The troubles of the Catholic Church in RP

(First of two parts)

When the recent sex scandals involving Novaliches Bishop Teodoro Bacani and Antipolo Bishop Crisostomo Yalung erupted in the press, many churchgoers were shocked.

But many in the Roman Catholic priesthood and in the seminaries, as well as laymen involved in church work were not surprised.

The cases involving Bacani, accused of sexually harassing his secretary, and Yalung, who fathered two children by a parishioner, were merely symptoms of problems facing the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.

Churchgoers hardly hear of corruption, promiscuity and homosexuality among the clergy, and there are priests who are not aware of how serious the problems are.

But those who do know say that scandals happen more often than they are reported in media.

And they say that unless reforms are made — especially in how the Church deals with problems, if at all, especially those involving sex offenders — there will be more scandals.

Indeed, part of the problem is that the issues now hounding the Church were left unchecked – either Church leaders looked the other way or were slow to respond.

Although the Church leadership has acknowledged the need for reforms following the Bacani and Yalung scandals, things may get worse before they get better.

In a July plenary conference, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recognized that the Church was in trouble.

It confirmed that corruption is a menace within its ranks but did not explicitly confirm any other problems other than "actual or alleged sexual misconduct of some of its shepherds," referring to the Bacani and Yalung cases.

"We are aware, too, that in other areas of Church life as in parish financial management, some Church members and leaders, through loose and even dishonest stewardship, stray from the path of righteousness and integrity," said the CBCP pastoral statement issued after the conference.

"Dishonest and loose stewardship" was putting it mildly.

According to one Church insider: "The problem of corruption is not as bad as the Church’s other problems but it is a fact... In Metro Manila it is not much because they (priests) are better off here than in the provinces. That is why many want to be appointed as parish priests in Metro Manila, too."

However, the urban setting offers other temptations.

Two years ago, there was a priest in Parañaque City who parishioners might admire.

He celebrated several Masses each Sunday, more than any other priest in neighboring areas. Masses were also held during weekdays.

His assistant treasurer, an elderly staffer, was in charge of collecting the money donated during Mass, among other functions. The money was being used for the upkeep of the church, then undergoing renovation.

There was one explicit instruction from the priest: he himself would do the accounting.

One day, out of boredom, he counted the money he had collected that day and recorded it in the accounting book.

He thought it was nothing irregular — until he got a phone call from the priest later in the evening scolding him for counting the money. His suspicion grew later when he was eased out from handling the church’s finances.

Finally one evening, accompanied by a friend, the staffer tailed the priest, who drove in a brand new car to Manila’s Malate nightspot district.

To their shock, the priest went to Spaceworld Club, a girlie bar now closed, at the corner of Adriatico and Sinagoga streets. The priest visited the nightclub for three nights in a row.

"So that is why we could not finish the renovation of the Church all these years. He was using our money for his own," the elderly staffer confessed to The STAR.

Investigating further, he learned that the priest already had children with a woman living in nearby Cavite province. The priest’s cars were bought with church funds. He would then sell them so he could buy the latest model.

Ironically, the elderly staffer was one of the staunchest defenders of the priest, who had been accused of corruption by other parishioners in the past.

After efforts to call the church leadership’s attention, the priest was soon transferred and a new priest was assigned to the parish. It took the new priest only two years to complete the renovation of the church.

The church staffer could not tell if the transfer was a result of his complaint or just a coincidence. He also heard that the errant priest was still at it although now in a less affluent parish.

Recruitment, training

Alarmed at similar wrongdoings, the bishops who attended the CBCP conference agreed, among other things, that the process of recruitment and training of priests was partly to blame.

"The Philippine program of priestly formation has been in writing since 1995 before the eruption of all these burning issues," said Cavite Diocese Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle, during the press conference held after the July plenary.

Tagle, tapped by the CBCP for the revision job, initially produced a 60-page document.

In his own statement, then CBCP president Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo said: "Our present experience of darkness has reminded us of the mystery of our Church as community of saints and sinners needing constant renewal."

Changes in the rules of admitting applicants to the priesthood as well training in seminaries could help the church prevent trouble in the future.

But what can it do with offending priests now within its ranks, especially those who have already burrowed too deep in the institution before they were discovered?

"There were gays among seminarians during our time and I know some of them went on to become priests. Some of seminary teachers are gays, too, and I know some to continue to teach," says a former seminarian, who went to one of the country’s better-known religious orders.

