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The John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues (JJCICSI) remembers Bishop Francisco F. Claver, S.J., 81, who passed away on 1 July 2010 at 2:41 A.M. Bishop Claver had undergone a triple bypass operation and surgery of the mitral valve on 4 May 2010. Together with Fr. John J. Carroll, S.J. and Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., Bishop Cisco, as he was fondly called, established the Institute on 1984. He was an Associate Director until 1995.

The Jesuit anthropologist was an Igorot from Bontoc, Mountain Province. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1948 and was ordained priest in 1961 at the age of 32. He became bishop of Malaybalay (1969-1984) and the Vicar Apostolic of Bontoc-Lagawe (1995-2004). During the 1986 snap election, Bishop Claver played a significant role in orienting the Philippine bishops and drafted their Post-election Statement which denounced the election as "unparalleled in fraudulence" and called on the people to peacefully compel the government to undo the wrong it had done –something which was accomplished in the popular revolt which drove Pres. Marcos from power.

Bishop Claver holds an STB and an STL from Woodstock College, Maryland, U.S.A., an MA in Anthropology from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado. He was a visiting professor at the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI), and also served as Chairman of the Episcopal Commission for Indigenous Peoples and of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

Among his famous works are The Stones Will Cry Out (Orbis, 1978), a compilation of his reflections and homilies, and The Encounter between the Gospel and the Values of Indigenous People in Asia: Challenges of the Future. In his last book, The Making of the Local Church (Orbis 2008), launched in August 2009, Bishop Claver talked about developing a participative and inculturated local church.

Read Bp. Claver’s recollection of the Institute’s beginning HERE.
Read other commentaries of Bp. Claver in his BLOG.

Photo taken from woodstock.georgetown.edu

A Pastor Within the Community

John J. Carroll, S.J.
July 6, 2010

On November 18, 1976, radio station DXBB, operated by the Prelature of Malaybalay in Bukidnon, was raided and closed by the military of President Marcos. The pretext was that it was secretly sending messages to the N.P.A guerillas in the hills. The reality was actually much worse: DXBB was revealing the abuses of martial law and encouraging critical thinking among the people: a heinous crime! Bishop Francisco Claver responded with a series of pastoral letters, critical and hard-hitting, one every week, read in his name in all the parishes of the Prelature. He took his stand as shepherd of his people, analyzing the local and national situation with his trademark calm but powerful language and even more powerful thought – always with the people and their genuine development at the center of his concern.

Concern for ordinary people, their development and the forces which impinge on them was a hallmark of his apostolate and his life. It had its roots in the rice terraces of Bontoc and Banawe where he felt most at home, but he attributed it also to the year of field research for his doctoral thesis, among migrant farmers in rural areas of Davao. It resonated deeply with the identification of the Church at Vatican II with “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted.” It led him as an anthropologist to look at the social, economic, political and religious structures which affect men and women, and the cultural values which motivate them and give meaning to their lives. And it was the most fundamental source of his opposition to both martial law and the communist alternative: each sought to impose its own vision on the people from above, stifling rather than promoting their development.

This opposition to both martial law and the communist alternative, to which he led the Prelature of Malaybalay, was costly, made more costly by the parallel commitment to non-violence. In his funeral homily for Fr. Godofredo Alingal, S.J., murdered for hi defense of the people, Bishop Cisco put eloquently.

There is a clear answer indicated, I believe, in the two facts noted above about Father Alingal’s death – or, better, life: He was for justice, actively, uncompromisingly. He was also against violence, just as actively, just as uncompromisingly. If he had but reneged on the one, he might be alive today, his enemies not finding any compelling reason to kill him. If he had championed the other, he might not have been defenseless himself before the guns of his assailants. His YES to justice, his NO to violence – these are the hard facts of the life of the man whose murdered body was meant to fill the lonely tomb at Kibawe.

Father Alingal’s answer, I believe, is a perfect exemplification of the consensus that arose from our last general Prelature meeting in February of priests and religious, lay leaders and Church workers. At that meeting we faced up to the problem of armed power in Bukidnon and its consequences for ourselves and our people. The consensus was an option for, to put it into a formula, total vulnerability. In effect, it was a rejection of violence as a way of righting wrongs and an affirmation of the Prelature’s thrust for justice. We said NO to the “salvaging” of the military, to the “liquidation” of the NPA; YES to the continued striving for justice and the peace that comes through justice.

