Critical Intersections: Religion and Society

By M. D. Litonjua

Life is all about intersections. Living is where sorrow meets joy, where pain encounters ecstasy, where the weakness of the flesh is buoyed by the strength of faith, where love conquers all doubts and betrayals. Marriage is for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health; it is for life and death. Spirituality is the arduous integration of lifes dispositions and tendencies, of ones urges and habits, for the whole to reach out in transcendence to ones fellow human beings and to God. Growth to Christian maturity is actualizing the intersecting, because cruciform, demands of love of God and love of neighbor, which follows the path that leads from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.

Academic life is also becoming one of intersections. After the increasing structural differentiation and functional specialization characteristic of modernity, academic disciplines are critically intersecting and cross-fertilizing with each other for integration, enrichment, and further enlightenment. The behavioral sciences need genetics and biology for a more adequate explanation of human behavior. Homo oeconomicus of neoclassical economics is complemented by the realities of power of homo sociologicus. Theology calls on the social sciences, in addition to its ancient ancilla, philosophy, to make moral sense of social and global problems. Interdisciplinary courses try to make connections between the disciplines students have studied, and to integrate the breadth and the depth of knowledge they have been exposed to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 19, 2006
• ISBN: 9781463453565

M. D. Litonjua

M. D. Litonjua is professor emeritus of sociology of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University, an M.B.A. from the University of Missouri in St. Louis, and Licentiates in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Santo Tomas (Manila). He is the author of Liberation Theology: The Paradigm Shift; Structures of Sin, Cultures of Meaning: Social Science and Theology, 2nd ed.; Critical Intersections: Religion and Society; and Creative Fractures: Sociology and Theology.

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Contents

Preface

I

1

ALAY KAPWA:

Theological Reflections

2

THE ABORTION DEBATE:

The U.S., Germany, and Cardinal Bernardin

3

POLITICAL ISLAM:

Religion and Politics in the Muslim World

4

THE FAILURE OF VATICAN II:

Collegiality and Structural Reform

5

THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT:

Scrutinizing a Sign of the Times

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

6

GLOBAL CAPITALISM:

The New Context of Christian Social Ethics

7

CATHOLIC IDENTITY AND MISSION:

Culture, Community, and Conversations¹

II

8

JOSE RIZAL, REVOLUTIONARY

9

MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS:

Critical Views from the Third World

10

CODES OF CONDUCT

FOR MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

11

RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE:

Retrieving the Classical Sociological Tradition

12

OUTSIDE THE DEN OF DRAGONS:

The Philippines and the NICs of Asia

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

13

THE STATE IN DEVELOPMENT THEORY:

The Philippines under Marcos

14

THE 1986 YELLOW REVOLUTION OF THE PHILIPPINES:

Why Not Red?

REFERENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Preface

Life is all about intersections. Living is where sorrow meets joy, where pain encounters ecstasy, where the weakness of the flesh is buoyed by the strength of faith, where love conquers all doubts and betrayals. Marriage is for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health; it is for life and death. Spirituality is the arduous integration of life’s dispositions and tendencies, of one’s urges and habits, for the whole to reach out in transcendence to one’s fellow human beings and to God. Growth to Christian maturity is actualizing the intersecting, because cruciform, demands of love of God and love of neighbor, which follows the path that leads from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.

Intersections are also happening in the academy. After the increasing structural differentiation and the narrowing functional specialization characteristic of the structures of modernity, academic disciplines are meeting each other to break down barriers, are intersecting with each other to come to know one another more fully, are cross-fertilizing with each other for enrichment and further enlightenment. The behavioral sciences need genetics and evolutionary biology for a more adequate explanation of human behavior. The abstract models of neoclassical economics are peopled with the realities of power which are studied by political science; homo oeconomicus is complemented by homo sociologicus, and vice-versa. Theology calls on the social sciences, in addition to its ancient ancilla, philosophy, to make moral sense of social and global problems. History underlies all disciplines to chart the development of current questions, and to help in the search of solutions. Interdisciplinary course are offered for students to make connections between the disciplines they have studied, and to integrate the breadth and the depth of knowledge they have been exposed to.

These essays also represent intersections – between religion and society, between theology and social science, between being Catholic and being an academic, between being Filipino and being an expatriate in the United States.

