PILGRIMS OF HOPE

MOVING FORWARD IN SYNODALITY

by Fr. Wilmer Joseph S. Tria, PhD
Opening Keynote Address, BACS General Assembly,
September 12, 2022, Ateneo de Naga University Gym

The Church, as the agent of evangelization, is more than an organic and hierarchical institution;
she is first and foremost a people advancing on its pilgrim way toward God.
She is certainly a mystery rooted in the Trinity, yet she exists concretely
in history as a people of pilgrims and evangelizers. (EG, 111)

1. INTRODUCTION

First, I must confess that I feel uncomfortable acting as part of the host and giving the keynote
speech as well. During the meeting with the CEACAL Officers, I suggested that we include a
talk among the concurrent sessions a topic on educational reforms, particularly by revisiting
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. To the officers, the topic cannot be limited to a class
of educators, say, to teachers of Araling Panglipunan only, but to all educators: the
administration, the faculty and staff. The discussion ended up with the proposal that I be the
keynote speaker.

The theme actually is timely and relevant, and it is not far from Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of
Education. In fact, after his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he wrote another book, Pedagogy of
Hope. And if this is to be considered, according to the group, this is better discussed at the
plenary than at the concurrent sessions. I acquiesced. So please bear with me.

Let me start with the phrase ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. Allow me to pose the following questions to
ponder. How can we hope these days? For two and a half years, we experienced the lockdowns
and strict quarantines, that we could not travel to visit our families, or go to the shops to buy our
necessities, or eat at our favorite restaurants, or enter our school campuses to smell the books at
the library, the check the plants, to do inventory of chalks and pentel pens in our classrooms, and
to shake hands or hug our fellow teachers. Salaries were cut, or stagnated. Some of us were laid
off, others were asked to report for only 15 days. Still others were asked to stop working for one
or two years without salaries except with the promise of being rehired when the pandemic is
over. These were all the predicaments of the employees of our Catholic Schools. We were like in
that dark tunnel, with no perceptible light at its end. Many say there is no way we are going back
to the normal days. Such abnormality they would now call euphemistically the new normal.

Then how can we hope with the devastating results of the recent National and Local Elections?
When Barack Obama became the first black president in the US, I watched the news three times
a day, to follow the thrills of the campaign, the results of the elections and the progress of his
presidency. Back to our country, when Rodrigo Duterte became president and started his
murderous drug war, I lost my appetite to watch news ever. I can’t feel any sense of hope at all in
watching and hearing the news. The silence of the bishops gave me no hope. The ambivalence of
the clergy to denounce the killings gave me no hope. The killing of that schoolboy, Kian delos
Santos, who cried ‘tama na, may exam pa po ako bukas,’ gave me no hope. And worse, when the
parents of Kian supported the drug war after receiving money from Duterte, I almost lost every
inch of hope remaining in me.

My speaking up against the Duterte administration was the singular evidence of my hope. I
encouraged Parishes within Naga City to join me in a Penitential Walk calling for the stop of the
genocide. We were promoting statement shirts that says: no to EJK. However, some of my close
friends, especially my spiritual director, advised me to wait until the end of his term. Longevity
will be more advantageous for the mission than having a short life, according to them.

So my hope shifted to the next National and Local Elections. With the candidacy of Leni
Robredo, the silent, hibernating and inarticulate hope within me once again sparkled. So, as soon
as Leni declared her candidacy, we put pink lights at the façade of the Parish. We sold statement
shirts to campaign for Leni. We joined the One Pink March. We enticed the Archbishop to write
a statement in our behalf. The One Pink March held in Naga and at the Miting de Avance at
Makati Avenue were the peak of our hopes.

I believe that hope is a universal language. I shared my personal experience, because I know
majority in this gym share the same sentiment. We had all hopes. We thought we were going to
win. However, just few hours after the closing of the precincts, the Duterte stooges already won
by a mile.

As early as ten in the evening, I was receiving calls asking me to give hope to the many young
people gathered at the Plaza Quezon in Naga City. They were crying and hugging each other,
many of them were first time voters. They, and many more, were all frustrated by the conduct
and the results of the elections. No scientific and technological explanation could convince them,
not even the PPCRV, that there was no fraud. That was their hunch. Until today, who can say for
sure that they were wrong.

We are all inside Plato’s cave. Everything around us are shades and shadows. Majority of us fall
into the trap of a grand narrative of lies Wherever we go, everyone is telling us that the Elections
were the cleanest and the fastest in Philippine History. And we are forced to swallow their
seemingly coherent web of lies.

We, Catholic Educators, conducted circles of discernment, and then we ended up endorsing Leni
Robredo for President. Our discernment was guided by the Scriptures, by the Social Teachings of
the Church, by the social consciences that we have formed. Yet, with all the efforts of our
Catholic Education, we failed and we continue to fail. The vast majority of the Filipino people
always end up being duped by massive vote-buying and now, victimized by fake news and
historical distortionism.

