The Church has always been an influential social institution in the Philippines. Its role of being the sole arbiter of values and knowledge has granted it an unlimited access to power over the Filipino people as well the government itself. Indeed, the Church has not showed any reservation in exercising its authority over its unwilling subjects. As to how the Church was able to acquire their current stature and importance in society is filled with much systematic execution of well-planned censorship and deception. By mandating a wide-spread censorship of educational materials pertaining to Science and Technology, let alone a secular education, the Church has effectively thwarted any secular academic enlightenment for the Filipino of that era. Because society is now covered with a veil of ignorance and oppression, the Church were successful in their plot to leave the people in the dark and be susceptible to the deception that is aptly fed by religion. By effectively suppressing education, the Church has stunted and retarded the development of the factors of production required for a society to advance to capitalism. The suppression of secular education has effectively left the Filipino society in the state of Feudalism where the Spanish friars reign supreme and the Filipino linger in oppression and impoverishment.
Indeed, the Church is full of paradox in its teachings and its actual practice. A lot of christian values were distorted in order to fit the material needs of the church. Rizal was accurate in pointing out that the value of charity was grossly misinterpreted by the Church and was consequently used to impoverish the Filipinos. Jesus himself, as Rizal reasons, did not rely on material needs but did require spiritual offering from an individual. The Church equated charity and piety with their sale of non-nonsensical artifacts like scapulars, rosaries, bible and other religious items. In fact, even the indulgence required for the salvation of the souls in purgatory was systematically auctioned off to the highest bidder as best exemplified by Hermana Ruffa and her cohort. Perhaps Kapitan Tiago was Rizal's example of a truly distorted Filipino religious fanatic engaged in a lot of deceptive religious hokum. He would tirelessly built extravagant arc-ways for every fiesta, worship the most expensive religious sculptures of his favorite saints and donate endless amounts of pesos to the masses held in San Diego. Rizal correctly pointed out that piety consists in doing what is right rather than blindly following the mandates of the friars. He said that the Filipinos should be wary of the differences of the teachings of Christ from that of the friar's. Every Catholic therefore should know
I was a bit intrigued with Professor Fernandez's story regarding a question addressed to her by a foreigner in a recent convention. He posted the question that if Rizal found the Church as one of the main contributors to the social cancer of the Filipino society, why is it that the Church still continues to be an influential social institution in today's time? The question, itself, posts several more questions. Haven't the Filipino people learned that in order for them to achieve prosperity, they need to be critical of the values and knowledge imparted by the Church? Also, haven't we learned that to engage extensively in secular education would be a great leap forward to progress and development of our nation? Don't they know that their continuing demise as ignorant people hinges on their continued practice of these distorted Christian values? At the end of this string of questions lies a very disheartening realization. Maybe, the Filipino people are still not aware of the chains created by the Church that continually bound them to these incoherent teachings. Maybe, it would take another century or longer for the Filipino people to be conscious of the Church's deception and finally break free of these chains. Despite this bleak outlook, one thing is certain. Sooner or later, The Filipinos will realize their potential and live their nation's inevitable destiny of freedom and liberty. Someday. (12/14/2010)
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