Ninoy to Sin: Only you can lead our exodus through the desert

During his incarceration, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. found strength and solace in Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin. A letter Aquino sent to Sin, furnished to The STAR by Aquino’s widow, former President Corazon Aquino, is reproduced here.

October 11, 1979
Fort Bonifacio
His Eminence,
JAIME L. CARDINAL SIN
Villa San Miguel,
Metro Manila
Your Eminence:

I have just returned to my detention room after a hectic, sleepless 32-hour home leave. Words fail me to describe my excitement and experience, my first real venture into the outside world after seven long years. The highlight of my "space walk" was your kind officiating over the renewal of our marriage vows. Given your very tight schedule: pre-synod briefings, meetings and conferences, I fully realize your coming was a terrible imposition. That you came and blessed us was more than enough, but your generosity knows no bounds. You had to make me the proudest Filipino that day when you numbered me among your FRIENDS in your most touching homily which left me, my family and guests misty eyed.

When we were still very young, and when people came in droves to our home seeking favors from my late father who was then at the zenith of his political influence and power, he never tired telling me: "Remember this always: In prosperity friends know you, in adversity you know your friend." You came into my life at the nadir of my adversity.

Eheu fugaces . . . labuntur anni! Yes, it is more than four years ago when you came to my detention room on the thirtieth day of my fasting to give me the last Rites. You will recall, I confessed to you that I wanted to end it all and merely be allowed to die peacefully, because having lost all hope, I’ve decided to surrender to despair. I can still see you vividly in my mind’s eye, rekindling the dying embers of faith in me and telling me the morning is always preceded by the darkest dawn, that there are still many doors to be opened, many frontiers to be crossed, that even the vast wasteland has a horizon, and that while there is life, there is hope. Dum spiro, spero!

Today, it would seem, thousands of our countrymen, specially the vulnerable young, are going down the same rocky road of despair I traversed four years ago, having lost hope in a better tomorrow. I am so glad that you have decided to go public and speak out boldly against the injustices around us, once again offering hope to the hopeless and inspiring the desperate to find meaning in their present sufferings and in their lives, exactly as you saved me not so long ago.

It was written in the KYBALION – one of the greatest hermetic documents dating back 2500 B.C. – "When the year of the disciple is ready, the teacher will appear." Now that our people are eager and ready to listen, you must be the awaited teacher, otherwise, why were you chosen and elevated to occupy the highest spiritual teaching office in our land bypassing so many more senior bishops during this moment of great moral crisis.

YOUR EMINENCE: Sad to say but before the declaration of Martial Law, the moral influence of your Mother Church and our leaders was steadily falling to very dangerous levels. The traditional moral influence of the Church diminished proportionately with the rise of materialism. By the mid-twentieth century, religion was fast becoming a nagging nuisance to many, especially among the young and educated. Our Churches have become the refuge only of the aged, the infirm and the superstitious, unwanted relics of the past.

Religion was fast becoming irrelevant in an age of unprecedented scientific breakthroughs and growing affluence. Psychiatrists have taken over the traditional role of the counselor-priest. The Good News has become the Bad News.

The introduction of Jesus Christ and His Teaching into the consciousness of our people has been Spain’s greatest legacy. But unfortunately, the Good News of Jesus Christ arrived in the Philippines enveloped in a Spanish cultural matrix that placed a great deal of stress on the distinction of classes, however nobly it emphasized the responsibility of each. The real message of the Good News was soon lost in incomprehensible incantations and pagan rituals and superstition and the true faith degenerated into a mere folk religion.

Then, tragically at the dawn of our freedom and liberation from colonial bondage, our church leaders failed to read the signs of the times and remained hostages to their Spanish heritage. Instead of siding with their oppressed flock, they betrayed their wards to the oppressors. That the church escaped the revolution with only its image somewhat tarnished but still functioning is truly one of the great miracles of our history. Rightly or wrongly, the Filipino had the mind to distinguish Mother Church from her erring leaders and this must have been a Divine Grace given by the Savior Christ to His beloved people. Instead of burning down churches as was done in Mexico and even in France following the revolt of the Jacobins, the Filipino remained faithful and steadfast in his devotion and loyalty to Mother Church.

But how long can the Filipino’s patience and faith be abused and tested by an uncaring clergy?

Can the Church really survive another catastrophe, if it sides once again with the exploiters and the oppressors? Can the Church survive another upheaval if its leaders align themselves with the forces of repression and remain mute in the face of so much injustice? Can the loyalty of the masses – the vast majority of the impoverished poor and the dispossessed – be assured and be taken for granted if they see the Princes of the Church break bread with the exploiters, accept the largesse of corruption and flaunt their conspicuous affluence in the midst of so much poverty and misery?

A tyrannical government needs to depend on the docility of churchmen, the purchaseability of labor leaders, the corruptibility of generals, the greed of capitalist elite and cowardice of students to remain in power. Remove a couple of these props and you collapse the repressive structure.

The Catholic Church has traditionally enjoyed a high degree of influence not only because it is the acknowledged custodian of the eternal verities and can muster the loyalty of the ruling class but also because it has a highly structured organization in a country of low organizational development. Its schools have molded the minds of the ruling elite for centuries and the parish priest invariably sets the moral code of the community. Hence, the widespread belief that the Church can promote substantial change if it really wishes to, and the DISILLUSIONMENT that has often resulted from its failure to do so.