To hope or not to hope? We have no choice! It is our vocation. The theme suggests that the
nation is on a pilgrimage of hope. If this is to be called a pilgrimage, who are our pilgrim guides?
2. EDUCATORS: BEARERS AND LEADERS OF THE PILGRIMS OF HOPE

These pilgrim guides are the educators. The educands are the pilgrims. For educators to be
hopeless, cynical, skeptical, is betrayal to their noble vocation as bearers and leaders of hope.

Thus, hope is not a choice. Hope is a theological virtue. It is God-given. That is why we call it a
vocation. God calls us to hope. Teachers are God’s prophets and they are called by God to bear
and bring hope to their students. Today, they are expected to tell their students that something
good will come out after the pandemic. To the first-time voters, educators are expected to say
something like: ‘the best is yet to come even after losing in the elections. We must put our full
trust in the Lord.’

To bear hope, educators must be intellectually honest. They must admit the fact that all caves
have foxholes. It’s like playing a jigsaw puzzle. No matter how difficult it is to find the matching
tiles, the players do not surrender. They know for a fact that the missing piece is just around the
corner. It is not so much an issue of a missing tile but a test of ingenuity. The challenge for the
educators is to find the exit, to liberate themselves and the educands. Educators possess the map,
the intellectual tools, to find their way out through the foxholes. They must possess that
disposition in their minds and hearts that foxholes exist, and that they have the necessary tools to
find their way out of the cave.

Educators are the last bastion of hope. ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish,’ says the
Good Book. (Prov. 29,18) In other words, a nation without hope will die. A nation without
education will die. And a nation without true and genuine educators will die. Thus, Catholic
educators have no excuse not to have such hope. They have the duty to spare the nation from
despair. They are the modern Moses who ought to liberate the nation from misery.

No matter how difficult the trek, educators must continue to lead the educands, the pilgrims to
walk contemplatively, meditatively, for at the end of the tunnel, there is light. And educators
know it by faith.

We must confess with humility that we are all groping in the dark. That’s the story of a pilgrim.
That’s the story of the Israelites liberated by Moses from Egyptian captivity and oppression. It
was a long pilgrimage of hope. For forty years, they wandered and lingered in the desert. And
even if hope is a virtue, it does not stay mathematically, statically, in the middle. It sways back
and forth, like a pendulum, finding the right balance between the vices of despair and
presumption.

Yet to say that educators must be bearers and leaders of hope is just but another motherhood
statement. What does it really mean to be bearers and leaders of hope?

Hope is the starting point, not the end point of any human endeavor. Freire calls hope an
ontological need.1 It is a primordial need. Without hope, there is no struggle. But hope alone is
not enough.

1
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, (New York: Continuum, 2004), p. 8.
A student takes up law with the hope that he can become a lawyer someday. That hope drives
him or her to study well. That hope makes him or her suspicious and cautious about joining
fraternities that could be fatal. A law student who is carefree, who does not study and who
prefers to join fraternities for his or her security, and later hopes to pass the bar exams and
survive the hazing is a student with false hopes. The ‘sana-makapasa-ako’ or ‘sana-malusutan-
ko-ito’ Filipino expressions of individuals who did not plan ahead about his or her future has no
hope at all.

Paulo Freire says that educators must be dreamers. They must possess dreams for their country.
The purpose of hope is to dream for social transformation. He writes: “There is no change
without dream, as there is no dream without hope.”2

As a way of demonstration, one cannot simply teach biology taken from a textbook written by a
foreigner who is not familiar with the flora and fauna and the eco-system in our country, region
or province. Similarly, biology teachers ought to use their course in order to promote stewardship
of God’s creation. This is how they will be able to instill hope among their students. They ought
to inculcate among their students the need to reforest the country with endemic and indigenous
trees and control, if not remove, the invasive trees that are devastating and are detrimental to the
eco-system in the country. They may even, for example, drive their students to make petitions to
local governments to ensure that there are green parks in every municipality where citizens can
have picnic under a Kamagong or a Molave Tree.

For teachers to lead their students to dream for their own bright future, that is, to earn a lot to
make themselves rich, to work for the rich, to work abroad at multi-national companies might
sound noble. However, such a dream without concern for others living in grinding poverty, is
selfish and void of social conscience. Such is a hope without a pilgrimage, without bearing hope
for a specific purpose, that is, pilgrimage of a people in need of liberation. (I will go back to
liberation towards the end of my talk. Let me expound more on hope.)

Freire’s Pedagogy of Hope and Pedagogy of the Oppressed are complimented and perfected by
the teaching of Pope Pius XIII that the very purpose of Catholic Education is to produce good
citizens.3 Educators cannot do this job if they are not the embodiment of good citizenship.