This position, for all its stark simplicity, was not widely accepted in the Philippine Church. In the early years of martial law there appeared to be perfect agreement among the major actors: Marcos said “I am the only alternative to the communists”; the communists said ‘We are the only alternative to Marcos.” The bishops as a body seemed to say “Amen, amen,” and quietly accepted martial law; many priests and religious chose to support the New People’s Army. Bishop Cisco on the other hand worked patiently with his own people and among the other bishops, promoting a Gospel-based third alternative: justice plus active non-violence

Gradually the tide changed, then dramatically with the assassination of Ninoy, and events moved on to the snap election of 1986. By that time Cisco had resigned from the Prelature – newly promoted to diocesan status – in order to give himself to writing and research. He was well prepared by training, painful experience and prayerful reflection to draft the post-election statement of the CBCP, emphasizing the non-violent struggle for justice, which stunned the Marcos regime – and the Apostolic Nuncio as well – and laid the moral foundation for EDSA I.

On the statement itself I would call attention to one paragraph which is pure Claver and a key to his vision of the Church.

We therefore ask every loyal member of the Church, every community of the faithful, to form their judgment about the February 7 polls. And if in faith they see things as we the bishops do, we must come together and discern what appropriate actions to take that will be according to the mind of Christ. In a creative, imaginative way, under the guidance of Christ's Spirit, let us pray together, reason together, decide together, act together, always to the end that the truth prevail, that the will of the people be fully respected.

Note that the bishops here are not giving directions; they are calling to discernment on the part of the Christian community, speaking not from above the community but from within it. They have stated their judgment that the election was so fraudulent as not to reflect the will of the people; they have drawn the moral conclusion that – if that is so – it gave no mandate for the Marcos regime to remain in power. Then they call on the people to consult their own experience and if their experience confirms that of the bishops, to discern what they should do as community “according to the mind of Christ.”

This insight on the role of the pastor WITHIN the Christian community, on dialogue and participation was to be a key to Cisco’s thought and pastoral practice long after the Marcos era had passed into history. Growing out of his earlier insight that true development must come from below, it underlay his undying support of the basic ecclesial community movement in which local communities meet together to share and deepen their faith, to reflect on and purify their cultural values, to face their problems and seek common solutions. He acknowledged that such communities could make mistakes, but he believed that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they would also correct their mistakes. It led him to insist on vernacular liturgies and even to approve on his own translations of the liturgy into Bukid and the local languages of the Cordillera, and to urge the ordination of married men who would make the Eucharist central to the lives of these isolated mountain communities.

Bishop Claver insisted vigorously on the term “local church” meaning a church which has – under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – taken on the symbols and thought-ways of a local culture, a church of Asia and recognizably Asian, not a church in Asia with liturgies, theological language, architecture, styles of dress and address, imported from Europe or America. He was deeply critical of the manner in which Synods of Bishops were conducted in Rome, with no real opportunity for dialogue and no share in decision-making. Not all of Cisco’s ideas are popular in church circles today; but he never tried to impose them on anyone. He stated his views, clearly and cogently, and let the listener or reader decide.

Let me conclude with an anecdote which I heard from Cisco himself. Very early on Sunday morning during the EDSA uprising, he was roused from bed by a phone call asking him to go urgently to Camp Aguinaldo where Juan Ponce Enrile, General Ramos, and their supporters were holed up. In his battered Volkswagen, Cisco managed to push through the crowds and into the camp; he was taken to a top-floor room, where the leaders of the revolt had just been informed that a cannon was being pointed directly at them from the Marcos forces across the highway in Camp Crame. On the open telephone line they could a voice in the background ordering the officer in charge of the cannon to fire. Ramos ordered civilians, except Cisco, to leave the building. He and the others stood up, sang the anthem of the Philippine Military Academy and then recited the Lord’s Prayer. At that moment, Ponce Enrile, Marcos’ former Minister of Defense who had crossed swords more than once with Cisco, leaned over to him and said: “Bishop, would you give me absolution.” As Cisco reported, “I gave him absolution, but I forgot to give him a penance.” As it turned out, the officer across the way refused to fire.

As we say goodbye to Cisco tomorrow, let us give thanks to the Lord that the officer refused and that we have had his inspiring presence among us for another 24 years; and pray also that the Lord may send us more leaders with his integrity, wisdom, and commitment to the little people. God bless you, good friend; and now with the Father, please bless all of us.