He left the seminary when loneliness began to creep in and got married.

Once, while training for the priesthood decades ago, a priest teaching at the seminary brought him inside a room for one of the usual interviews, relates the former seminarian.

The teacher, a priest, ended up groping him all over. The former seminarian says he was then too young and confused then to realize he was being molested.

After several minutes, the priest came to his senses, stood up and ordered the seminarian out of the room. He pleaded, though, that the incident be kept quiet.

The ex-seminarian kept his word. He later learned of other homosexual incidents in the confines of their religious community.

A few years back, a retiring top church official is said to have learned about the prevalence of homosexuality in a more popular seminary that he decided to establish a seminary for seminarians from his native province.

It was a cue but apparently nobody got the message.

Activist Fr. Robert Reyes admits he himself was sought out by problematic colleagues, including those having problems with their sexuality either involving the opposite or the same gender.

"I have advised a good number of them to leave the Church. Although many did not go out immediately, some later did," says Reyes, a product of the San Jose Seminary, a seminary for secular priests operated by the Jesuits.

"If you became a priest for the wrong reason, it is hard to become a priest. If there are a lot of stress you have to pray very long and discern."

Two kinds of priests

There are two kinds of priests in the Roman Catholic Church: religious and diocesan.

Religious priests are brought up in a community life and prepared for missionary work while diocesan priests are trained for parish work and administrative duties.

According to the CBCP, the church had 209 bishops, 5,013 diocesan priests, and 2,508 religious priests in the Philippines in 2000. In 2001, there were 118 bishops, 5,122 diocesan priests and 2,492 religious priests. The 2002 figures were not immediately available.

From the statistics, the number of priests grew by only 102 between 2000 and 2001. Obviously not enough to serve a predominantly Catholic population that grows by 2.36 percent a year, equivalent to two million infants, according to the Department of Health.

The Philippines has a population of 80 million, 85 percent of which is Catholic.

Reyes says the ideal ratio is one priest for every 5,000 parishioners. In his Our Lady of Miraculous Medal parish in Quezon City alone, Reyes and two other priests serve some 120,000 parishioners.

"Definitely we are not producing enough priests. I hope these incidents (Yalung and Bacani cases) will not discourage the young from entering the priesthood," he said.

Because of the priest shortage, the Church was forced to enlist religious priests to serve as parish priests. But that created other problems.

"There is a problem with that," Reyes says. "Religious priests are trained all their lives in a community environment. What happens when you send them into parishes? They would easily feel lonely."

Fr. Napoleon Encarnacion, vocational director of the Dominican religious order, confirmed the practice of tapping religious priest into parish duties.

He said though that while religious priests are more trained for missionary work, their selection and training are no less rigorous than diocesan priests.

From 20 seminarians that passed the rigid nationwide screening for the Dominican Order last year, he said only 10 made it this year. Virtually no detail is left out in selecting a candidate for the priesthood.

Prospective seminarians, who volunteered or were recommended by their parish schools, are given exams. Often it is required that an applicant has an 85-grade average and should not have physical defect.

Visits are then made to their homes and families to find out the status of their family relations and if the student’s decision to enter the seminary is supported by the family.

Once accepted, a seminarian goes through several stages before ordination: a two-year postulancy (seeking admittance), a one-year novitiate, a three-year simple profession, a two-year licentiate, a masters degree in theology.

An exam is still given before ordination and before one could be allowed to hear confessions. The process is basically the same for all religious orders and congregations but their terms and years may vary.

Encarnacion admitted that applicants from poor families are less likely to be recruited but for good reason.

The problem with the more affluent recruits is that they are more likely to give up on the self-denial practice in the community, further contributing to what Reyes describes as "the stressful life of a priest."

"Sometimes a child is more needed by his family. If he is the eldest and has several siblings to support in school, we often advise such applicant to stay and support his family first then pursue being a priest later," says Encarnacion.

There are also instances when the religious order asks the seminarian’s family to give financial support at P1,000 monthly.

Despite the tough screening, few still make it to ordination out of the admitted seminarians, either they give up or are kicked out.

"The weeding out process is unforgiving. But despite this there could still be problems (with those who stayed)," says Reyes.

Reyes said he entered the minor seminary in his third year high school. There were initially 36 of them in the seminary but only 16 were left by the time they reached fourth year.

