What would you say if you were asked for comment on these occasions?
Last July 23, I got three emails from friends. One reacted to a TV coverage of an art exhibit at the CCP where the artist reportedly “disfigured the image of Christ… with obscenities”. Another suggested that the exhibit be stopped. The third one enclosed the video coverage of the contentious exhibit. Coming on the heels of the media-bloated Pajero-bishops brouhaha, this CCP thing understandably infuriated many devout Catholics like my friends who were rallying others to denounce the Church-bashers. I emailed them my take on it:
“I'd leave it to others to ‘do something about it’.
As far as I see it, this particular piece is not art; it is graffiti. Art elevates the soul; graffiti regurgitates all the dirt the artist has swallowed from his environment.
Based on what the artist Mideo Cruz says in the TV interview, it seems his purpose for creating that piece is NOT to elevate the soul but to shock viewers. He doesn't shock me. Nothing anyone can do to disfigure an image of Christ can change THE image of Christ He Himself has revealed to me. Neither can it arouse my indignation towards the vandal. As an artist, he's free to express himself. And those who are offended by his act are free to hit him. Let's hope he learns that he has brought it upon himself due to his less than noble intention.
As for the alleged threats to the artist’s life on account of that work, I wouldn't bite that naively. For all we know it's coming from anti-Church folks, done purposely to make the Church look bad, and knowing media would pick it up. You know how such scandal mongers media can be. A true follower of Christ will never do that (threaten etc...)
I don't know Mideo Cruz from Adam but judging from the handful of his works I have seen online, I think he wants to call attention to his work or to himself (as many artists do) but it could also be his veiled but desperate call for help to understand what the Church teaches. He is a product of poor catechesis, to say the least. So is Celdran. So are the so-called Filipino Free Thinkers. So there. It comes back to us who believe we know better. Do we know better, really? How are we communicating God to our churchgoers? To unbelievers? To "infidels"? If we see nothing amiss with our witness, then let us prepare to see more Mideo Cruzes rising from our present crop of kindergarteners.
That's all I can say, as I imagine Jesus writing in the sand.
Shalom!”
Another instance when my comment was sought involved an article written by Teodoro Locsin, Jr. titled “Damn the bishops for taking it lying down”. The piece extolled Senator Miriam Santiago who at the Senate hearing with the bishops “did what the pathetic bishops had failed to do for themselves, for their Church, and for her dismayed children”.
Allow me to share excerpts from the 1,604-word article: “This shame cannot be wiped away until the Church pays back the government in the same coin it was dealt at the Senate. If it doesn’t go on the attack in every pulpit in the land, then should all true Catholics turn their backs on this ridiculous, faithless and timid religion… God damn the bishops for their timidity and abjectness… may they all go to hell for shaming our religion. In this scandal of lies, the government knocked the crown of glory from the head of the Church; if our bishops will stoop only to bow to their traducers rather than retrieve it, then every right thinking Catholic should pick it up from the gutter and shove it down the throat of the government.”
All I could say to the persons who asked for my comment was, “I don’t personally know Locsin, but I’m imagining Jesus scolding Peter “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
The third “take” was sought by text a few hours after Sen. Miriam Santiago delivered her sponsorship speech at the Senate yesterday. The texter asked “How will CBCP or the bishops handle this?” I read Miriam’s speech in her blog. My semi-tongue-in-cheek reply was: “Why should CBCP or the bishops ‘handle’ it? This woman totally misses the point. She is so hell-bent on passing the killer bill that her own sound and fury deafens her to what the bishops and the pro-lifers are trying to say. Instead of dignifying her flawed treatise with a response, the bishops should chill it. Let’s pray they focus on inspiring and motivating the priests who would in turn set the pulpits afire with the power of conviction. The fight for life goes on, the enemy’s cacophony notwithstanding. (We can even turn the senator’s argument against her. She insists on primacy of conscience? Why then should the government legislate a bill that violates conscience?) If in the process of conveying The Truth to the faithful the priests happen to mow down the senator, c’est la vie, but let not their moves be dictated by the misguided zeal of some. Rather, let us continue sowing good seeds and doing better deeds. The moral of the story: See what happens when a few units of Theology get into a brilliant student’s head.”
I chuckled as that last sentence came with the image of Jesus telling His disciples, “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind…”
See—I may not always satisfy people who ask for comments, but at least I tell the truth. And that’s the truth. (This article first came out in the author's column, AND THAT'S THE TRUTH, in the August 2011 issue of CBCP Monitor, the official publication of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines)
