Vicar of Christ, Superstar

MANILA, Philippines - The throng that I encountered at the break of dawn by the gates of UST on the day of Pope Francis’ encounter with the youth was frightening. Even before someone memed Rockstar for the pontiff because of the frenzy and adulation being accorded him by Filipinos, I was already thinking of the appellative Superstar for the Vicar of Christ. What brought the multitude to the streets, waiting for interminable hours under sun and rain, pushing wheelchairs of the aged and the infirm and strollers of the young and weak, risking life and limb to catch a whizzing glimpse (with their eyes and their gadgets) of this Argentinian priest who now wears the ring of the fisherman?

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1970 rock opera, which started as a concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971, and adapted to film in 1973 starring Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, Yvonne Elliman and Barry Dennen. Those of us who were in high school at this time were impervious of our elders’ disdain for the controversial musical’s take on the conflict between Jesus and Judas during the week before the crucifixion, as we gleefully sang:

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Jesus Christ Superstar,

Do you think you’re what they say you are?

American journalist Scott Miller reviewing Jesus Christ Superstar, reckoned: Nearly 40 years after its creation, it is time to return the piece to its rebel roots and allow Rice’s aggressive text to offend, stun, shock and disturb once again. Whether you’re a Christian or not, this is an important side to an important story in world history, and it’s a side rarely told anywhere else.

It is in this context of jolting us from complacency that I use Superstar and not as opprobrium. Miller wrote that in setting the story of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus for the modern stage, lyricist Tim Rice approached the story as political history instead of revealed scripture, and Jesus as radical political activist (mirroring the times) rather than as the son of God.

Perhaps we can do the same in order to make sense of the euphoria that brought millions of Filipinos out into the streets during the five-day apostolic visit of the Pope. Living in a secular epoch, our people are relentlessly seeking a hero at a time of hardship and hopelessness in our history, and here comes a pastor who assumed the name of Francis, a saint who “brought to Christianity an idea of poverty against the luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time and thus changed history.”

The Filipinos who braved the elements to wave at the man they adopted as Lolo Kiko, belonged to different religious denominations and political persuasions, but they shared a common wound inflicted by natural catastrophes, family conflicts and personal insecurities. They are united in their desperation for someone with a shoulder so sheltering that they can lay their heads and cry until all the sorrow and bitterness are cleansed from their weary souls and with arms so accepting, that they can bask in the warmth of an embrace which will not judge their iniquities .

Miller explains thus of the Superstar in the ’70s musicale: “This Jesus does not point the way to God half as much as he points the way toward living a moral, engaged life, and that’s why politics takes center stage here instead of religion. After all, politics is how humans decide collective morality, questions of how to live morally in a community (of whatever size) and of which values will be shared by that community. Conversely, religion dictates those answers to humans, rather than allowing them to explore and form their own morality.”

Personally, I have more affinity with Pope John Paul II, whom I saw thrice in my younger days (alive in 1981 at the Luneta, when I was still single and in 1985 at UST, with my husband; and interred in the crypt in Vatican, with our three sons in 2008) and whom I perceive in both his life and death as very saintly. But in my older age, I have to cast my lot with Pope Francis because he did not pretend to have ready answers, just a reminder to the generation succeeding me: “Be courageous, don’t be frightened of crying.”

With his liberal views, the Vicar of Christ from the Jesuit Order may haul humanity back to its feet through deliberate humility, concern for the poor, sympathy for women and commitment to dialogue as a way to build bridges between people of all backgrounds, beliefs and faiths.

In the 2011 book that covers his conversations with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, On Heaven and Earth, Pope Francis said:

“Dialogue is born from an attitude of respect for the other person, from a conviction that the other person has something good to say. It assumes that there is room in the heart for the person’s point of view, opinion, and proposal. To dialogue entails a cordial reception, not a prior condemnation. In order to dialogue, it is necessary to know how to lower the defenses, open the doors of the house, and offer human warmth.”

Perhaps his devotion to Mary Untier of Knots or Mary Undoer of Knots (the name of both a Marian devotion and a Baroque painting by Johann George Melchior Schmidtner circa 1700 which represents that devotion) is an augury of his Superstar mission. This Marian image presents a parallel between Eve and Mary, describing how “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary.” For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary unravel through faith.

Miserando atque Eligendo — “by having mercy and by choosing,”, Pope Francis stands at the cross roads of redemption for our suffering nation and the world, as the Superstar we absolutely need in our time.