Post-COVID devotion

For the first time since the pandemic lockdowns three years ago, the Catholic faithful are again completely free to observe the Lenten rituals in person.

Live crucifixions returned to Pampanga last year, along with the flagellants, with their blood and sweat flying in all directions with each swish of the burilyo. But not all local governments allowed the bloody rituals amid the threat posed by Omicron at the time.

This year, all restrictions in religious gatherings have been lifted, although many people are still wearing masks and maintaining some distance from each other.

Church attendance is also not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, as indicated by the bishops’ call for the faithful to return to in-person masses.

This could be partly because after three years of mobility restrictions, there are people – especially the elderly and families with young children – who have grown used to the convenience of attending live-streamed masses in the comfort (and safety from infection) of their homes.

Communion with humanity, however, is one of the essences of the Holy Mass. Do live-streamed masses diminish this?

The pandemic, with its horrific toll on lives, livelihoods as well as physical and mental health, heightened awareness of mortality. People forced into isolation or who mourned the loss of loved ones and friends pondered how fleeting life could be.

In such situations, according to Father Flaviano Villanueva, people usually become more aware of matters of the spirit and commune with their Maker.

Others lose it and seek emotional support. Like civilian mental health advocates, Father Flavie, a missionary of the Society of the Divine Word, noted a spike in the number of people seeking Church help with psychological or emotional problems throughout the pandemic lockdowns.

With the world emerging from the COVID horror, has this contemplation of spiritual matters been sustained? Father Flavie isn’t sure.

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Even before the pandemic, there were already discussions on whether faith still had relevance in modern life.

Father Flavie acknowledged that Filipino devotion tended to be ritualistic, with people not internalizing the basic teachings of the faith. The Church has openly frowned on those bloody Holy Week spectacles that reenact the passion and death of Jesus Christ.

These days when you describe an act as “un-Christian,” you might be accused of religious discrimination. It seems that even concepts of good and evil are becoming relative. How could many in Asia’s bastion of Catholicism, for example, support Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly crackdown on drug suspects?

For Father Flavie, this public support was one of the dismaying aspects in his work with families who lost loved ones to Duterte’s so-called war on drugs.

Before his ordination, Father Flavie understood the nature of the drug problem only too well: he was a substance abuser.

Which drugs did he abuse? “The whole nine yards,” he told One News – everything available in the country that could possibly be abused, which (fortunately for him) no longer included the hard drugs of the 1970s such as heroin, morphine and LSD. It was also before shabu – which fries the brain and short-circuits body functions – became widespread, and before the arrival of lethal opioids such as fentanyl.

Completely kicking a serious drug habit can be a lifetime undertaking, Father Flavie told us. He found solace in religion, which ran deep in his family; both his parents were church volunteers. The father had hoped his only son would be a priest, but perished the thought because of Flavie’s drug addiction. The father did not live long enough to see his son ordained in 2006.

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Father Flavie, now 53, has been running the St. Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center for the poor and homeless since July 2015.

When Duterte launched Oplan Tokhang, Father Flavie, with his personal understanding of the complexities of substance abuse, spoke out against the bloody crackdown. He also co-founded the Church-based Paghilom support program, which helps families of those killed in the drug war.

In 2019, he became one of several bishops and priests charged with “conspiracy to commit sedition” following the release of a video in April 2019 in which a certain “Bikoy” – later identified as Peter Joemel Advincula – accused Duterte’s family members of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

Bikoy also claimed to be part of a group, together with the clerics and certain opposition personalities, who were plotting to overthrow the Duterte administration.

In February 2020, the sedition charges were dropped against four bishops and two priests, including Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas. Father Flavie was not cleared, but he was allowed to post bail.

On Nov. 24, 2021, the Dutch government conferred the Human Rights Tulip Award on Father Flavie in recognition of his work.

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Surveys throughout Duterte’s six years in power showed that Filipinos would rather not have drug suspects killed.

But Duterte enjoyed consistently high survey ratings until he stepped down. Since he made his war on drugs a centerpiece of his presidency, those high ratings were seen to indicate public support for his approach to the drug menace.

People have wondered why predominantly Catholic Philippines has often shown preference for Dirty Harry types who take violent short cuts in law enforcement.

Why, for that matter, are corruption and other forms of thievery so entrenched in our country, when “Thou shall not steal” is one of the 10 Commandments?

Are the majority of Catholic devotees in this country even familiar with the basic teachings and Catechism of the faith? Those who are not may find it difficult to go beyond ritualistic expressions of religious devotion. The message of the Gospel during mass could be lost on them.

Perhaps the Church should offer more Sunday Catechism lessons, especially in underprivileged communities where children are enrolled mostly in public schools where there are no religion classes. Or perhaps the Church should open more schools that cater to children from low-income families.

It might also be good to conduct more masses in Filipino interspersed with the dominant local dialect. Joyful music also helps.

The Church may want to consider a shift in messaging, from the emphasis on suffering and the fires of hell for unrepentant sinners, to the promise of redemption, resurrection and joy in eternal life.

Father Flavie wants to focus on this message in this week of contemplating Christ’s suffering and death.

As we rise from a deadly pandemic, and just as Father Flavie managed to rise from the pits of drug abuse, there is salvation at Easter.