One of the last articles I wrote before leaving the Philippines was a series of theological reflections regarding the newly-launched Lenten Action Program of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Living in a society rampant with individualism and consumerism that often subvert commitment and commitment, re-reading them is bracing.

Two of the earliest articles I wrote in the United States were on multinational corporations. There has been a drastic increase in the power of MNCs and a corresponding decrease in criticisms of them. The United Nations, for one, has discontinued its proposed code on Transnational Corporations and has closed its center dedicated to a study of them. But MNCs continue the race to the bottom for the cheapest labor and the race to the top for profits that are devastating poor countries. The criticisms advanced in the articles continue to be valid, but they need updating to take into account the new ways MNCs are exploiting global capitalism for their benefit, exemplified by Monsanto and genetically modified foods. The bright spot in the articles is the success of South Africa in dismantling apartheid which MNCs had buttressed.

Three articles in the collection, Global Capitalism, Catholic Identity and Mission, and Outside the Den of Dragons, were published in Theology Today, Chicago Studies, and Studies in Comparative International Development respectively. Global Capitalism has been reprinted in a volume, Business Ethics from a Religious Perspective, ed. by Nancy Zawayta.

Shortened versions of three articles, The Pentecostal Movement, The State in Development Theory, and The 1986 Yellow Revolution of the Philippines: Why Not Red? were published in the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology, Philippine Studies, and International Review of Modern Sociology respectively.

I left the earlier articles as they were originally written, while I tried to use inclusive language in my later articles.

I

1

ALAY KAPWA:

Theological Reflections

Last Lenten Season of the Holy Year, the Church in the Philippines launched Alay Kapwa, its very own Lenten Action Program of Evangelization for Human Development. It is a detailed and coordinated plan of action that henceforth will hopefully become an annual feature of Philippine Christian life and apostolate on the national, diocesan and parish levels. Providentially and propitiously, Alay Kapwa started with Lent of the Holy Year in which, as Pope Paul had indicated, we share deeply in the Death and Resurrection of Christ, through a breaking away from sin, injustice and selfishness, and which, therefore, echoing the twin theme of the 1975 Holy Year, is a special time for the renewal of ourselves and our lives in Christ and for reconciliation with our fellowmen, especially the least of our neighbors.

The theme of Alay Kapwa 1976 is Responsive Awareness: Kapwa Ko, Pananagutan Ko. Alay Kapwa is four things in their proper order.

First and foremost, Alay Kapwa is a program of evangelization, for a more intensive preaching of the Gospel that will effect a renewal of our lives in Christ. The heart of the Christian message is love of God and of neighbor which necessarily includes as essential dimensions, recent Church teaching emphasizes, the promotion of justice and involvement in human development. Just as Christ had a predilection for the poor, the lowly, the oppressed, Christian faith and life should be characterized by the care and concern shown for the least of fellowmen. This, however, is an area of ignorance and neglect in traditional Christian practice, and therefore a special area of preaching and teaching, of evangelization and renewal today. This all-important formative and educational aspect of Alay Kapwa will be accomplished through the study of recent important documents on evangelization and development, homilies and services in church and school, classroom instruction and catechetical action, symposia, seminars and meetings of organizations, group discussions and reflections, musical and dramatic presentations, mass media facilities and materials.

Secondly, Alay Kapwa is a program for human development. Evangelization and development are inseparable: total evangelization must aim at integral human development, and true development is not possible without evangelization. Ever since Populorum Progressio, development is of the whole man and of all men, not just economic development quantitatively measured by a questionable GNP. Love of neighbor cannot adequately be translated into action today by isolated individual acts of charity which in many cases are dole-outs re-inforcing the passivity and dependence of people, except in emergency and urgent cases. Because of the enormity of social problems today and therefore the need for widescale systematic solutions, to feed the hungry today is setting up nutrition programs for indigent families, shipping foodstuff by tons to Bangladesh where famine rages and millions are dying; to shelter the homeless means in contemporary terms the construction of low-cost housing projects. Love of neighbor in modern society is realized in the vocational training and education of poor youth, formation courses for farmers and fishermen, cooperatives of peasants and laborers. As the proverb puts it: if you give a fish to a hungry man, you feed him for a day; but if you teach him how to fish, you are feeding him for the rest of his life.