This is the reason why Freire insists that educators must be political. One cannot teach the love
of a country without being political, without engaging in politics, without political reform as his
or her agenda in education. He writes: “The nature of education is directive and political.”4

The Social Teachings of the Church claims that the only way for us to establish the Kingdom of
God is through politics. The Gospel is not meant for private use and consumption like toothbrush
and toothpaste. It is meant to be a broom to clean up the public square and establish the Kingdom
of justice and peace. Pope Francis even goes further as to push Catholics to meddle with politics.
Social transformation can only happen through politics.5

2
Ibid., p. 91.
3
Cf. Pope Pius XIII, Spectata Fides (1885); Sapientiae Christianae (1890); and Caritatis Studium (1898).
4
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, p. 78.
5
Cf. Fratelli Tutti, 180, 188, 189.
Thus, every Catholic educator must be theologically equipped and politically mature. The two
are inseparable for the in-breaking of the Kingdom as expressed in the aspiration of the Second
Plenary Council of the Philippines.

Indeed, during these dark moments in our Philippine history, educators ought to be the last
persons standing armed with hope and dreams. Every thought, every word, every gesture and
action, must contribute to inspire hope among the educands for the social transformation in our
country. We cannot waste our time. We are not developing. We are retrogressing. Yes, in spite of
all our efforts in the past.

There is indeed a need to reflect, a need to rethink our methodologies. We need to ask the hard
question: Where have we failed as educators?

Why is it that in spite of dedicating our time in search for the truth, we end up being trapped by
falsehood? Why is it that in spite of our dedication to teach skills and competencies to our
graduates, we continue to contribute to the increasing unemployment and underemployment in
the country? Why is it that in spite of the moral teachings we provide out students through our
religion classes, more and more people elect leaders who are evil?

Why is it that in spite of our religiosity, the gap between faith and justice continues to widen?
Paulo Freire has an answer to offer.

3. CHURCH OF THE POOR OR CHURCH OF THE OPPRESSED?

According to Freire, the oppressed is blind to the reality of their own oppression. First, they
undergo the process of domestication through false generosity sustained by unjust order. Freire
calls this approach the ‘softening’6 of oppression by the oppressor, yet the process remains
‘malefic.’7

Secondly, the oppressed assimilate unwittingly the fabricated narrative made up by the
oppressors that the oppressed are the cause of their own misery. Self-depreciation is one
characteristic of the oppressed. They believe “that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and
are incapable of learning anything – that they are sick, lazy and unproductive – that in the end,
they are convinced of their own unfitness.”8 They “introject the dominant ideology that sketches
them as incompetent and guilty, the authors of their own failures. And yet the actual “why” of
those failures is to be found in the perversity of the system.”9 For the oppressed, ‘to be’ is ‘to be
under the oppressor.’10 In the end, they see their miserable condition as part of the will of God.11

One classic example is the Brigada Eskwela where parents and private organizations pay for the
needs of public schools under believing they are participating in the altruistic bayanihan. But
Brigada Eskwela is an attempt to hide the fact that our government’s priorities are amiss. The
6
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition, p. 44.
7
Ibid., p. 60.
8
Ibid., p. 63.
9
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, p. 56.
10
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 64.
11
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, p. 48.
National Budget easily goes to the intelligence funds of the President, and now, even of the Vice
President. But the Department of Education looks for sponsors to fix their classrooms and we
don’t see the injustice in it.

The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) popularized the phrase ‘Church of the
Poor.’ The Church has expressed in that document its aspirations for the in-breaking of the
Kingdom by giving special attention to the poor in the country, with the understanding that the
poor are not objects but agents of their own development.

However, such declaration by the PCP II contributed to that kind of blindness Freire is referring
to. The term ‘poor’ is a euphemism that sugarcoats the reality of exploitation of the poor by the
rich. Had PCP II been bold and daring, it could have used the phrase: Church of the Oppressed.
‘Poor’ makes us blind to the cause of poverty. ‘Oppressed’ makes us see the existence of the
‘Oppressor’ as well as the reality of oppression.

The hesitancy contributed to the obfuscation of the Church on its stand on social justice and its
social apostolate. The Church seemed to wary about community organizing, of forming Basic
Ecclesial Communities in their parishes and dioceses, of supporting candidates who enjoy moral
integrity over political dynasties, of any missionary activity that could identify themselves with
the left. In doing so, bishops and dioceses oftentimes send confusing, if not wrong, signals. There
was a time when the Church strongly objected to Ninoy Aquino’s move for pushing the passing
of the Reproductive Health Bill while she remained silent about the murders committed by the
blood-thirsty Rodrigo Duterte. Thus, many social apostolates of the Church become off-target.
They even reinforce the perpetuation of unjust structures. A glaring example are our feeding
programs and other dole-out activities that only fortify and justify the vote-buying activities
conducted during elections by the oppressors.

