Has the Philippine Catholic Church broken away from Rome?
Posted on January 12, 2015 10:27:00 PM
ABS-CBN displayed last Friday in living color and high-definition resolution the amazing annual spectacle of Filipino Catholics practicing passionately their religion, complete with the bizarre rituals that make Philippine Catholicism markedly different from Roman Catholicism.
Thanks to the station’s coverage of the Black Nazarene procession from beginning to end, the world saw barefooted and maroon-clad devotees jostling and clambering up the carriage bearing the icon of the Black Nazarene and being thrown back to the milling crowd by the yellow-shirted marshals, the honor guard of the icon, as the chaotic, raucous and garish procession moved so slowly along narrow and packed streets of Manila. Devotees who could not get near the icon flung handkerchiefs, towels or shirts to the marshals for them to wipe on the statue or the cross borne by it and tossed back randomly to the sea of humanity. All this in the belief that the icon’s mystical powers to cure ailments and provide good fortune will rub off on those who touched the icon and on the owners of the assortment of pieces of cloth wiped on it.
There were those who scrambled to hold the rope that pulled the carriage, believing that doing so will atone for their sins and obtain divine favors.
“A mixture of chaos, devotion, display of deep religious fervor,” the Manila Bulletin described the day-long proceeding. One young priest (I vaguely remember his last name as Acuna) told ABS-CBN that he has been joining the processions since he was a Theology student in a seminary, but has not found any theological explanation for the devotees’ intense devotion to the icon. Maybe Jose Antonio Cardinal Tagle can. He earned a doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America. Quiapo Church is in his archdiocese. He said Mass at the Quirino Grandstand before the start of the procession. That means the whole affair has his approval.
When a member of the papal visit committee suggested that the Black Nazarene episode is a dress rehearsal for the events during Pope Francis’ visit, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines President and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Soc Villegas said the procession cannot be considered a dry run for the events during the Pope’s visit. He did not elaborate.
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Opinion&title=has-the-philippine-catholic-church-broken-away-from-rome&id=100715