Thirdly, Alay Kapwa is an action program of sharing time, talent and treasure. This is a logical consequence of evangelization on love of neighbor, a necessary result for the human development of the least of fellowmen. Love that is not incarnated in deeds is chimerical. Formation and education without action are an exercise in futility. Through sharing who we are and what we have, we become who we should be: God’s responsible stewards of life and property, of fellowman and community. By sharing our efforts and resources, we embody in the most concrete way our solidarity with one another, our care and concern for the least of our brethren, our thanksgiving for life’s blessings and graces. And it is a gift – alay – primarily of one’s self, one’s person, that is made possible because of vital contact with the tangible realities of poverty and injustice, with the actual circumstances of poor and needy people, with the real conditions of the hungry and the homeless and the sick. Otherwise, the sharing of monetary treasure is reduced to an empty action done merely to salve a guilty conscience, to appear righteous and generous before others, to be rid of a nuisance or a pestering bore of a beggar. That is why Alay Kapwa strongly suggests that the high-point of the program should be a person-to-person visitation of families which will result in the commitment of volunteer work and professional talent, of time and monetary donations.

Fourthly, Alay Kapwa is a fund drive for human development projects. This is not an end in itself, but only the result of evangelization and a means for human development. It should be made emphatically clear that fund raising is not what is primary about Alay Kapwa. There is the all-too-present danger and threat that Alay Kapwa pathetically ends up as a mere money-making campaign, that donations and contributions become the all-consuming drive and purpose. It will be tragic if this is so. There is no gainsaying the fact that human development projects involve and cost money. The National Secretariat of Social Action, Justice and Peace (NASSA) alone must have ready calamity and disaster funds to lend an immediate response in national emergency situations. Loans and grants are requested and given to help initiate self-help projects. Both nation and Church are confronted with the increasing demands and rising expectations of a growing population. Up to now, the development projects of the Church in the Philippines have been funded by foreign sources and overseas Churches through their own Lenten programs. Not only because funds from abroad are dwindling, but after more than four centuries of Christianity, it is high-time, in fact already late in historical day, that the Philippines becomes self-reliant and moves towards fulfilling its missionary mandate to its neighboring Churches in Asia. But this is premised on the necessity of Church in parish, diocese and nation to be clear on its priorities and projects for the development of the whole man and of all men. Whatever amount will be realized from Alay Kapwa will be divided among diocese, region and national Church for their designated development programs.

Alay Kapwa is a golden opportunity for the renewal of Philippine Christian life and apostolate, and for the reconciliation of the Filipino Christian with the least of his country men. Properly implemented and actively engaged in, this Lenten Action Program of the whole people of God in the Philippines will not only be alay sa kapwa, but in reality and in truth alay sa Dios.

Love of Neighbor

In Luke 10: 25-28, Jesus is asked: Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answers: You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Christianity has always maintained that this twofold commandment of love is the most adequate summary of what it means to be a Christian. Love of God and of neighbor constitutes the core of the Christian faith, the heart of the Christian life.

In actual practice, in our concrete lives, however, we act as if love of God is more important and is primary than love of neighbor. In our relationships with one another, we tend to subordinate love of neighbor to love of God. I still remember my grade school teacher in religion who used to tell us that we should love our neighbor, however obnoxious he is, however unlovable she is – for the sake of God. It was only later on, after a dose of psychology, that I realized that it is difficult, if not impossible, to love somebody for the sake of another body. It is like asking the husband to love his wife for the sake of the mother-in-law!

Love of God and love of neighbor form, as it were, a cross, the most important and powerful symbol of Christianity. The cross is constituted by two pieces of wood, the vertical beam and the horizontal bar. The vertical beam is love of God, while the horizontal bar is love of neighbor. The vertical beam of love of God necessarily passes through the horizontal bar of love of neighbor. Similarly, the horizontal bar of love of neighbor necessarily crosses the vertical beam of love of God. You cannot have a cross without a horizontal bar and a vertical beam. In the same manner, you cannot have a Christian life, you cannot be a Christian unless you practice both love of God and love of neighbor. In fact, love of God and love of neighbor constitute the Cross of Christian life.

Traditional Christian preaching and practice, however, laid primary stress on the vertical relationship of man to God; the mission of the Church, its institutions and sacraments, the priesthood and religious life were understood as directed primarily to the union in love of man with God, to the vertical dimension of human existence.