Ten of them went on to the major seminary, the equivalent of college, but only five of them were ordained. Now, he is the last of his batch, he says.

He says he knows of a priest who left the priesthood after the death of his mother. Another priest got involved with a catechist and eventually left.

In the case of the former seminarian interviewed by The STAR, there were 23 in their batch but only three made it to ordination. Out of the three, one eventually left.

Reyes said that even among priests, many still leave for various reasons, further aggravating the priest shortage.

Another dilemma

Then there is another Church dilemma: when is the proper time to accept a seminarian?

A young seminarian is pure and easier to mold but he, too, is in his years of discovery. The older ones may be more mature but may have less than pure intentions of entering the priesthood.

"These kids (in the minor seminary) are more inclined to playing and they also need their parents," says Reyes.

"There is developmental vacuum. In high school you experience all kinds of kapilyuhan (naughtiness). There are so many experimentations. There is also a need for deep sexual expression and they need their parents to explain certain things. They are very raw."

Encarnacion, on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with accepting young seminarians.

"There are risks in accepting young seminarians but when it comes to older seminarians, the question would be ‘Why only now?’ You have to consider their motivations," he says.

Indeed, the free food, bed and board, despite the demanding training, is enticing to some and open to abuse.

"There are debates as to when to accept a seminarian whether in high school or college. Both sides have wisdom," Encarnacion added.

While there are no Catholic minor seminary in some countries, Encarnacion could recall at least four existing minor seminaries in the country — the San Carlos Minor Seminary in Makati City, one in Tuguegarao, one in Sorsogon, and another in Negros.

He admits it is possible for one seminarian to be kicked out only to be accepted in another.

While there are ways to prevent this, the church, too, is prone to errors, oversight, and lapses, he says.

Thus, a persistent unqualified priest could always find a way but the deserving, poor or disfigured ones may have more obstacles to hurdle.

But the advantage of having young seminarians — relatively pure and unexposed to the temptations of the world — is also its weakness.

They would eventually be set out into the world, very much apart from that they find in confines of a seminary.

For the Jesuits, a "regency" or a minimum one-year period for the priest to experience the world is mandatory, says Reyes.

However, a good seminarian could always be spoiled by a bad teacher.

"Formators should be level headed," says Encarnacion. "But how do you know that? How do you determine the emotional fitness of a seminarian to take on the demanding life of a priest?"

EMMEUS, a non-stock non-profit psychological training center often hired by the Roman Catholic Church says there are ways of knowing a seminarian’s psychology or mental fitness for the "stressful job" ahead.

"We could even determine if the seminarian is being honest with his answers, if he is putting his best foot forward or if he is telling a lie," says Ma. Theresa Nietes, one of the founding partners of the Marikina-based testing center.

But in her 30-year experience in giving such exams she admitted there is no perfect way to establish a priest’s sexual orientation.

"There is no fool-proof test," she says. "Your report is only as good as the report writer. In the case of EMMEUS, we have highly trained psychologists, who have a background or good understanding of priestly life. Needless to say these exams are expensive."

She said they also sometimes provide the training for so-called formators of the church in the seminary.

But even if you screen the seminarians and the formators well, what to do with the problematic ones that somehow manage to enter a seminary is a policy decision left to the top church leadership.

Sins of the Church

A bishop in the secular seminary or the prior provincial in religious order can overturn decisions to kick out a seminarian. Favoritism is one of the sins of the Church, too.

According to the well-placed Church insider, a more "liberal" policy in "treating" seminarians and the formators has been adopted in some dioceses since the 1980s.

As a result, many seminarians that he said should have been kicked out were ordained.

The CBCP protocol on sexual behavior, also discussed during the July plenary and expected to be finalized in September, is seeking to decide whether to kick out or to reform and give an errant priest a second chance.

An advocate of the harsher penalty is Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz. Cruz, the CBCP president from 1995 to 1999, naturally holds some sway.

The bishops, however, agreed to put up something like a complaint or grievance council within every diocese. Its details are still being discussed.

This council will play a crucial role in the Church. In 1996 a mother of a molested young seminarian wrote a letter directly to the Pope to complain.

"The problem of homosexuality could be very costly for the church. First, they (homosexual priests) could be using church funds to spend on their fancy. Two, they are opening themselves to blackmail. Three, they may be sued with the church and the latter ending up paying the damages (in the case of perverted ones involving minors)," says a Church insider privy to these troubles for the past 25 years.

