Character, capacity, community—now
Servant Leader
Rev. Fr. Antonio Cecilio T. Pascual
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)
has released its pastoral exhortation for this year, being “the
year of social concerns,” entitled “Building a Civilization
of Love,” which not only exhorts but commits the Church
in a path toward the restoration of good old values.
According to our bishops,
two key factors make the focus on social concern more urgent.
“First, the whole Church is powerfully reminded by the first
encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, that social
concern is essential to her mission. Our bishops state that the
Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she
can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.” Second, our country’s
present situation “calls us to be more actively committed
to living out the social teaching of the Church. Political turmoil,
moral corruption and environmental degradation have worsened massive
poverty and scandalous social inequality.”
Thus, our Bishops have
committed the church to pursue the three Cs: character, capacity
and community—a three-fold program of pastoral action.
Build character:
The Church will again build persons of faith and virtue.
The Church is aware that the problem
in the world today and in our country, in particular, is not rooted in economics
or politics but culture, more specifically the individual’s character.
What is the prevalent social environment in our country as we conduct our day-to-day
lives? Do we practice GMRC (good manners and right conduct)? Are we still aware
of FIAT—fairness, integrity, accountability and transparency? Our character
is reflected in our culture and when we say we live in a culture of corruption,
we can gauge the nature of our character—we need a cultural revolution.
In the Bible, the moral compass in
the Old Testament is the 10 commandments and in the New Testament, the Beatitudes.
We need to go back to these basics, and we start with the family—the first
school of formation to develop character. Then we move to the parishes and the
schools.
Build capacity: Poverty
is not only about “not having” but also of “not being able
to.” Poverty is also a question of capability. We have to empower those
who are needy to construct a better future.
The Church’s social action programs,
training programs, institutions, research centers, schools, charitable agencies
and organizations, religious orders and congregations, lay organizations and
movements will be geared help people grow in capacities. We must help those
who are poor to help themselves through capacity building. This is the developmental
way of liberating the poor from destitution and inferiority—to give them
capabilities, develop their skills and their self-worth, encourage them further,
and give them a good chance to succeed and not be left behind.
Build community:
Through formation and education, through various means, including the use of
the media of social communications, the Church will promote, at every level
of society and Church, a spirituality of citizenship. This spirituality of citizenship
fosters a sense of patriotism and of being responsible for our country.
The time is quite ripe in building,
organizing a new movement, a social movement rooted in love and justice.
Our Church leaders are urging us,
all the faithful, all its offices and institutions, all its orders and everyone
to evaluate what we are doing to build character, capacity and community; to
pray and discern what we can do. And to take action.
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FRONTPAGE