THE “Traslación” took over 30 hours, the longest in history. There was a sea of humanity around the image of the Black Nazarene, and people stayed. Some scrambled to touch the venerated image. Many threw towelettes and handkerchiefs to be touched to the image. Many, regrettably, were injured. The Sinulog in Cebu likewise draws a mammoth crowd into the streets — singing, praying, praising.
Ever since Pope Francis invited attention to “synodality,” we have been full of talk about it. The Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals chose it as one of the topics for reflection and conversation. Our own archdiocese hosts dialogues between representatives of the ecclesiastical province on “synodality.”
But there is a disconnect somewhere — for the people who mill around the venerated images, the throng on the streets of Manila and Cebu, their acts of devotion and their prayers, are the “pia exercita” of members of the Church. These seem to go by a dynamic of their own — a mix of long practice and improvisation. To dismiss these powerful displays of popular religiosity as “marginal phenomena” is to maintain a conversation on synodality that does not touch the indigenous spirituality of the Filipino — and occasional reference to “Poong Nazareno,” “Mahal na Birhen,” and “Poong Sto. Nino” do not adequately establish the necessary connection between ecclesial life and the religiosity of the grassroots.
Preaching to the choir — that is the phenomenon I fear. The participants to dialogues on synodality are the very persons already active in the life of the Church — and their involvement is definitely of immense value. But what about the thousands, millions, perhaps at the Traslación and the Sinulog? What about the leaders of the professions, the key persons in business, the prominent characters in academe? How involved have they been? How persuasive has been the supposed welcome of synodality to include them and their views?
The Church was right to declare its preferential option for the poor. But this cannot and should not have as its result the creation of a new marginal sector: those left out of the synodal exchange because very little effort has been made to involve them — and for the purposes of this piece, these will mean the barefoot devotees of Poong Nazareno, the chanting, Viva-cheering and swaying participants in Sinulog, on the one hand, as well as the leading personages of the professions and the influential members of academe on the other.
There is no doubt that earnest work on basic ecclesial communities has proceeded felicitously — but even here, one can ask what the link is between the exchanges that take place in these intimate circles and what have been characterized, sometimes disparagingly, as “devotional practices.” One can also rightly ask whether judges, prosecutors, medical specialists, key government officials have been invited to these circles of reflection and discernment, with that degree of earnestness that would make refusing awkward.
I deal with lawyers and judges in the Graduate School of Law and when I talk about synodality, I could as well be talking about the constitution of the planet Saturn because very few — if any — are involved in the synodal movements of their respective parishes and dioceses. I regularly meet with other professors and deans and synodality hardly sparks any recognition or interest in them, not because they do not care, but because they have not been involved.
No, I am not inveighing against synodality. It is the way to go. It is the way to be Church. I am, however, urging synodal concern for those sectors that are not yet within the “meaningful thematics” of focus groups on synodality and, so far, left out of the synodal encounter.
Fr. Rannie Aquino is dean of the Graduate School of Law at San Beda College-Mendiola.
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
Rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