The source was around when, as a result of the letter to the Pope in 1996, the Church faced the third and the most scandalous scenario.

A bishop in a diocese outside Metro Manila had sexually abused the seminarian.

Within a few weeks, Nueva Caceres Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi was sent to the diocese as an apostolic visitator — a Pope’s representative acting on specific instructions and with blanket authority — and ordered the bishop out.

Legaspi found out the problem was much worse than he thought. Within hours he reportedly dismissed the entire seminary faculty and closed down the school itself. The Vatican later appointed a new bishop.

Luckily, no criminal charges were ever filed by the boy’s mother. But the bishop was never fired, only transferred, as what US bishops have done with their gay priests that later cost them several civil suits.

Four years ago a confrontation also occurred between several priests and Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin after an Italian nun reported witnessing a sexual act involving a priest from an adjacent building.

The confrontation was an emotional one, between the accused and the priests who helped the nun air her complaint, but ended with nothing resolved. Curiously, the Italian nun was not summoned to the confrontation.

The same priest, who appeared to have never been sanctioned, also got involved in a P20-million corruption case several years ago and a sex scandal recently.

But a ranking Church official interviewed by The STAR, who requested not to be named, cleared the priest of the P20-million graft complaint. The source was part of an investigating panel that looked into the allegations.

Recently, another corruption case rocked the Church after television host and radio anchor Fr. Larry Faraon was accused of corruption by his officers at the Lord’s Flock Catholic charismatic ministry.

The amount was negligible actually, and Faraon said he was cleared of the charges.

However, his Dominican religious order barred him from all his other media and evangelical works for allegedly years of constantly ignoring its warning for him to first clear these activities with his superiors.

Faraon said the money he took from the group was in the form of cash advances for little things like the repair of his car.

Faraon, of course, was paid for all his work in the ministries he founded. In the case of the Lord’s Flock ministry, he said he received P15,000 monthly.

The money flow

In the case of parish priests, they get to keep the money given to them during ceremonies they perform but not what is donated to the Church.

The Church has its own auditing system. Each archdiocese and diocese has its own auditors while parishes are required to form their own finance committees, to handle Church funds.

"Normally, the Church requires that receipts to be issued for every donation made but you could cheat that by simply placing cardboard under the receipt to be filled out and the carbon copy under will come out blank, free for you to simulate whatever amount you want to indicate on it. That is of course assuming that a donor ever asks for a receipt, which is often not the case," said a church insider.

The Parañaque parish assistant treasurer interviewed by The STAR revealed that he deposited in the bank as much about P200,000 monthly from an average weekly collection of P70,000.

There are parishes, though, that barely have any money to tempt the priest to squander. This includes the Military Ordinate or the Diocese of the military and the police chaplains.

But if they are not involved in money they are notorious for something else — keeping girlfriends, or worse, siring children.

Bishop Ramon Arguelles, who has been head of the Military Ordinate for the last eight years and credited for vastly improving the diocese’s image, to some degree admits to problems within his jurisdiction.

But he stressed it was not as bad as what "other priests" may think. The erstwhile bad reputation of the military diocese is best known among priests themselves.

"We fell because we lost our vision," said Arguelles, who insists there are worse dioceses than his. There are currently 110 priests in the police and the military.

"The Military Ordinate is nationwide in jurisdiction. It is so easy to get an assignment in far regions if you want to get away from something or somebody," said another church insider, a Church-educated government official.

The insider is full of stories about priests admitting their sexual escapades. He said, some whose trust he managed to secure, even told him their experiences in full detail, as if they were boasting.

The other Church insider admitted, though, that not all the priests who confessed their sexual escapades were limited to those in the military.

From 1978 to 1988 as head of the San Fernando, Pampanga Archdiocese, Archbishop Cruz, known for being a disciplinarian, dismissed seven priests for keeping partners, and in his 12 years in the Lingayen-Dagupan Archdiocese since 1991, he dismissed 12 more.

Arguelles argued that his priests were "assigned to all sorts of places and (thus) they are more open temptation, but majority of those incidents are in the past now," he said.

Arguelles said while there were lots of misbehavior among his priests in the past, there was still enough honesty left in them to admit their sins when confronted.

"Sometimes we tell our priest to get their act together else we will kick them out. There are those who will get out to fix their problems and we at times help them," says Arguelles.

