Is it possible to write a profile of Catholic Filipino religiosity? Even within the folds of Catholicism, we are no longer as homogenous as we once were. But given existing differences and resulting complexities, the great majority do practice folk or popular Catholicism. Jaime Cardinal Sin calculated “that 90% of Filipino Catholics practice their Faith pretty much along the lines of popular Catholicism.”

For roughly 90% then, here’s a composite picture of Filipino religiosity. Its being “popular” – i.e., held by “‘all’ the people in a given time and place, regardless of socio-economic distinction,” and present among the poor, the middle class, the rich, in rural and urban areas – is ample justification to call it “Filipino.”

ANIMISM AND COLONIALISM
How did this folk or popular Catholicism come to be? It has two principal roots: the Hispanic root familiar to Filipinos from Philippine history, and the anthropological root, the less known but very interesting source.

No, in our earlier culture, we were not heathens as the conquistador would make us believe. We were “animist-deists” attributing life to nature and to objects (thus the frequent description of “animist”) and worshipping nature spirits presiding over “every forest, every mountain, every river and every grove.” We were nature lovers; in a way, original environmentalists who would not hurt bird or crocodile. Nature, in fact, is written all over our early literature. Even the Catholic rejection of pantheism was unable to eradicate our reverend regard for a vital nature.

And we had anitos, images or statues, in our homes which our forefathers made themselves, practically adored and to whom they offered food and various things of value.

Entered Spain in the 1560’s with the formidable tandem of conquistador and missionary priest. Despite political, religious and cultural movements beginning to sweep Europe, both Spain and the institutional Church held on to their medieval, feudal and monarchic moorings for a long while. In tune with that character, Hispanic Catholicism implanted firm doctrinal beliefs and rules, rich devotionalism and clericalism.

When the two cultures met, Filipino folk religiosity was born. The offspring was a de facto example of inculturation long before the Church realized its importance and inevitability in evangelization. The reciprocal confluence of indigenation on one hand and hispanization on the other, blended in a “Filipinization” that begot Filipino Catholicism: unique, that like the jeepney, was and was not either of its parts.

SUPERSTITIOUS AND HARD
“What can you say about our religiosity?” I asked my husband. “It’s superstitious and it’s an ‘asking’ religion.” He didn’t exactly miss the mark.

Ours is a constantly praying religion and exceedingly devotional. Every other woman easily has an inch of dog-eared prayer pamphlets and novenas prayed everyday. Novenas are mainly for asking as are our many shrines like Baclaran, Quiapo, Manaog. We tend to ask and talk too much in our prayers with little of Oriental silence and meditation. The pietism shows in daily Mass, the rosary, holy hours, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, etc.

Nationwide, Catholic Philippines is devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, given different homegrown titles besides the universal ones; likewise to the Santo Niño (the Holy Child) and an array of “saints with specializations” like St. Anthony for lost objects, San Isidro for farmers, St. Rita for the impossible.

PIETISM AND IDOLATRY
The pietism becomes very visible with statues and images in church and home, almost hedging idolatry. What we have done to the Sto. Niño in the garb of every other occupation of the Filipino! For many, statues do not just represent or remind but actually possess some immanent power. That is why, as a priest said, we touch or rub “their feet, their face, the pedestal if we can’t reach the face” so that some favor or grace may pass down to us. As sacramentals, the same goes for medals, scapulars, relics, the cross. Be it ever so elaborate as an altar groaning with statues, large and small, or ever so humble as a small stand against the wall with the Perpetual Help, Santo Niño and a rosary; the altar is a mainstay in the Filipino home.

More “advanced” Filipinos may deny it, but our religiosity is still animistic and superstitious. Omens intermingle with vows; medals and scapulars with anting-anting and amulets; statues with anitos; saints with nature spirits; money offerings with fruits of one’s labor.

RITUALISM AND TOURISM
Our religiosity is also very ritualistic as is Catholicism in general. The rites are a feast for the eyes and ears; no minimalism here but rococo all the way from bells, candles, music, vestments, the carrosa (professional carriage for statues and images) doctrinal street dramas, all the elaborate paraphernalia and ceremonies marking every turn in the liturgical year. Nick Joaquin, national artist for literature, was enthralled by the pomp and ceremonies of the churches in Intramurous. The feast of the Nazarene in Quiapo is a ritual on the edge of frenzy.

And how about the fiesta for the patron saint and the Virgin, the melting pot of native and Spanish tradition, the climactic burst of the festive, religious, dramatic, ritualistic, legendary all rolled into one! Except that some fiestas have been bastardized for touristic purposes; such are the dancing in Obando, Bulacan for fertility; the ati-atihan for the Sto. Niño in Kalibo, Aklan; the Moriones in Marinduque for Longinus, the blind Roman centurion who pierced Jesus on the Cross; the Peñafrancia fluvial festival for the Virgin in Naga. Very sensuous, sentimental and affective, we do wear our religion on our sleeves.

A PENITENTIAL DISPOSITION
Almost inconsistent with ritualistic flamboyance are certain traits, less visible but inculcated in our religious psyche, traceable to the way Hispanic Catholicism catechized us. If the historian is to be believed, Spain implanted Catholicism not only for its own sake but as a tool for subjugation. Such perhaps is why our religiosity imbibed such debilitating and repressing concepts of suffering, guilt, sinfulness, worthlessness and victimhood. We drag or we are dragged around by a penitential disposition. Our hymns and prayers constantly remind us that we have “sinned exceedingly,” mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” “we have nothing to give.” Naturally trailing behind is an abject religiosity rather than a buoyant one.