The Church is, then, seen and mistaken as a partner of the oppressors. Church officials are seen
as collaborators with the oppressors. And parishes and schools become institutions of the elite
than of the underprivileged.

Noam Chomsky, in one of his interviews, spoke something about our Catholic religion: “There is
a history of Christianity: the first three centuries of Christianity, it was a radical pacifist religion,
which is why it was persecuted. It was the religion of the poor and the suffering, and Jesus was
the symbol of the poor and the suffering… In the fourth century, it was taken over by the Roman
Empire. Emperor Constantine turned the church into the religion of the persecutors.”12

The Social Encyclicals are attempts to bring back Christianity to the real mandate of Jesus, the
radical love and care for the oppressed. And at the heart of these encyclicals is the message of
liberation. The oppressors for centuries enjoyed the ‘friendship’ with the Church. They were
comfortable that the Catholic Church remained their ‘partners in crime.’ So when the Church
started to call for social transformation, for social justice, be involved socially, the oppressors
began to be disturbed. This is the reason why, according to Chomsky, Oscar Romero and six

12
Chomsky on Religion (2010), retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNDG7ErY-k4&feature=related
on August 20, 2022.
other Jesuit intellectuals in El Salvador were assassinated and murdered by military forces armed
and trained by the US government.13

Today’s big question for us Catholics is how ready are we to embrace once again the gospels and
its radical message of love? When we endorsed Leni Robredo in the recently concluded
elections, it seemed, especially in many areas in the country, that our flock did not listen. For
how can we explain the 31M who voted for the son of the dictator? A palpable explanation is the
kind of distance we have with the oppressed. “Bakit ngayon lang kayo? Nasaan yung tinig ninyo
nung pinatay ang aming asawa, ang aming ama, ang aming anak?”

In reality, we are the Church of the Oppressed. Yet why can’t we use the phrase if that is the
reality? Why can’t we call a spade a spade? All our efforts, therefore, must not begin and end
with shepherding the poor but in liberating them from oppression, not through any violent
revolution, but through integral evangelization.

Within the framework of a country composed of oppressors and oppressed, where do we stand as
educators? Are we among the oppressors offering liberation to the oppressed or are we among
the oppressed trying to liberate everyone, including the oppressors?

Unlike privately owned schools, many Catholic Schools are missionary. They are run by
dioceses and congregations. Many of their employees are from the middle class or from the
lower middle class. Most of us belong to the class of people oppressed by the government and its
policies. To Freire, we are in a better position to work for social transformation.

First, we must struggle to recover our sight to see the reality of oppression. Red-tagging is a clear
proof of oppression. Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino has just named five books banned for being
subversive.14 Rural Missionaries of the Philippines are accused of financing terrorism, a
nonbailable crime. Its assets are frozen and the raps indicted 16 people, including nuns.15

Second, aided with critical inquiry, we must decode the fabricated narrative of the oppressors
that our poverty is part of God’s will, and that majority of Filipinos are lazy, weak, and
uneducated – the very reason for our poverty.

The tragedy in our Philippine history is the fact that the majority is blind to the cause of their
poverty. Yet, worse still is the fact that majority of the educators share the same blindness. In
that case, a blind cannot lead another blind. (Mt 15:14)

Historical distortionism is one of the challenges in our country today. The Cyber Analytica
provides the scientific framework by which the uncritical mass can be duped by provoking in
them emotions such as fear and anger, negative energies that are not easy to extinguish. The
materials created and fabricated are bombarded to the netizens through troll farms. Freire calls

13
Noam Chomsky, ‘Remarks on Religion,’ from an interview with David Barsamian in Chronicles of Dissent
(Common Courage, 1992).
14
Memorandum Blg. 0663, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, August 9, 2022.
15
‘Rural missionary work affected by terrorist financing raps, group says,’ retrieved from Philstar.com on August
18, 2022.
this taming the reality of oppression through concealment of truth.16 The only way to face this
challenge is to provide our students with the tools on how to distinguish one from the other and
on how they can relay this to their community, starting with their own families.

Third, we need to be in solidarity with the oppressed. We cannot be neutral politically. We

cannot be non-partisan. Education and critical thinking are the best ways to introduce social
transformation, not violence, not bloody revolution. We need to transform ourselves as good and
responsible citizens, with middle class status, mentality and spirituality. We need to produce
young Davids to face the Goliath. And the moment they are there in the field, we need to give
them our full support.

The purpose of liberation is to realize humanization without marginalization. It’s not the Marxist
class struggle of the overthrow of the oppressors but the conversion of humanity and
consequently of the society.

I believe that should there be one focus that our Catholic Educational Associations must have – it
is to bridge the widening gap between faith and justice through critical inquiry, conscientization
and action. Our gospel is liberation. The next big question is: how do we liberate ourselves and
the entire society? Pope Francis has an answer: Synodality!