Love of neighbor was relegated to secondary importance; it did not receive equal attention and emphasis. The horizontal dimension of justice and love toward fellowman was even neglected in traditional spirituality and apostolate. The connection between love of God and love of neighbor was usually thought of to be an extrinsic one: we love our neighbor because God commanded it. Thus, the classic doctrinal formulation conceived the formal object of love of neighbor as God himself: we love our fellowman for the sake of God.

The traditional understanding of the disjuncture of the two-fold commandment of love entails serious difficulties – biblical, psychological and practical – and it has had very unfortunate consequences. Patrick Burke writes: History shows that very many, if not most, of the decisive steps which have been taken to improve the condition of mankind – the abolition of slavery, the spread of public education, the development of industry and science, the democratization of society, and in general the movement to bestow freedom on man – these very Christian achievements have for the most part been accomplished by men who either were not Christians, or who acted apart from any specifically Christian motive. They have been the achievements of the Renaissance, of the Enlightenment, of the Industrial Revolution. While the Church has fostered the worship of God, it has been largely left to those outside of the Church to implement effective love of one’s fellow men. It has been well pointed out that much of the atheism of the present time is simply an attempt to rescue the cause of man, and to preserve his dignity, out of the conviction that devotion to God and devotion to man are, or have become, antithetical.

The results of recent biblical and theological studies on the vertical-horizontal dimension of the Christian life may be summarized:

1. Love of god and love of neighbor are not two separate loves nor two separable commandments. They are two unified aspects of one indivisible commandment of love. They are, the great German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner puts it, ontologically identical; they form an ontological unity. Love of God and love of neighbor are essentially and intrinsically bound together in such wise that one necessarily involves the other. There is no genuine love of God that is not translated into love for fellowmen; there is no authentic love of neighbor that does not mean love of God. To love God without loving neighbor is illusive; to love neighbor without loving God is elusive. The first letter of St. John (4: 20) is very explicit and emphatic: Anyone who says, I love God, and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen.

2. As far as we, body-persons, are concerned, love of the neighbor whom we see is even prior and more important than love of the God we do not see. If you are bringing your offering to the altar, we read in Matt. 5: 23-24, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering. Because we are embodied beings, not disembodied spirits, we can only move in understanding and affection from the concrete to the abstract, from the tangible to the intangible. Even God accommodates his revelatory actions to how he created us. The Incarnation is the greatest act of divine condescension: Christ, the total revelation of the Father, became one like us, so that we could become more and more like him. Thus, the man Jesus is himself the cause and the reason for the priority and the importance of our loving relationship to fellowman.

3. Love of neighbor is the only means to love of God; the only path that leads to God lies through fellowmen. The whole nativity scene, Harvard theologian Harvey Cox remarks, "shows so eloquently that God had become fully human – diapers, crib and all. The manger story means that the divine speaks only through the human." Like the Cross whose vertical bar must pass through its horizontal beam, the vertical relationship to God can only be actualized through the horizontal relationship to fellowman. Because God had become man in Christ Jesus, access to God is in, with, and through the human community. The parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18: 23-35) insists that love of neighbor is an absolute and indispensable prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. God forgives us our sins in so far as we forgive each other’s sins. The sign that we have been forgiven by God is when we forgive others; the sign of a forgiving God is a forgiving heart.

4. Love of neighbor is not only an indispensable condition for love of God, but in itself, automatically, ipso facto, constitutes union with and love of God. Love of neighbor, Karl Rahner says, is the primary act of love of God; love of God does not merely motivate love of neighbor, rather loving one’s neighbor is ontologically identical with loving God. And this without any conscious motivation connected with God; the motive both necessary and sufficient for Christian love of neighbor is the single fact that he is my fellowman. It is not necessary that I love my neighbor for the sake of God; it is enough that I love him for his own sake, because of who he is in himself. Aside from the psychological impossibility of loving one for the sake of another, this is the inescapable conclusion of the scene of the last judgment in Matt. 25: 31-46 where the ultimate criterion of salvation is: I tell you solemny, in so far as you do this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.