Repentance, forgiveness

The allegations against priests are not always true, of course. For Arguelles the investigation process starts with putting the priest under observation.

The allegations against the priest, he said, were likely to be true if the latter is often missing from his post.

But Arguelles said the church could not turn its back on repentant rogue priests "if he would return to the fold of the Lord." He said repentance and forgiveness is a basic precept of the church.

"If we are the worse then here is where the grace of God is most abundant," he said.

Arguelles was actually invoking a verse from the apostle Paul, which coincidentally was the same Bible passage invoked by American Bishop Wilton Gregory in a statement read during the June 13, 2002 assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the wake of the sexual abuses committed by their priests against children.

"Where sin has increased, grace has far surpassed it," he said.

In his statement, Bishop Gregory admitted the need for the priests and bishops to drop their widely practiced but rarely talked about vow of silence.

But what do you do with erring priests when it is too late to kick them out or are not fired at all?

The church has a correction house in Manila where the erring priests are sent if ever their misdeeds are ever proven. But there are allegations that they could freely do whatever they want because the center is not a prison.

In his three-page letter to Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, Monsignor Nico Bautista — while responding to his third warning for his candid and compromising statements to the media about the misdeeds of the Church — basically let it all out to show his frustration.

He was wondering why he was being threatened of being defrocked when all the other priests who committed serious wrongdoing were punished less seriously.

Bautista ended up enumerating various cases of corruption, promiscuity, siring of children, molestations and pedophilia by fellow priests.

He even resurrected the Monte de Pieded bank fiasco where the church lost millions — and eventually the bank itself — due to mismanagement, to say the least.

According to former National Bureau of Investigation Anti-Graft chief lawyer Carlos Saunar, in an interview with The STAR when the incident was still raging, the bank appeared to have granted loans recklessly without a clear system of collecting loan payments.

Reforms and compromises

But how do you reform an institution that looks more into forgiving rather than punishing?

"What is happening is that it is the outside world infiltrating and imposing its values on us. When in fact we should be the one influencing the world," says Reyes. "Compromises lead to bigger compromises."

Reyes admits that there is a need to fine-tune the financial management training of priests, to "contextualize" it and not be too "bookish."

"We have to change some of our approaches. You have all the theories but do not understand them," he adds.

Reyes suggests that seminarians should be given ample time for self-motivation and to find out if he has the vocation or calling to be a priest.

He says a seminarian with "effective sexual problems," if not assisted, would be maladjusted and stressful on his part.

By the time a seminarian becomes a priest he finds compensation in sex or engages in materialism to cope with the difficult situation, Reyes says.

These are what he calls developmental and vocational problems of every seminarian.

"Our methodologies should really be examined," says Reyes. "Formators should be models of genuine celibacy, somebody who is genuinely happy and celibate, not grumpy."

These are signs that the priest is coping with celibacy, he says.

Many solutions have been offered to address the demons hounding a priest.

Monsignor Bautista suggests optional celibacy and to teach rudiments of the sexual harassment law in the seminary to prepare priests.

Bishop Cruz wants an iron fist approach for erring priests, while Reyes suggests counseling and more practical application of seminary education.

There were suggestions that minor seminaries be abolished, and the CBCP wants to create grievance panels.

In a statement in the wake of the publicized controversy, Sim called on the faithful to "assure your priest that you love them that you will not abandon them and that you will always pray for them. Now, more than ever, they need your understanding and support."

The statement was not without basis. Bishop Gregory had a similar fear.

"The Catholic Church in the United States is in a very grave crisis, perhaps the gravest we have faced. This crisis is not about lack of faith in God. In fact, those Catholics who live their faith actively day-by-day will tell you that their faith in God is not jeopardy; it has indeed been tested by this crisis, but it is very much intact. The crisis, in truth, is about a profound loss of confidence by the faithful in our leadership as shepherds, because of our failures in addressing the crime of the sexual abuse of children and young people by priests and Church personnel," he said.

But in his statement during the press conference after the July plenary assembly, Bishop Tagle said one of the questions they seek to answer in their reform efforts was "why do we (priests) fall into these misdemeanor and misconduct?"

He may have answered his own question with the CBCP’s justification for their timing.

"Reformation have already began but made more urgent by all these realities we are facing," he said.

By "made more urgent," the church perhaps meant just this February and last June when the Yalung and Bacani cases only became public, respectively.

There were worse incidents years and years back. Although never publicized.