The problem confronting our people today, is primarily spiritual and moral, not political or even economic.

The questions uppermost in the minds of our people are: Should a people whose birthright is freedom and not slavery, supinely yield to a dictatorship no matter how well-intentioned? Is it ethical for a people to surrender its right to elect its governors without reservation or even whimper of protest? Is it moral for a people to remain silent and apathetic even as institutionalized violence is slowly but surely being entrenched?

Second only to the Law of Love is the so-called Law of Contradiction. History has always been two-sided: comprising of light and darkness, possibility and necessity, reasonableness and error. Man has always aimed to keep these contradictions well balanced and an imbalance of these halves has always brought about catastrophe. In the same token, an authoritarian regime without a credible, vigilant opposition in the end degenerates into tyranny. Without an opposition, a democracy ultimately becomes a totalitarian state.

YOUR EMINENCE: Painful as it is, we political leaders cannot, even if we must, supply the answers to the questions uppermost in the minds of our people. Firstly, because the questions are spiritual, not political. And secondly, WE, POLITICIANS, HAVE COLLECTIVELY LOST OUR CREDIBILITY.

It is only, our Spiritual Shepherd who is now called upon to provide the necessary leadership and be the beacon star. You and your fellow Church leaders must speak out because you are the only acceptable and accepted principal educators of conscience. You must provide your flock with the proper guidance and enlighten them on the rightness or wrongness, the goodness or evil of any specific issue.

As a result of the uniqueness of your position, you are today faced with a HISTORIC CHALLENGE. Should you follow the examples of your predecessors, who, at the turn of the century opted for the status quo and aided, abetted, and actively collaborated with the capitalist exploiters and foreign colonizers? Or should you borrow a leaf from Fray Bernardo de las Casas who during the 16th century championed the rights of the Mexican Indians and defied the greedy Conquistadores who shamelessly plundered the wealth of the Aztecs and Incas?

The Good News of Jesus Christ is a message of salvation, liberation and freedom in the deepest, most human sense of the word. It is the same message that drove Camilo de la Torre to take to the hills in his native Colombia, emboldened Camara Helder to defy daily threats of assassinations in his impoverished diocese in northeastern Brazil.

The powers-that-be in our hapless land and their sycophants and apologists may very well disparage your moral crusade and like Stalin, ask the question: "How many legions can you muster?"

Yes, YOUR EMINENCE, you may not be able to parade a well-armed, jack-booted legion down the boulevard of our metropolis, but your army is a deathless legion of kindred spirits, steeped in the belief and in the faith that this life is but a way station in the pilgrim’s journey to a world without end. Like Paul who was strongest when he was weakest, your very physical powerlessness is the fountainhead of your great spiritual and moral strength that will surely prevail in any showdown.

The future of our Mother Church will depend on how you and your fellow Church leaders respond to this Historic Challenge. And this may well be the second and the last chance to rectify the errors of the past and re-establish the undisputed moral leadership of our Mother Church. Ironical as it may seem, martial rule has made religion once again relevant. Now that the flock is once again beginning to return to the fold, will our shepherds be found wanting and timid, choosing the convenience and comfort of non-commitment to the dangers that come with bold leadership? This great opportunity to gather the flock under one roof in a moral crusade may never again present itself in our lifetime.

Consider these facts:

Never in our modern history has a Church leader like yourself been asked to address almost every sector of society with people hanging on your very words? At no time in our history has the mere utterance of a Church leader like yourself carried so much weight and created so much interest not only locally but all over the world? Never has a Church leader like yourself, in our modern history, armed only with words of conscience and Good News been so feared by the mightiest of the Land.

You must never tire to speak out and appeal to the conscience of our leaders. I believe that every mortal being has a conscience, no matter how evil and diabolical he may have become. The just man must appeal to this conscience till it responds. There must be some sort of bloodshed when the conscience is wounded. Through this wound, according to Thoreau, a "man’s real manhood and immortality flow out and he bleeds to an everlasting death." Persistence should be not only your resolve but your commitment. Gutta cavat lapidem!

Today, there are two criminals in our midst: The active criminal who uses any means to attain his ends no matter how inhuman. The other is the passive and sad criminal, the terrorized citizen who pretends to see, hear and speak no evil, and who has promised himself no longer to help anyone or anything.

I realize, there is very little you can do – armed only with moral suasion – to stop and check the active criminal. But I believe, you can move the sad and passive criminal from his self-imposed prison and infect him with your courage and inspire him to transcend his puny mortalness with your charismatic gifts, your intellectual insights and your towering moral integrity. Once this passive criminal is moved into action and joins the awakened mass, you can start counting the days of the repressive regime.

YOUR EMINENCE: Only you can lead our exodus through the desert.

Why you? Because you are a good priest, a shepherd teacher who really cares, and more – you are a human being who LOVES!

Accept, once again, YOUR EMINENCE, the profoundest gratitude of my family and our prayers for your continued good health. Your flock needs you more than ever.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI!

Benigno S. Aquino Jr.

MSU, Fort Bonifacio