We must etch two crucial messages on Filipino psyche

Filipinos wonder: Who is this unique, unconventional Pope who visited us? We should also ask: What is this unique Asian Catholic nation that welcomed him like no other could?

We immediately saw a Pope of great humility. The leader of the world’s largest religion carries his own bag, opens his own car door and even walks on the street. He gave no long-winded sermons but subtly refocused attention to the humblest Filipinos “to learn to be evangelized by the poor.”

When 12-year-old Glyzelle Iris Palomar asked in tears why God let innocent children suffer abandonment, prostitution and drugs, he candidly answered, “There is no answer” and encouraged the faithful, “Don’t be afraid to cry.”

He asked why Supertyphoon “Yolanda” had to take away Leyteños’ property and loved ones, and admitted that no mere man would know why and that he could only “walk with you all in my silent heart.” His constant refrain was: “Pray for me!”

Foreign media portrayed a conservative Pope. At the SM Mall of Asia, he decried “the new ideological colonization,” “growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.”

UK PM’s critique

He exhorted the people: “Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death.”

In Malacañang, he asked for “respect for the inalienable right to life, beginning with that of the unborn.”

These catch phrases subtly reenacted reproductive health debates, with President Aquino’s own speech arguing that the Gospel calls to “make each person capable of exercising true freedom of choice.”

Finally, as 6 million Filipinos converged for the Pope’s final Mass, UK Prime Minister David Cameron led strong criticism of his statement on Charlie Hebdo that, “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others.”

Simple joy

But Filipinos focused on the Pope who brought back the simple joy of religion to everyday life. He asked couples to always remember how they were as boyfriend and girlfriend, and to dream as families. He asked the youth not to become too absorbed in gadgets.

He moved Tacloban to tears simply by saying that he had long wanted to come; “a little bit late, but I’m here.” He said Mass wearing the same flimsy yellow raincoat like the crowd. And he stopped to hug children and reminded on the Feast of the Sto. Niño that one must become a child again to enter God’s kingdom.

As the euphoria dissipates, it is all too tempting to say that nothing has changed.

2 crucial messages

Two crucial messages must thus etch themselves onto our psyche.

First, we must remember Pope Francis as a social reformer who reminds us that sin transcends the individual. He rallied us against “social structures which perpetuate poverty, ignorance and corruption,” and challenged us “to reject every form of corruption which diverts resources from the poor.” The deepest sin is structural; ending corruption is a moral imperative.

We bristled when our President criticized bishops in front of Pope Francis, but why were we not mortified when one of our children could only talk to him of drugs and prostitution before breaking into tears?

Why did 6 million troop to Luneta for his Mass, yet 2013’s Million People March to the scrap pork barrel mustered only 100,000? Why did the Pope arrive 14 months late yet still see people in Tacloban in great need, Yolanda’s scars still clearly fresh?

Sense of destiny

Second, we must embrace Pope Francis’ sense of destiny. He unreservedly praised us as the “foremost Catholic country in Asia.” His warmest embrace at the tarmac was reserved for Cardinal Chito Tagle, long praised by the world as the Asian leader who parallels his demeanor.

We can be so parochial and overlook that we are special as a large Catholic country, with more Catholics than all but Brazil and Mexico. We take for granted the millions that greet the Pope at each turn here and overlook how this awes the world. We look up to Tagle as a future Pope but have never pictured our country as a leader in the Catholic world.

In private, Pope Francis encouraged Philippine Jesuits to go to the peripheries. Tagle echoed this, saying “[e]very Filipino wants to go with you—not to Rome—but to the peripheries.” But one day, the Philippines will be the center, not the periphery.

Revise self-image

We must draw strength from Pope Francis and revise our self-image as a rudderless country cursed with frustrated potential, mired in poverty, helpless against calamities and best known for exporting labor.

If we are not moved to take up “the great work of renewing your society and helping to build a better world” for our own sakes, then we must do so because Pope Francis needs a strong Philippines and more dynamic leaders like Tagle in his quest to reinvigorate the Church.

We must be the rock upon which the 21st century Church is built as Asia and Africa come to the fore. And perhaps one day, our children will line our streets to welcome not another beloved foreigner, but in homecoming for our man Chito wearing the Ring of the Fisherman, and to talk to him not of squalor and misery but of greater dreams to come.

(React on Twitter @oscarfbtan and facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.)