5. Lastly, Patrick Burke writes: Just as Christ is the absolute sign and the irrevocable assurance of God’s eschatological mercy to men, so also every man, by the fact of his being a man, is the sign and sacrament of God’s mercy to his fellowman. Thus, such renowned theologians of Vatican II as Yves Congar and Hans Urs von Balthasar have written on the sacrament of the brother, the sacrament of the other. God became man in Christ and by that very fact every man has become, in spirit and in truth, Christ himself. We cannot encounter Christ again in the flesh; he is no more in the body; he no longer walks the hills and plains of Galilee. We can only encounter God-in-Christ in our fellowmen, especially in the least of our brothers and sisters. If we do not see, hear, smell, touch and speak to Christ in our neighbor, we may search the highways and byways of the world, but our search will be in vain. St John (4: 12) exclaims: No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.

Loving our neighbor is not easier, but more difficult, than loving God. The act by which a human ego reaches out of itself in love to another person is the same struggle of self-transcendence of turning our life towards union with God. It is made possible only through the gift of grace of the God who loved us to the extent of sending his Son to be born a man and to die for our sins. Before anything and after everything, before love of God and love of neighbor, the most fundamental fact is that God loved us first. And because God loved us first, we are able to love God and we are capable of loving our neighbor. God is love, St. John (4: 8-19) proclaims, not our love for God, but God’s love for us.…We are to love, then, because he loved us first.

This is at the heart of Alay Kapwa. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself (Luke: 10: 25-28). This is its main task of renewal, as well as, its primary challenge of evangelization. In any other way, Alay Kapwa will be a lost opportunity, an unfulfilled promise, a shattered hope.

Least of Fellowmen

And who is my neighbor? the lawyer in Luke 10, 25-29, asks the Lord after being told that to inherit eternal life, he must love God and equally love his neighbor. In reply, Christ narrates the story of a man set upon by robbers, beaten and left half-dead on a lonely road, a victim of his fellowmen’s violent injustice. A priest, then a levite – honorable and respectable people – come upon his way, but simply pass him by. It was a Samaritan, a man despised and distrusted by society, who bandages his wounds, lifts him up on his mount and brings him to an inn. He pays the innkeeper, instructs him to look after the wounded Jew, promising to reimburse whatever extra expenses will be incurred. Christ our Lord ends his narrative with the injunction: Go and do likewise.

The parable of the good Samaritan indicates three characteristics of Christian love of neighbor.

First, it is universal. We do not love only our family, our blood relations, our friends who do good to us and from whom we expect something in return; we do not love only lovable people. We should also love those who by narrow human standards are unlovable and undeserving of our love. This means, as Christ himself tells us in Luke 6: 27-35, loving even our enemies, otherwise we are no better than pagans. The lesson of the parable is poignant if we realize that the relationship of Israelite and Samaritan is the antagonism of Arabs and Jews today, of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Christian love of neighbor does not allow for differences based on race and creed, on social class and standing, nor does it reject the smell and filth of poverty, the stigma of outcast and outlaw. We hate the sin, but we love the sinner who we all are.

Second, it is effective. Love without being translated into action is spurious. Love without the gift of one’s self, time and efforts is empty. Because, as Karl Rahner puts it, action is not experienced as the logical consequence of knowledge; rather, knowledge is experienced as the event of self-givenness present only in action. St. James (2: 20-26) is clear that faith without good works is useless…faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds. And St. John (3: 18) enjoins: Our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active. Charitable donations and contributions, therefore, are not to enhance one’s social prestige, nor to have one’s name writ large and bold, much less, to rid oneself of nuisances. They should be real manifestations of genuine love of neighbor, manifestations that can remain anonymous, known only to God and in one’s heart.

Third, it is generous. The measure of love, St. Augustine had once written, is to love without measure. Christian love does not set limits and boundaries, but accepts sacrifices as the price and prize of living and loving. Love incarnate meant the ultimate sacrifice of life for others on the cross. The immensity of love is its magnanimity. In lesser measure, it is an extra mile, a few hours of effort and voluntary work, a hole in pocket or purse. If a friend in need is a friend indeed, love in need is love indeed. As St. James (2: 15-17) asks: If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? St. John (3: 17) also wonders: If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him?

In fact, Pope Paul points out in Populorum Progressio: It is well known how strong were the words used by the Fathers of the Church to describe the proper attitude of persons who possess anything towards persons in need. To quote St. Ambrose: ‘You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person, you are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich.’ That is, private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditioned right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities. In a word, according to the traditional doctrine as found in the Fathers of the Church and the great theologians, the right to property must never be exercised to the detriment of the common good.

