Shepherd

At bottom line, he was plainly a priest. A simple priest.

He was no great theologian. He was not an eloquent visionary who looked to the long horizon and drove his flock by the passion of his words.

He was a pastor deeply committed to his faith, a shepherd who loved his flock profoundly. He was a man of the cloth who responded to the urgencies of his times. He was a man of the church who understood that his vocation included providing sanctuary to the persecuted, comfort to the afflicted and protection to the weak.

Jaime Cardinal Sin was born to a name that was so much at odds with his vocation, one needed a constant sense of humor to deal with it. He carried in his name that which his vocation was committed to banish.

His great influence, however, rested on the simplicity of his words, the simplicity with which he understood his mission.

He did not have a complicated theory of the onrushing historical events that somehow always seemed to envelope him. He responded to phenomena as unique instances, involving unique individuals. He responded to them, however, with a very clear sense of moral imperative and pastoral duty.

Sin was content to be a provincial priest. Given the option, early in his priestly career, to undertake advanced studies in Rome, he opted to do missionary work instead.

When Cardinal Santos died, the young Bishop Sin was plucked from Iloilo to head the powerful archdiocese of Manila. He was an efficient, devoted, uncomplicated and uncontroversial church administrator given greater responsibility by a church grappling with the reforms of Vatican II, challenged by new ideas such as the "preferential option for the poor" and stirred by young clergymen enamored with the theology of liberation.

There was the gift of prophesy in that decision to put Sin in charge of the nation’s most important diocese when society stood on the threshold of a long period of turbulence and confusion.

A simple pastor inclined to do missionary work, Sin was a doctrinal conservative – although he was never doctrinaire. He was averse to taking strong and distinct positions in the theological debates sweeping across his community – but he resisted being dragged into the fashionable radicalisms of those years. He was a practical man who chose to deal with problems practically as they arose.

He had the advantage of not being an insider, a functionary of the alta sociedad that co-opted many of his seniors. Despite relentless efforts by all sides in a rapidly polarizing situation to entice and enthrall him, Cardinal Sin managed to be a moderating influence to all.

He did not initiate a raging doctrinal war against the young clergymen seduced by the "theology of liberation". But he very gently kept them in line and protected his priests when they were persecuted by the existing tyranny. Towards the dictatorship, he maintained a flexible, practical posture he called "critical collaboration."

He walked the tightrope and walked it well. His diocese did not fall into dissidence. But he kept enough space in it to give sanctuary to dissidents.

Without overtly denouncing the dictatorship, the churches became sanctuaries for suppressed voices. Church organizations became conduits for the many truths tyranny tried to eradicate from view: the truth about the powerlessness of the poor, the truth about the human rights situation, the truth about corruption.

When the "snap elections" were so blatantly stolen by a regime that wanted to deny the popular demand for change, Cardinal Sin and most of the Filipino bishops dared to speak out the truth about what happened. That had great historical consequence.

When things came to a head and a seriously disadvantaged military mutiny was trapped in the camps, the leaders of that mutiny sought the Cardinal’s protection. Sin could have, alternatively, mediated their peaceful surrender, and thus seal the triumph of the tyrannical status quo. Instead, he called on his flock to bodily protect the mutineers by surrounding the beleaguered camps in their numbers.

There was great leap of faith in that call Cardinal Sin issued the early morning of February 22, 1986. There was no set design, no precedent for such a dramatic situation. There was no assurance the people would turn out in sufficient numbers to prevent an outright assault on the mutineers. There was no guarantee the faithful would hold their ground against the tanks armed only by prayer or that the tanks would resist the temptation to fire at the unarmed masses.

We all know what happened. Filipinos captured the imagination of the world by their faith-induced contagion of courage. A peaceful uprising startled the world and provided a model for many other such risings, propelled by "people power."

The catalyst for such a spectacle was no raging ayatollah. The catalyst was a soft spoken cardinal, averse to delivering long speeches. The catalyst was a simple clergyman with such abundant faith in the power of prayer in the direst of circumstances.

We won back our democracy with much help from this constantly chuckling provincial priest who produced no great treatises. When our democracy of frail institutions stumbled once more and produced a failed presidency, Cardinal Sin’s voice was again sought to help ensure a peaceful constitutional transition.

Last Tuesday, Jaime Cardinal Sin succumbed to the many illnesses he nursed. His last words, according to Bishop Soc Villegas, was "Vamos! Vamos!" On life support system, he wanted to go out and take a walk. That is so much in character.

When news of his passing dawned, this question was most frequently asked: Who will replace Cardinal Sin? Will there be anyone to play the role of shepherd to a flock often caught in self-inflicted turbulence and intense bouts of confusion?

I am not sure that is the right question to ask. There will always be dedicated priests capable of drawing from the deepest wells of our collective conscience to draw a clear moral course in the wild swirl of passing controversies.

The right question, I suspect is this: Are we a flock so impaired we are in constant need of a shepherd? Can we not manage ourselves by our own moral compass and resolve the swirling controversies by our own collective wisdom?

I shudder at the thought of even beginning to answer my own question.