Altar of secrets? Here’s a good one.
He shows how far we’ve come since the 1890s
The Catholic Church in the Philippines has been getting a lot of bad press recently.
Times like these, I feel most sorry for those priests and bishops who, day in and day out, work tirelessly for their parishioners and dioceses. Not all of them are like this. But there are pastors who serve generously, away from the limelight, and without any other intention except to give of themselves as their master did. They are the ones who desire to listen to those they serve, help them find healing, and sometimes, even a job and some food, all without asking for anything in return.
One of them is Cardinal Chito Tagle, Manila’s archbishop, who also happens to be the head of Caritas International. Caritas is one of the Catholic Church’s most prominent charitable institutions. But it isn’t this position, nor his impressive theological credentials that gets to me. It’s his humility.
I still remember the first time I heard of him. He was still the bishop of Imus. Back then, I read an article about how he visited the local market and stopped to chat with an old lady vendor, without counting the time. I heard he also went around his diocese in tricycle. Cavite’s own Pope Francis. These stories and a video I saw of him encouraging his fellow bishops to move towards a “listening Church” turned me into his fan.
A few years later, I found out that the Vatican asked him to take over the Archdiocese of Manila. I remember the excitement and enthusiasm I felt when I heard the news. It was the goosebump kind of excitement. The same kind of thrill I felt when I read about how John Paul II unexpectedly became pope after a long wave of Italian popes, at the height of the cold war.
Something about this new young cardinal stood out. My insides told me he did not get there because he was well-connected. It was his energy. It was different. He looked nothing like a prince of the Church. Instead, he exuded the spirit of a a shepherd. It was a wonderful, wonderful gift and an answered prayer to hear that he had become Manila’s head cleric.
Then, the year Pope Francis was elected, Cardinal Tagle delivered a moving keynote address at Ateneo’s commencement ceremony. In it, he told the story of OFWs living in Rome. He told us in the audience of their struggles, and how much they had to suffer, especially through loneliness and discrimination, in order to make ends meet for families back home.
What struck me was how he told these stories as though they were his own. He talked about these Filipinos as though their pain was really his pain. You could see from his eyes, and hear from the tone of his voice, that he was hurting with them. His compassion was piercing. He even began to weep.
I remembered this heart-wrenching moment again last week, while watching the Rizal biopic by Marilou Diaz-Abaya with my students. In the film, Manila’s archbishop is a Spaniard who is both racist and brutal. He’s the mastermind behind Rizal’s unjust execution. I’m not sure this was entirely accurate, but there definitely were prominent ecclesiastics like him in the Philippines, during Rizal’s time. Clerics who led the Church not because they wanted to serve, but because of the power that came with the title.
Thankfully, we’ve come a long a way since. Our self-effacing, native cardinal shows just how far we’ve come. The local Church has many dark corners, but he is one of her brighter spots.
Having said this, I often wonder what would happen if he ran in an election? He’d never do that, but imagine he did. Wouldn’t you prefer to be led by him, despite his representing the Church?
You see at the end of the day, authority is not really about the institution it represents. What really counts is the humility of whoever yields power. That humility is what sets this chinito caviteño apart. If only there were more like him, in both Church and State.
I’ll admit, there are dark secrets behind our church altars. But we can’t forget the really good ones. And one of our local church’s most precious secrets is Manila’s weeping cardinal.
