in god's name

if someone were to ask me 15 years ago on what i felt most passionate about, i would have said god, country, family, people. it sounds like a mindless politician's slogan for another mindless election, but that was how i felt. in a religious country like the philippines, the concept of being religious and spirituality are completely interchangeable. to be spiritual is to believe in god, be a serious member of an established faith, in most instances catholic, and carry out the dictates of that faith.

in most instances, i followed that path as most young filipinos enrolled in sectarian catholic institutions. my catholic formation couldn't have been more hifalutin in the philippine setting. dominican friars were my role models as i was growing up in the conservative confines of santo tomas. we were bombarded with religious instruction every day not only on the generalities of the faith, but on the specifics of their dogma and how they apply to secular existence. in the pontifical university, we prayed before and after each subject with the entire rosary recited during the whole month of october. for such piety and loyalty to the holy mother the church, we were always graced by the Pope's presence every time His Holiness was in town. as the Church's primary agents of educating the faithful, our dominican mentors were the true soldiers of the church in their fulfillment of their holy mandate.

but besides making sure that i understood my faith's dogmas and doctrines, i thought that i was being consistent with being an ordinary, church-going christian. i believed that by being a good son of the church, my personal struggles would seem easier because of divine intervention. if it meant going to church every day to seek my personal petitions, so be it. if it meant praying the rosary every night besides those done in the classroom, so be it. every day, i was counting my blessings and seeking atonement for my sins. lest it be misconstrued, however, i was no saint. i approached religion from a more theoretical perspective, hence the obedience was more mechanical than practical, more distant than personal, and it banked on the whole premise that attaining eternal life had a fixed formula to follow.

my initial formation was therefore founded on a very stringent conservative catholic backdrop. my social principles all emanated from this orientation. rabidly anti-abortion regardless of the pregnancy's circumstances, i also believed that religious instruction must also be available in public schools. i believed that the Church had the divine right and responsibility to use the pulpit to push for what it deems is right and just. above all, i believed that the country's success all depended on its people's re-conversion. that any meaningful national recovery would involve arousing the people's faith and getting them to be involved in nation building with their conscience as the main driving force. and i trusted that my church was the logical positive force in that regard.

my christian formation proved indispensable in reinforcing that religious fervor. coupled with my parents' serious and sincere involvement with the church and the burgeoning charismatic movement at that time, i thought i would be a man whose ideals would unshakably be conservative.

but too much of something can indeed be a bad thing. while i continued to participate in activities that enhanced my own spirituality, i was noticing the dominant role the church was playing in my country's affairs. i agreed in theory with this principle in the beginning. but my exposure to the more liberal elements of society became more common particularly in the varsitarian, logic began to interfere in my faith. i started to reassess the "go and multiply" dictum of the church while i see the increasing misery of my countrymen in the face of such astonishing population growth. i began to view the hierarchy of my church as insensitive to the sufferings of the people despite the overwhelming science against unbridled, unchecked population increase. its vehemence in insisting its stand against responsible family planning was perhaps what set off my drift away from my church. how can a bunch of celibates credibly lecture other people about family planning? how can these supposed intellectuals of the church force the argument against the fact the when one million new filipinos are born each year, the nation's food production and job creation will be perpendicularly exhausted because they simply cannot catch up?

the impact might be ignored in the more secular societies in western europe and to a certain extent the united states, but in catholic philippines, this poses a real problem. to date, no philippine administration has successfully implemented a true family planning program save for the iron fist of marcos during martial law while protestant ramos' efforts at addressing the population issue was perpetually hounded by the church throughout his term.

then my stand on abortion shifted dramatically as well. it further hardened as my political ideology moved farther and farther to the left. i began to view the church as a force perpetually opposed to progress as it undermined embryonic stem cell research, the darwinian principle and the indisputable data of population overgrowth. it has consistently failed to respond credibly to challenges to long-standing disputes on these various social issues. it had continued to invoke the power of the pulpit and hide in the cassocks of blind faith. they have continuously derided its critics and those whose positions are not supportive of the church's as enemies of the faith. some have been so unfortunate as to be declared heretics and countless of them were burned to death.

i am not saying that this institution has lost all its usefulness in society. for a people who rely on religion as their source of hope, the church remains an instrument of moral formation. its deeply held beliefs on what is right and wrong are useful guides for people who truly regard them as a genuine source of goodness. despite the catholic church's sometimes atrocious record to humanity in causing death and suffering to people with a set of beliefs separate from the christian hegemony, much can be learned about its history. while it has never really apologized to its victims during the crusades, the inquisition and its painful silence while the carnage that was the holocaust was underway, there might be signs of atonement from the institution that has always taught about humility and the value of forgiveness. two popes have now revisited the lands that christianity's former princes were perpetually trying to "recover" from the moors in a gesture of reconciliation and maybe, forgiveness.

but my drift away from faith seemed unstoppable. i was simply unable to reconcile certain truths about humanity and salvation. about the preponderance of one faith over the other. about the improbability of the absoluteness of each truth against another truth. while similarities in the stories of most faiths and the commonality of the three major religions' (judaism, christianity and islam) root history of a single deity, one's claim against the other as the one true faith creates doomsday scenario for those who happen to belong to what ends up as false religion. this parochial and arrogant claim to exclusive salvation based on creed defies logic and is very divisive. despite our level of social advancement,this divisiveness has brought us to all these sectarian strife that are erupting everywhere. from palestine to northern ireland, kosovo to banda aceh, today's religious extremism is but a snapshot of all the crimes committed in the name god.

i might never go back to the day when i completely surrendered my destiny to a force other than what i see. i might never again believe that my catholicism is the one true path to where everyone imagines they want to be. perhaps one day, however, we can just respect other people's beliefs and try to imagine that we might all end up in that one place. that one true place.