From this, the universal character of Christian love of neighbor does not preclude, indeed demands, a special concern for the least of our fellowmen, a certain partiality in favor of the downtrodden, a preferential option for the poor. Christ who died for the redemption of all men announced at the beginning of his public ministry: The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor (Luke 4: 18-19). While he did not refuse Nicodemus, Zaccheus and the centurion, his whole life, his preaching and miracles leave no doubt about his predilection for the poor, the lowly, the despised, the oppressed.

Judgment, damnation and salvation will be based, as appears in Matt. 25: 31-46, on what is done or not done to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the homeless, the needy, the sick, the prisoner. Whatever good deed is done to the least of fellowman is, ipso facto, done to the Savior for merit, reward and salvation.

In the same manner, Vatican II in Gaudium et Spes teaches: In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of absolutely every person, and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord: As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me.

The late President Ramon Magsaysay perhaps encapsulated it best: Those who have less in life should have more in law. For that matter, those who have less of life should have more of the Church, in terms of pastoral care, preaching ministry, personnel and resources.

This is especially true in our day because much of the poverty and misery in society, much of the hardships and sufferings of people is not God-given nor fate-decreed, not personally-fated, but is the result of the oppression and exploitation of other men and nations, of social and structural inequalities and injustices, of the abuse of wealth and the arrogance of power. Justice in the World declares that love of neighbor cannot be separated from justice, that love implies an absolute demand for justice; justice can only be the rock foundation of loving relationships and of a peaceful social order. Thus, love of neighbor includes the defense of basic human rights, the promotion of justice in society, the liberation of the oppressed from their sub-human conditions, the integral development of the poor as human persons. Evangelization to this effect is education for justice, the formation of a critical sense and a social conscience, conscientization and social morality. A Christian life of witness along this line is protest against injustice and solidarity with the exploited, siding with the poor and the lowly, being with them and for them in our common responsibility to build up God’s Kingdom of truth, justice, freedom, love and peace.

This is the theology behind Alay Kapwa. Renewing ourselves, we bring about reconciliation. Evangelizing others, we work for human development. Otherwise, Alay Kapwa is simply fund-raising, a setback for renewal and reconciliation, a defeat for the Gospel of love in justice for human development.

Human Development

Alay Kapwa is evangelization for human development. From Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council to Justice in the World of the Third Synod of Bishops, social questions and social problems have moved away from the periphery of the life of the Church to become overriding issues in and for theology and Christianity. Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world are constitutive dimensions of what it means to be Christian and to be Church; they are integral aspects of the preaching of the Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist.

In Populorum Progressio Pope Paul discerns the aspirations of peoples today: Freedom from misery, the greater assurance of finding subsistence, health and fixed employment; an increased share of responsibility without oppression of any kind and in security from situations that do violence to their dignity as men; better education – in brief, to seek to do more, know more and have more in order to be more: that is what men aspire to now when a greater number of them are condemned to live in conditions that make this lawful desire illusory.

The entire world has become, in Marshall McLuhan’s words, a global village, or, as Barbara Ward puts it, a psychological neighborhood. We can no longer ignore the problems of poverty and misery, of famine and disease, of injustice and oppression that afflict the majority of peoples everywhere, because even if they do not personally affect us, they affect the one and only world in which we have to live. Division and conflict, violence and revolution, the threats and the rumors of wars have their root causes in the scandalous gap between rich and poor countries, between the wealthy and powerful elites and the poor and powerless masses within nations. Thus, Pope Paul says that the new name for peace is development.

The Church especially, by scrutinizing the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the gospel, has the duty of devoting its energies and resources to the integral human development of peoples. Man is a body-spirit unity and it is as body-spirit that he is redeemed and saved. Love of neighbor does not only mean praying for the neighbor in need, but also succoring him in his material and physical needs. Concern for the least of fellowmen is not only helping them to fulfill their spiritual wants, but also their material deprivations. A certain level of economic well-being is necessary before poor people can attend to their spiritual needs and religious obligations. Masses, communions, confessions and devotions will not concern poor people if they have first to satisfy the gnawing hunger in their stomachs, if they have first to meet the demands of their bodily existence.

Human development, therefore, firstly means confronting the problems of massive poverty and misery, of glaring socio-economic inequalities in society and in the world today. But this is not the entire picture; it is only the start. Development, Pope Paul writes, cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of each man and of the whole man. This is the Christian vision of human development, the transition from less human conditions to more human conditions, the creation of a new humanism. And it is a vision that is part and parcel of evangelization and conversion, of redemption and salvation.