4. MOVING FORWARD IN SYNODALITY

First, we must take note that Paulo Freire was from Brazil and Pope Francis or Jorge Mario
Bergoglio is from Argentina. Both are from Latin America. Both are from third world countries.
Both are from countries colonized by the West. Also, both are champions of liberation
theology.17 Are we not on the same planet? Why should we not listen to them?

Pope Francis now leads the Church into a new way of living, the life of synodality. Synod and
synodality were common Greek words in ancient times. They simply meant to walk together
passing through the same path. Theologically speaking, that path is Jesus. He says: “I am the
Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:16) That was the life of the nascent Church. Peter and his
successors were hearing out everyone as to what the Holy Spirit was asking them to do at that
particular time so that they could journey together as pilgrims towards God’s kingdom.18
However, these words did not become layman’s terms nor did they become part of the language
in catechesis and evangelization.

In modern times, however, it was Paul VI who reintroduced the term when he called for a Synod
of Bishops in 1965 towards the end of Vatican II. The idea was to consult the bishops all over the

16
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, p. 56.
17
Cf. James D. Kirylo and Drick Boyd, Paulo Freire: His Faith, Spirituality & Theology (SensePublishers) pp. 87-
88. In Chapter 8, a story is related that Pope Francis, after few months of assuming his Papacy, invited Father
Gustavo Guttierez to Rome where they had private conversations and celebrated mass together. After which, Fr.
Guttierez said that with Pope Francis, there shall be a change in atmosphere. Later, Ana Maria Araujo Freire, widow
of Paulo Freire, requested a visit and the Pope obliged. She was welcomed in April 2015. After which, she said: the
Pope is creating a new face of the church.
18
Cf. Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, International Theological Commission, March 2, 2018, no.
3.
world on matters of Church governance. Then, on September 7, 2021, Pope Francis published
the Vademecum, a Handbook for the world-wide and longest consultation in preparation for the
Synod on Synodality in 2023. The synodal process was launched in Rome in October 9 and 10,
2021 and in the respective dioceses on October 17, 2021.

Synod means the walking Church, the pilgrim Church. She walks – people, clergy and the
Bishop of Rome – together, towards the Kingdom of God. She seeks the guidance of the Holy
Spirit while in constant dialogue with one another. Its Latin counterpart is Concilium. Thus, it is
an assembly of the people of God that seeks the counsel of fellow humans and the counsel of the
Holy Spirit.19

There are three pillars of Pope Francis’ call for synodality: communion, participation and
mission. And all these pillars reecho the pedagogy proposed by Freire.

Communion and Solidarity. Synodality recognizes that the people of God are bestowed with
different gifts and charisms, and they journey together built on Christ as the corner stone.20 It
emphasizes the inverted pyramid where the people of God is on top as those ought to be served,
under whom are their servants, the bishops, successors of the apostles, and under whom is Jesus,
the one who came down to serve and not to be served. (Mk 10:45; Mt 20:28) In this communion,
servant-leadership is emphasized.

This communion takes the Holy Trinity as its model. The Fathers of the Church described the
communion of the Holy Trinity with the Greek word Perichoresis or ‘dancing together in
circle.’21 With that as the model, according to the Holy Father, not only the Bishops can be
synodal. Synodality can be applied to almost very Christian community such as the Presbyteral
Council, the Pastoral Council and Finance Council and even to the Basic Ecclesial
Communities.22 Synodality, I believe, can also be applied to Educational Associations such as the
Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, the Bikol Association of Catholic Schools,
every Catholic school, and even every class, regardless of the course, for as long as the Holy
Trinity is there as the model, teacher and guide.

In that synodality, we are all equal. Clergy or laity, men or women, old or young, for as long as
all are united with Jesus, are supposed ‘to dance and sing together’ as equals. St. Paul says that
we, though many, are all members of the Mystical Body of Christ.23 And in that road of life, we
are all equal.

Freire calls this synodality the educator’s solidarity with the oppressed educands. He criticizes
the traditional understanding of education as composed of teachers who are depositors of
knowledge and students who are their passive depository of knowledge. This he calls the
banking concept of education.24 To him, education must begin by destroying the dichotomy
19
Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, nos. 4-5.
20
Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, no. 55
21
Peri means ‘around’ while choresis means ‘to dance or to sing together.’ Perichoresis also underlines the equality
of those who dance and sing together just like the equality of the Persons in the Trinity.
22
Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, no. 107.
23
Cf. Romans 12:5.
24
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 72.
between the educator and the educand and ‘by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that
both are simultaneously teachers and students.’25 In the same way, Pope Francis says that in the
story of salvation and liberation, we are all equal, learning from each other, open to the
promptings of the Holy Spirit, with Jesus as our way, our truth and our life. There must be no
rigid separation between ecclesia docens and ecclesia dicens. There must be mutual listening in
which each one has something to learn.26

