Rights advocates red-tagged as was Jesus of Nazareth

By Fr. Shay Cullen

The “March for the Martyrs” was a spectacular event when thousands of marching Catholic students filled Taft Avenue in Manila carrying banners and placards, singing fervently the patriotic song Ang Bayan, and demanding justice for students killed by the anti-riot police of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. when they staged a demonstration against injustice and corruption in 1972.They were the great days of inspiration in 1969-72 when the Catholic faith was expressed with passion for justice and truth and demanding government accountability on the streets and in Church sermons.

The Student Catholic Action movement was Catholic social teaching in action. The youth then marched and rallied demanding respect for the poor, justice for the down-trodden, freedom for political prisoners and an end to graft and corruption. I was newly arrived in the Philippines and I was greatly inspired by that faith in action. The Catholic youth believed with all their heart that they could bring change and they took to the streets in peaceful but loud protest. They were peaceful and influential. The youth leaders took the lead and were joined by priests and religious sisters in their marches. Then faith in the message of Jesus of Nazareth that called for social change, justice and equality for the poor and the downtrodden was seen as the main purpose and meaning of Christianity.

The Catholic youth then were Christian activists and advocates for equality, social justice and real political change. The rich were challenged to repent and believe the Gospel and give up their ill-gotten wealth and share with the poor. The students were bringing social change and had almost won. However, the rich and powerful ruling elite led by President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. could take no more of it and so Marcos declared martial law and became a cruel dictator and plundered the nation’s wealth and brought it into dire poverty. All protests were suppressed with the threat of summary execution and he stifled dissent but the Catholic youth did not give up their true faith. They strongly believed the social teaching that the power of truth and justice will move mountains of evil. This faith sustained them.

Nowadays, it is very different. That once powerful faith-in -action has dissipated and weakened. The clergy and students have abandoned the streets for the creature comforts of the rectory and college dormitories. They don’t believe that victory over injustice is possible. The courageous exceptions give hope. They are the magnificent few youth leaders, bishops and priests, no more than fifty at most, that stood against Duterte, and were red-tagged and charged with baseless crimes.

Many clergy and youth are influenced by materialism, vice, drugs, alcohol, sexual promiscuity, pedophilia and addiction to social media. This is what apparently dominates their lives, not faith and action for justice or the Gospel values of Jesus of Nazareth. The institutional Church is seeking the true faith to fight social and corporate evil and government corruption. As Saint James writes, “faith, without action, is dead.”

Despite this cemetery of dead faith, there is a living faith in the hearts of the small bands of true Filipino believers among the People of God that fight on. These are the brave Catholic advocates and activists fighting for human rights and dignity of the oppressed and the poor. They are being threatened, falsely charged, framed up and arrested for being the prophetic voice of Gospel values and defending the rights of the poor and the indigenous people. They are the victims of red-tagging, branded as rebels and subversives as was our very few brave bishops, priests and lay-leaders tagged by former President Duterte, just as was Jesus of Nazareth. Their lives are living symbols of Faith-in-Action.

As Pope Francis said this past week during the 50th anniversary of the Italian Church’s social action conference, what Catholics need is “… a faith that awakens consciences from slumber, that puts its finger in the wounds, in the wounds of society… a restless faith that helps overcome mediocrity and sloth of the heart, [a faith] which becomes a thorn in the flesh of a society often anesthetized and stunned by consumerism.”

It is this “mediocrity and sloth of the heart,” inaction, tolerance of evil, cover up of crimes of child sexual abuse by clerics and others that weakens the faith of the institutional Church that increasingly believes that only rites and rituals will save the world from evil and they focus on reaching a spiritual paradise and not creating a just world of virtue.

As Pope Francis says, unless true active Catholics are thorns in the side of society (and the institutional Church) the institution will be filled with “Sloth of the Heart,” giving consent to evil by silence.

The courageous students in Cebu known as the “Cebu 8” have been exonerated of all the false trumped up charges of violating the law when protesting at the University of the Philippines Cebu against the Anti-Terror Act. Presiding Judge Amy Rose A. Soler-Rellin declared them innocent in her decision to dismiss the last two charges against them last June 27, 2024. We should be proud of these brave prophetic Catholic youth yet institutional religion and government shunned them.

As many as 281 committed students, environmental defenders, rights advocates, all prophets of justice, have been murdered since 2012 alone, making the Philippines the most dangerous place to be a defender of the creation and environment and champions of the suffering indigenous people. A human rights organization, Kalikasan, has evidence showing that from 2001 to 2022, at least 328 defenders were murdered. They, too, were branded, red-tagged, jailed and mocked and many summarily executed because of their faith that goodness, love of neighbor and freedom will one day move mountains of evil and truth and justice will triumph.

That is the faith of Jesus of Nazareth. Recall what the corrupt authorities did to him. He was red-tagged and executed as a rebel, a subversive and like a criminal condemned as deserving death by crucifixion. So many of our youth suffer the same today. To be a true Catholic, a faithful Christian, we must speak out, take a stand for justice and truth.