Pope Paul points out that the duty of engaging in the work of integral development is threefold: the duty of human solidarity, the duty of social justice, the duty of universal charity. Let us take a look at the relationship of human development and Christian charity or love.

Father Catalino Arevalo explains three levels of Christian love by taking up Albert Camus’ The Plague. A mortal disease breaks out in the city of Oran, Algeria. From Camus’ account of the work of Dr. Rieux, three levels of charity are extrapolated. First, there is the interpersonal dimension: personal care of sick persons, loving concern in nursing them, constant devotion in alleviating their suffering. But the plague continues unabated: more people are contaminated and medicines are running out. Personal, loving care of the sick is not enough. Second, the technical dimension is the application of the knowledge and skills of medical science: isolation of patients, disinfection and prevention of contagion, compliance with the norms of hygiene and sanitation, removal and destruction of possible causes. The plague is effectively contained, but it does not prevent its recurrence. Third, the political dimension organizes the people to combat the plague, utilizes resources to stop the spread of the disease, employs the public will to prevent its recurrence. Public utilities, governmental agencies, mass media, public funds are mobilized and geared towards these ends. Laws are passed, structures are established, the political will of the people is harnessed. In all of these three levels, Christian love is operative.

Because of the enormity of social problems in the world today, charity in practice assumes new proportions. The corporal works of mercy can no longer be scattered and isolated, but call for planned programs and systematic implementation on the national and international levels. Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned mean today nutrition programs and low-cost housing projects, vocational training of the poor and placement agencies for employment, health programs and legal services, adult education and the defense of the rights of the powerless. Christian love of neighbor today is emphasizing and bringing about its political dimensions, implications and consequences. Love for the least of our fellowmen means today the promotion of their human dignity, their integral human development.

This does not mean that the Church becomes a mere agency of social welfare. But it does mean that the Church cannot be an isolated spiritual tower in the remote skies. It means that the Church does its share in incarnating the social implications of the Gospel and the political dimensions of Christian love. It means that the Church utilizes its energies and resources in building up a world for all men to live in dignity and freedom, justice and peace. It means that the Church translates into words and deeds its specifically Christian vision of man and the world, each man’s and all men’s integral human development which is the promise and the hope of the risen Christ and his Kingdom.

There can be no progress towards the complete development of man without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity, Pope Paul declares. Man must meet man, nation must meet nation, as brothers and sisters, as children of God. In this mutual understanding and friendship, in this sacred communion, we must begin to work together to build the common future of the human race.

Alay Kapwa is simply the first step in the long journey of human development of the whole man and of all men, especially the least of our fellowmen.

Liberation Theology

In response to the underdevelopment of the Third World, the United Nations launched the First Development Decade in 1960, the Second Development Decade in 1970. Soon, however, people began to be disillusioned with the hopes and the promises of development. B.N.Y. Vaughan marks 1968 as the turning point when for many developing nations the mirage of development altogether vanished. This has given rise, especially in Latin America, to liberation and liberation theology.

Much has been written about the defects and insufficiencies of development policies and programs. The key criticism of development is that, as understood and implemented by most, development is not the integral human development of Pope Paul and Populorum Progressio, but is actually mere economic growth, capitalistic through and through. The goal of development is the industrialization and modernization of developed countries with all of their deleterious effects on consciousness and culture, on the quality of human life and the precarious balance of nature. Development, instead of confronting the basic human issues of hunger and poverty, of injustice and oppression, is only widening the gap between rich and poor countries, between the powerful elites and the powerless masses within nations.

Liberation theology starts with an analysis of social realities and social structures. It sees underdevelopment not as a stage before the take-off point towards economic growth and development. It accuses the development of industrialized nations as precisely the cause and the reason for the poverty and underdevelopment of the Third World. The relationship between rich and poor countries is one of dominance and dependence respectively, an unbalanced, unjust relationship that can only make for the increasing wealth of developed countries at the expense of the exploitation and poverty of underdeveloped countries. The first item in the agenda of poor countries, therefore, is their liberation from injustice, from oppression and exploitation.

Liberation focuses on social structures, the linkages between economic and social, political and cultural, religious and education systems in society and between nations.