Participation and Conscientization. Synodality emphasizes the involvement and co-

responsibility of all people. In this pilgrimage, no one is disqualified. Each one is indispensable.
All are called to serve God and one another.27 Thus, in the Church apostolate, there is a need to
listen to everyone. They are “called together to pray, listen, analyse, dialogue, discern and offer
advice on taking pastoral decisions which correspond as closely as possible to God’s will.”28

Pope Francis believes that no one can belittle the faith of the People of God. Every member of
God’s faithful has a story of faith and it is worth listening to. “The people of God are holy thanks
to this anointing, which makes it infallible in credendo. This means that it does not err in faith,
even though it may not find words to explain that faith.”29

On the other hand, Freire criticizes the western way of education, when teachers think that
students come to class ignorant.30 Teachers think that they come to class to bring gifts of
knowledge to their students who know nothing. Students are only passive depository of
knowledge. To Freire, this banking approach only perpetuates and petrifies the grand narrative of
lies concocted by the oppressors.

Here, in our country, we are witnessing a well-orchestrated retelling of such grand narratives
through historical distortionism. By forcing us to swallow and assimilate the stories made for us
by our oppressors, the oppressor-oppressed relationship of dependency is perpetuated and
fortified. A recent example is the film titled Maid in Malacañang being shown for free.

Our challenge then as educators is how to develop critical thinking and inquiry by posing
problems in class and allowing our students to pray, think, reflect, discern, and participate in
offering solutions to the problem and reach agreement. This similar approach, once it becomes a
culture, can be replicated even outside the classroom, at the barangay halls, at the municipal halls
– yes, in the public square.

The Church calls this the pastoral cycle: See, Judge, Act. In seeing, we determine what is the
problem, who are affected by the problem and how the problem impacts their lives. In judging,
25
Ibid.
26
Cf. Santiago Madrigal, SJ, ‘What is the Synodal Journey? The thought of Pope Francis,’ in La Civilta Cattolica,
October 21, 2021, retrieved from https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/what-is-the-synodal-journey-the-thought-of-
pope-francis/ on August 20, 2022.
27
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 67.
28
Ibid., p. 68.
29
Santiago Madrigal, SJ, ‘What is the Synodal Journey? The thought of Pope Francis,’ in La Civilta Cattolica,
October 21, 2021, retrieved from https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/what-is-the-synodal-journey-the-thought-of-
pope-francis/ on August 20, 2022. The teaching on the infallibility of the People of God in belief is found in Lumen
Gentium, 12.
30
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 72.
we analyze and reflect. We determine the causes of the problem and their meaning. In acting, we
determine short- and long-term solutions, and with whom we collaborate. During the national
synodal consultation, our bishops called this cycle: Look, Listen and Love.

In his recent book Let Us Dream, Pope Francis hopes that something better will come out from
our experience of the pandemic using the same framework. For him, this is a time to see, a time
to choose, a time to act. He observes that we are trapped in a labyrinth, so we need to leave the
“selfie” culture behind and see the eyes, faces, hands and needs of those around us. And when
we feel the “twitch upon the thread,” we must decenter and transcend. And then act.31

Both Freire and Pope Francis emphasize the need of listening to one another, and enter into
dialogue or conversation, but never into monologue. The teacher, equipped to see and understand
the historico-socio-political situation of the student, can facilitate the class into understanding the
problem, providing analysis and social solutions. This is what Freire calls conscientization.
Problem identification stimulates thinking, reflection, and finally participation in the class
discussion. No one leaves the class without contributing to the problem solution. They are not
graded for the correctness of the solution but for the quality of their discussion and participation.

To the Holy Father, the same culture of dialogue and participation must be cultivated in the
Church, from the parish-level up to the Synod of Bishops. Thus, synodality emphasizes that there
should be no distance between the pastor and the parish community, between the bishop and the
laity in the diocese, between the Pope and the People of God.32 An environment that will
encourage dialogue and participation is possible only when there is mutual trust and meaningful
relationships.

We can also say that there should be no distance between the educator and the educand. Thus,
the teacher must know where their students are so that the teacher can journey with them to
where they want and ought to be. The educator cannot be ‘committed only to preponderantly
abstract, intangible ideas’33 discussing ideas alien to the educands.

A Catholic educator must treat his or her class as a synod. The teacher and the students are the
People of God on a pilgrimage, walking on the same path, the same historical, social and
political world, in constant consultation with the Holy Spirit and with each other, in their search
for the truth, the way and the life.

Mission and Liberation. Synodality requires conversion and mission. Without conversion, the
Church will remain as a preserver of the status quo. Conversion means humility, the willingness
to stoop down, to confess ignorance and express willingness to listen and learn from the poor
who are, in reality, oppressed. Conversion requires admission of the fact that in many ways, we
who are Church workers have been part of the oppression. With the direction provided us by the
Holy Father, we now have every opportunity to be converted.

