Are we POOR because we’re Catholic?

Poverty is the main issue facing the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today. But it is also the same challenge that faced many presidents before her.

So, one might ask the question: Has poverty–not just a lack of financial resources, but of power over our own futures–become a state of being? Why are we so poor?

In a conference on "Science and Religion: Friends or Foes in the Task of Integral Development" to be held at the East Asian Pastoral Institute of the Ateneo de Manila University from April 22 to 26, Provincial Superior of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, Rev. Fr. Romeo Intengan, sj, md (Fr. Intengan, aside from being a Jesuit priest, is also a medical doctor) will speak on the topic "Are we poor because we are Catholic?"

It is an intriguing question, considering that majority–80 percent–of our people are Catholic Christians (he prefers the term "Catholic Christian" over simply "Catholic"). As Fr. Intengan reveals, "Ninety percent of our people are poor, and about 90 percent of these poor claim to be Catholic Christians."

Is there then a link between our being Catholic and our being poor? Why, despite government efforts and the resolve of each leader to do his/her best to lift the country from the situation it finds itself in, poverty remains deeply entrenched in this society– and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen?

In a recent conversation with STARweek, Fr. Intengan attempts to put the issue in perspective.

Q: So, are we poor because we are Catholic?

A: I don’t think that the fact of the Philippines being a poor country can be blamed simply on the Catholic Christian faith of most Filipinos. Mass poverty is a complex phenomenon that has a complex set of causes. Misgovernment is one of them, and Catholic Christians have not had a monopoly of responsibility for misgovernment. In fact, if one considers the recent history of our country, Catholic Christians have been prominent in movements for socio-political reform.

Moreover, it was not the Catholic Christian Church that gave systematic support for tyrannical or grossly corrupt public officials willing to give concessions and favors to certain Churches and other religious groups who wanted to advance their narrow sectarian interests at the expense of the common good.

Nor was it the leadership of the Catholic Christian Church that supported overt actions or conspiracies to launch attempted coups d’etat against duly constituted and democratic governments installed by such splendid expressions of the morally guided will of the people as People Power I and II.

Moreover, in considering the effect of Catholic Christianity on Philippine society, one has to take into account the fact that in the one Catholic Christian Church with one set of characteristic core beliefs and practices, there is a variety of forms or manners in which people understand and live their Catholic Christianity. As some theologians say, "one Catholic Christian faith, many forms of that faith."

So in the Philippines you have Catholic Christians who are very involved in addressing our economic and sociopolitical problems and are active in the social apostolate.

But there are also believers–unfortunately still in the majority–whose form of Catholic Christianity is not favorable to social progress because their Catholic Christianity has taken a privatistic form. This means that they misunderstand Catholic Christianity as being concerned only with private life–with their personal life, their family, their personal friends, at most their parish and their Catholic school, but not with the boardrooms of business enterprise, not with the stock exchange, not with theater, the arts, and media, and much less with politics, with the branches and units of government, with the military and the police; in short, not with social life or public life. It is as if they restrict God’s reign to their private lives and ban His influence in public life.

These Catholic Christians do not care or they do not feel obliged to combat corruption or to fight for free and honest elections or to try to elect a good President or depose a grossly unworthy one. And they are not involved in aspiring for public office nor in monitoring those who hold public office, because they feel that is not part of the Catholic Christian faith.

It is good that Vatican II took place because many Catholic Christians realized that a privatistic form of being Catholic Christian was not right. This is because Christ is Lord of everything, including our political life. I would estimate that before Vatican II only about two percent of Filipino Catholic Christians would have an understanding of the faith that was comprehensive in its scope, with a public or social character. Now after Vatican II and PCP II, more Catholic Christians–about 10 to 15 percent–understand that their faith, to be authentic, must have a public or social character, must address the problems of public life. This is why People Power–a mainly Catholic Christian phenomenon–became possible. But the majority of Catholic Christians still do not believe this.

That is why in the Philippines, the "Catholic vote," meaning the voters who respond to the guidance of the Church’s pastors in socio-political matters, really counts only for close elections when the good and the undesirable candidates are running neck to neck. If the undesirable candidate is very far ahead, even if the bishops and other pastors try very hard to prevent his or her election, they will be unable to do so merely on the strength of the "Catholic vote".

Q: Would it be right to say that many people are poor because they do not practice family planning–which the Church is against?