Another cluster of related traits has to do with our bond with the hierarchical or Institutional Church. We have been brought up to be docile, obedient, loyal children of the Church; ready to rise to her defense, and to obey without question whatever she says or rules, for the Church can do no wrong. The downside despite fine words for the laity, is that we go too far and become servile and deferential.

A DEEP SENSE OF GOD
Despite countless pastoral servant-priests, many priests themselves admit that “we regard priests too highly,” that ours is still a “priest-oriented culture.” “Ang pari ay hari.” (The priest is king.) “Can you say ‘no’ to the priest”? “If you fight the Church, something bad will happen to you.”

The crowning glory is our enigmatic “faith”, our deep “sense of God.” Much has been written about this. On one hand, it is an all-encompassing belief and trust in God. It will dare all things and submit all things to Divine Providence. On the other hand, it has touches of fatalism and stubborn irrationality. The key is said to lie in our much cited word for God, Bathala, from which the untranslatable bahala na proceeds. The closest we can get to it is “come what may, all is in God’s hands.” The Filipino “gets it” and lives it. It lies deep in the core of his being and I dare say, it truly connects to the Source in a stunning and silent spirituality.

A SPLIT-LEVEL CHRISTIANITY
Nevertheless, serious questions regarding the depth, practice, and maturity of our religiosity have been raised by priest, prelate and lay person echoing each other.

First, how deep is this abundance of “external manifestations” or are these skin deep? “… the Gospel has permeated the people’s culture ‘only in a superficial or mediocre way’ … many people have not come to understand the Gospel as a living, personal commitment; … Often they see religion, more as a ritualistic or pietistic set of practices than as a life of fervor and active effort. …”

Liturgy, the symbolical expression of our Faith and the Church’s “official public worship” is nothing if not meaningful. But the sheer profusion of the rites, rituals and devotions in which it is clothed can overwhelm and distract such that the forest is lost for the trees. As vehicles of faith, they can lead to moving and genuine “faith experiences” that may or may not last.

This leads to a second observation. Why, as the preceding quotes deplores, is there little transference of our rich external religiosity into the way we live? “When you see me, you see the teaching.” How true is this in every self-avowed “devout Catholic”? Two reasons may be offered. One is Jesuit Father Jaime Bulatao’s well known “split-level Christianity” whereby we profess one thing and act in another way; where we compartmentalize our lives with one part “inside the church” and another “outside.”

DEVOTION AND CONDUCT GAP
Another is the centuries-long emphasis on creed (what to believe) and cult (how to worship) to the neglect of code (how to live). The Church in the Philippines has been described as “credal and cultic.” On one end, it is loaded with beliefs, teachings, exhortations with specific degrees of gravity and corresponding culpability, and rules, too, as binding as teachings; such that dogmatism has become a permanent state of mind. On the other end, we have seen how our religiosity overflows with cult.

But how is the neglect of code possible? The Ten Commandments and the twin commandments of love, the basic codes of the Church are very clear. “Thou shalt not steal.” Yet, there for all to see is our country – number one in religiosity according to a 1998 Survey in Religion, but number one in corruption.

This yawning gap between dogma and devotion, on one hand, and conduct, on the other, has had too long a life. A century ago Jose Rizal, our national hero, saw and wrote about it. Take away his byline and you would think his piece was written for today. Little has changed. “The transition from popular Catechism to a mature Christian and Catholic faith, doctrine and life is ‘one of the truly major issues which confronts the Church in the Philippines today.’”

What a waste that values and virtues like gratitude, truthfulness, forgiveness, detachment and, in recent years, political awareness, social justice and active commitment that inhere and lie within the prayers and masses we offer day in and day out, do not appreciably actualize.

A MORE SOLID AND MATURE FAITH
The third observation concerns the Church as teacher. Is she reading the people right; seeking new and more effective ways of evangelization to cope with congested cities, devastated nature, ethnic and regional wars, fragmented families, omnipresent media, poverty, social inequity, etc., or is she cultivating more devotionalism, nurturing a people who will run to prayer for everything even when action is already demanded; and more dogmatism with “rule upon rule” and alacrity to declare binding official Church positions? Is she happy about purist Catholicism, leery of any sign of indigenation; that would bring us back to “Rome”?

Perhaps the “old” evangelization can still hold the presumed 90% and that’s very good, certainly. But the fallout and disenchantment of 10% (and growing?) should be cause for concern. There’s the minority of “Catholic intelligentsia,” not in the sense of being superior but just espousing the spirit and freedom of inquiry to think, discuss and seek clarification without being branded as heretical! There are swaths of the young, to whom the appeal of ritual and devotion has waned, turned off by religiosity for its stasis and showiness and drawn to spirituality as leaner but deeper and more dynamic; preferring to be thought of as “spiritual” rather than “religious.” And there are the great numbers in charismatic or Pentecostal movements with blocs who remain Catholic and blocs who go “Christian.”

Our folk religiosity has to move up to a more solid quality of conduct and maturity, not to mention spirituality, or be trapped in a time warp that Rizal already saw. Will the Filipino Catholic faithful wait for the Church or will they help themselves?

*Asuncion David-Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and an occasional journalist.