31
Ibid., p. 137.
32
Cf. Santiago Madrigal, SJ, ‘What is the Synodal Journey? The thought of Pope Francis,’ in La Civilta Cattolica,
October 21, 2021, retrieved from https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/what-is-the-synodal-journey-the-thought-of-
pope-francis/ on August 20, 2022.
33
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, p. 77.
And what is the mission? The Church exists to evangelize. And the Church, through the
centuries, has not been remiss with her duty. However, many times, she lacked its rootedness in
the historical world and its connectedness with the People of God. The purpose of synodality is
to find new and better ways to bring the gospel to others, especially those at the periphery,
including the netizens. And the starting point is to listen, to understand their predicaments, not
from our own lens but from theirs and to craft a pastoral plan that reaches out to as many people
as we can.

Our mission needs funding. One glaring mistake the Church committed in the past was to depend
on the government and on the so-called false generosity of the oppressors for the Church to
perform her mission. Noam Chomsky commented that the Catholic Church was more authentic
when the Christians celebrated the mass in the catacombs than when they celebrated the mass at
huge cathedrals. This was also the error of the Spanish missionaries when they came to the
Philippines doing missionary work funded by the King of Spain. Fr. Raul Bonoan, SJ, in one
interview, said that the Spanish Jesuits could not teach the Filipinos the love of country for it
implied revolt against Spain. This was keenly observed by Jose Rizal, the reason why he lost his
trust in the Catholic Church.34

The mission funded by monies generated from oppression is not mission at all. The missionaries,
beholden to the colonizers, were more loyal to the earthly king than to the King of the Universe.
This explains why the country became religious but not liberated. Filipinos became pious and
religious while developing docility and servitude towards their oppressors. This explains the gap
between faith and justice. What we benefited from the missionaries were half-baked, not integral,
evangelization. Sustainability is important, but it must be generated from the spirituality of
stewardship, from the benevolence of the oppressed, not of the oppressors.

To liberate the oppressed requires their reflective participation. They are not objects to be
saved.35 At all stages of their liberation, they must understand that their vocation is to be fully
human ‘ontologically and historically speaking.’36 Genuine praxis or revolution can only
originate from critical reflection.

The educator as missionary must also trust the educands and their ability to think and reason.
The culture of dependence must be deleted, eradicated. Dependence will only lead to greater
dependence. According to Freire, no one can be liberated by his own efforts nor can he be
liberated by others alone, without his participation.37 Communion and solidarity, participation
and conscientization, are all necessary for the mission of liberation.

Indeed, our country needs liberating evangelization. Freire, however, warns against libertarian
propaganda by simply implanting freedom.38 The missionary or the teacher cannot dictate
freedom. To fight for liberation must not be seen as a gift from the educator, but the product of
their own conscientization, of dialogue and synodality. Propaganda is but another grand
34
Fr. Raul Bonoan, SJ, in Radio Katipunan 87.9 FM, ‘Raw and Candid: Philippine Jesuit History as told by Jesuit
Legends, Episode 10,’ July 22, 2022.
35
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 65.
36
Ibid., p. 66.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., p. 67.
narrative. And liberating evangelization is not only freedom from hunger but freedom to create!39
The oppressed can only join the struggle as humans, not as objects of missionaries and teachers.
In this case, education is not manipulation because it requires the full participation of the
oppressed as subjects, as humans.40

Our ultimate mission as Catholic Educators is to transform our society and liberate ourselves,
teachers and students, from the traditions of the past, from the narratives of the oppressors, so
that together we can create a just and humane society, with progress without marginalization.

5. CONCLUSION

Educators can only be bearers and leaders of hope if their eyes can see the real world outside of
the cave. Their critical eyes must be sharp enough to punch a hole onto the darkness that
envelops the educands with the grand narratives crafted by the oppressors. They must also be
powerful enough to pierce through the thick walls of lies in order to see and understand the truth.

Even if PCP II calls us a Church of the Poor, we are, in reality, a Church of the Oppressed. In
this pilgrimage, we are the guides that ought to be armed with dreams for our country and hope
for our students, our fellow pilgrims. And there must be only one road, one path, one direction,
and that is, towards our liberation from oppression, even from colonization.

The challenge of Pope Leo XIII remains incumbent, that the purpose of Catholic Education is to
produce good and responsible citizens. Philosophically speaking, only those who belong to the
middle class are disposed to become good citizens. Thus, our graduates must become members
of that middle class. First, they must be equipped with skills so that they can easily find good and
decent jobs, or better still, so that they can create jobs for their fellow Filipino citizens. They
must also acquire the discipline so that they become good and law-abiding citizens. Lastly, they
must develop critical thinking so that they can discern the common good and pursue them.

