Hubris

That arrogant, self-righteous Pharisee in today’s Gospel parable (Lk. 18: 9-14) is a wake-up call to many of us Christians. In the practice of our religion, let us be constantly aware that the spirit of the law is far more important than the letter of the law.

Starting from our personal, individual lines, this can be a daily challenge. Take a typical wife or husband who feels so self-righteous before God, and only sees what is wrong with the spouse, without a humble awareness, much less acceptance, of what he or she is personally contributing to the marital problem. Or take these parents — regular churchgoers, obedient followers of Fast and Abstinence Laws during Lent, contributors to their church — but blatantly insensitive to their teenage children’s needs for empathetic dialogue and parenting skills. They only want to be listened to. They refuse to learn HOW to really listen with empathy.

Or take a well-to-do family who live in luxury, with their children attending Catholic schools, and yet they underpay, their househelp, oblivious of the latters’ human needs, and even more oblivious of the many poor families living nearby.

All this and more are the mircro-level. It is far, far worse on the macro-level. That arrogant, self-righteous Pharisee is but a tiny symbol of today’s global hubris — that godless, capitalist and cultural globalization, dominated by Western countries, that for many years now has been progressively damaging poor countries and indigenous cultures like ours.

The continuous invasion of McWorld products and more products, endless immoral media, materialistic values — in the name of freedom, democracy, and superiority — will overpower and kill our deepest family values and religious beliefs. Moreover, the wealth of the country is controlled and monopolized by a small minority, at the sacrifice of the poor, suffering majority.

In their recent, weeklong plenary assembly held in South Korea, The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), focused on Asian family life as their special concern. They identified massive poverty as the most serious problem of Asian families today, and singled out "neoliberal economic globalization" as a key dimension to this. They also cited "Western secularism" and a "postmodern spirit of individualistic sense of freedom" as rapidly "reshaping the value systems of Asian families." They concluded with guidelines for pastoral programs that must be holistic. This is our most urgent challenge today that needs to be aggressively responded to by both the government and the Church.

For the past many years, our conscientious economists and social analysts have been warning us against globalization without social responsibility. No presidency has been able to succeed in implementing protective measures and controls. These are what we need now.

Our current President’s anti-poverty program is certainly a compassionate move. But how far will it go, if the forces of globalization continue to invade us under the guise of economic progress? For sheer survival as a free and independent nation, we must courageously fight for our boundaries and human rights, especially for our poor, hungry Filipinos.

And what about cultural globalization? As a people, we have always been maka-Diyos at maka-pamilya. But now we are being victimized to be just the opposite — toward the counter-values of materialistic secularism and rugged individualism. Just go to the malls and you will see how all those products are fast converting us to be American Pinoys. Just go to different neighborhoods, and you will see more and more marital conflicts and separations happening, practically equivalent to Western divorces.

As a Christian counter-culture, let us fight all this to the very end – until we succeed, in God’s own time. Amen.