A: The Church does call her members to responsible parenthood. This means that people should not marry hastily. Before they get married they should have reasonable certitude that they have the resources, both inner and external, for a successful marriage. Certainly when they are married they have to discern prayerfully whether they can support the raising of children at a given time and how many they can raise in the course of their marriage.

For family planning in the sense of regulating the spacing of births, the official teaching of the Church allows only "natural means." In effect, this means abstinence, whether total or periodic. It does not allow the use of "artificial means" for spacing births, such as condoms, contraceptive pills, intra-uterine devices, and especially measures which have results that for practical purposes are permanent, like vasectomy and ligation of the fallopian tube. In the eyes of the Catholic Christian Church, the couple that decides at the beginning of marriage not to have children cannot contract a valid sacramental marriage.

But the reality is that 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic Christians, of whom 10 to 15 percent are practicing the Catholic Christian faith. Ninety percent of our people are poor, and about 90 per cent of these poor claim to be Catholic Christians.

But not all the poor in the Philippines are Catholic Christians. All the various religions, whether Christian or other, have their poor. The proportion of the poor who are Catholic Christians is approximately the same as the proportion of Catholic Christians in the total population of the Philippines: about 80 percent.

Q: Could it be that because the poor people follow the teachings of the Church on what methods of birth regulation are allowed and what are not allowed, they have more children than they can successfully provide for, and so they have become poor and remain poor?

A: Contrary to what is often said in the media, the official Catholic Christian teaching on birth regulation has very little or nothing to do with the rate of population increase in the Philippines. You might be surprised to know that relatively few Catholic Christians know the official teaching of the Church on birth regulation, and that of those who know this teaching, not all would follow it. The latest data from the late ‘70s, show that only about 15 percent of Catholic Christians in the Philippines know the official teaching of the Church on birth regulation, and unfortunately only half of those who know that teaching–about eight percent–are willing to obey it.

For those who know the sociological situation of the Catholic Christian Church in the Philippines, these statistics are to be expected. Most Catholic Christians, both among the rural poor and among the urban poor, have little or no contact with the clergy, the religious Sisters and Brothers, and the lay pastoral agents who communicate the official teaching of the Church. Nor is the teaching of the Church sufficiently available in the communications media to which the poor have access.

At this point let me make an important but often neglected statement. The massive poverty in Philippine society is not primarily due to a high rate of population growth. The main cause of continuing poverty in the Philippines is misgovernment, graft and corruption, abuse of authority, incompetence and indolence on the part of too many (though not all or most) government officials. Not enough of the wealth of this country is collected through taxes, and a very large part of the little that goes to taxes ends up lining the pockets of some public officials, their families, and their cronies.

Q: What would be the solution to the crisis?

A: The solution to the crisis of mass poverty in the Philippines certainly requires good government, governance that vigorously, intelligently, and consistently promotes the common good. Good government is almost impossible to achieve and to sustain in the absence of support from the cultural values of the people.

In the Philippines, as in many parts of the world, particular forms of religious doctrine and practice contribute much, for better or for worse, to the cultural values of the people. More concretely, one can expect that a form of Catholic Christianity that promotes engagement in sociopolitical discussions and movements in the pursuit of the common good will help bring about good government and social progress.

Q: Will this take a long time?

A: It will be a long time before all this happens, but I hope it will not be too long. I am hopeful that we can bring about that change in less than a generation, in 15 or 20 years.

With the Catholic Christian Church being in the majority, and some other Churches, such as the mainstream Protestant Christian Churches, being basically like us in affirming that Christian faith has a social or public character and entails the pursuit of the common good, and with progressive Muslims also affirming that Islam is a way of life that has societal implications, including political ones, working together we can help transform the Philippines for the better.

There is this misunderstanding that we Filipinos are mostly poor because we are mostly Catholic Christian, and that Catholic Christianity prevents people from overcoming social backwardness. If this were true, then remaining Catholic Christian would become morally problematic, because it would mean that being Catholic Christian would make us abettors of social backwardness.

But many intelligent and patriotic Filipinos remain Catholic Christian. Why do they choose to do so? Many people who love our country and want it to move forward toward authentic progress remain Catholic Christian. They must therefore understand Catholic Christianity in some other way. And what is this way in which they understand Catholic Christianity? Can they justifiably claim that being a Catholic Christian does not entail putting one’s weight in favor of social backwardness? Yes, they can. They can even say correctly that being Catholic Christian entails an obligation to promote authentic social progress.