doctrine; perhaps it was unintended, but it was still irresponsible.
The author seems to believe that Catholics read and interpret the Bible literally, like some evangelical fundamentalist sects do. The Bible is really a much larger book than the small thing that some people make it out to be– indeed, it isn’t a single book, but a compilation of books, similar to an anthology or a library. And so, I’m not sure if the author was talking about a Catholic like myself, or one of my aunts who became a fundamentalist 😉
Anyway, one of the first things that a student in Catholic school learns is that the books of the Bible were written by different people, in different periods of time and in a variety of literary genres. For example, the Psalms were basically King David’s hymn-book, and the Song of Solomon was erotic love poetry as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel. Hosea the prophet set out to write oracles, and ended up inadvertently writing a love story interspersed with proverbs and pithy sayings.
More to the point, the Creation story related in Genesis isn’t meant to be read as a literal historical account, but as a mythical account– what it expresses is not exactly fact, but Truth. The main point of the story is that God, “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,” as Dante would later say, created the universe, and created Man as someone to share Himself with. Because that’s the thing about Love: it always looks outward and sees itself reflected in the Other, and finds that the Other isn’t so “other” after all.
I suppose we should stop here. The bottom line is simply this: liberate your minds, by any means necessary– even if it means having to slog through Church documents. 😀
Aletheia Observer, signing off. Careful out there! 🙂
– A.O.
P.S. I owe you guys a song 😀 Here’s “Red Hands” by Walk Off the Earth
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