However, this is a pilgrimage, a journey, and in this journey, we must follow the advice of both
Paulo Freire and Pope Francis. No one has the monopoly of truth. To dictate the truth, the path,
from the educators’ understanding is but another form of oppression. Synodality teaches us that
there is a need to sit down and pause, to pray and discern, to dialogue and seek counsel from one
another, and from the Holy Spirit, and together pursue a path towards genuine freedom and
liberation.

We must also note that as educators, we cannot be politically neutral. To speak against the
injustices committed by the government and to work for social transformation imply that we are
on the side with the oppressed. To be silent and non-partisan, to speak of no dream for our
country, is to side with the oppressor.

We are all pilgrims. In this pilgrimage, the teacher is the pilgrim guide. Sometimes the teacher
behaves like a leader who directs the course of the pilgrimage. Sometimes, he or she just sits
with fellow pilgrims to listen and enjoy their stories in life, their jokes and laughter, their sorrows

39
Ibid., p. 68.
40
Ibid., p. 69.
and frustrations, their hopes and dreams over a cup of coffee. And sometimes, they just walk
behind allowing the students to craft their own future. Such journey of the Church is beautifully
described by Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation: “To do so, he will sometimes go before
his people, pointing the way and keeping their hope vibrant. At other times, he will simply be in
their midst with his unassuming and merciful presence. At yet other times, he will have to walk
after them, helping those who lag behind and – above all – allowing the flock to strike out on
new paths.” (EG, 31)

A model of educators in the Old Testament is Moses. Moses met a lot of challenges leading the
Jews out of Egypt to the Promised Land, from oppression to liberation. First, the Jews knew
about their suffering, but not their oppression. Second, they did not believe they could cross the
Red Sea for they had no big dreams. Third, they did not understand patience or delayed
gratification. Forty days was a long wait, so they exchanged God for a molten calf. Fourth, they
were stubborn, unwilling to listen to God and to each other, so they wandered about in the desert
for forty years. Fifth, many lost their faith out of hunger and thirst in the desert that all they
desired was to go back home to their ‘benevolent’ oppressors, the Egyptians. Last, Moses did not
live to witness the fruit of his work of liberation. He only saw it from afar. Nevertheless, the
story of liberation was completed.

Such is the story of Filipino educators and educands. First, it is hard to convince both educators
and educands of the reality of oppression. Second, many have no dreams for a decolonized and
liberated country so that if there are any obstacles to such dreams, they are easily dismissed as
impossible dreams. Third, many cannot wait for long-term solutions. They prefer dole-outs and
instant gratification. Fourth, many have lost their faith and trust in God, giving little time for
reflection, contemplation, meditation. They neither listen to the Holy Spirit or to one another.
Fifth, as they wallow in massive poverty and grinding misery, they prefer to become dependent
on their generous oppressors. Lastly, like Moses, many teachers who are committed to social
transformation will not live to see the fruits of their labors. Yet, they trust the work of liberation
will someday bear fruits.

In the New Testament, the singular model of liberating evangelization is Jesus who is the way,
the truth and the life. In his inaugural speech, He spelled out His message of liberation: ‘The
spirit of Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim a
year of favor from the Lord.’ (Lk 3:18)

How did Jesus bring the gospel to the poor, liberate the captives, restore sight to the blind and
free the oppressed? First, he chose some poor fishermen as his primary evangelizers. When they
were shallow, Jesus challenged them to “put out into deep water” (Lk 5:4) and they did not only
catch fish but became catchers of souls. When they avoided suffering, Jesus told them: “Get
behind me, Satan!” (Mt 16:23; Mk 8:33) To refuse the cross is to think like the devil. When
distracted by storms in life, Jesus rebuked them: “You of little faith, why are you afraid? (Mt
8:26) When they only believed in those that they can see, Jesus told them: “You believed
because you have seen me; blessed are those who have not seen yet believed.” (Jn 20: 29) When
they became ambitious of worldly power, Jesus would teach them: “You don’t know what you
are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” (Mt 20:22) With all His teachings, the
disciples became Apostles of Liberation. Although Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, many
times He simply asked them questions to ponder.

We are now in the middle of our novena days to the ‘Patrona del Bicol,’ Our Lady of
Penafrancia. At this point, we ask ourselves: has this Penafrancia Fiesta opened our eyes and set
our hearts on fire so like Ina, we can be pilgrim guides to our students? Like Mary visiting her
cousin Elizabeth, we should be ready to go out of our way to do what needs to be done. Like
Mary at the foot of the Cross, we ought to be ready to suffer if only to witness God’s work of
salvation.

The courageous and liberating prophesies of the Blessed Mother, the Mother of Hope for every
pilgrim is always a resuene vibrant el himno de amor to me: “He has cast the mighty from their
thrones and has lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich
away empty. (Lk 1:52-53)

I wish to end my talk by quoting words of Pope Francis to distinguish a tourist from a pilgrim.
He writes: “In lockdown many of us left the house or apartment to shop for essentials or walk
around the block to stretch our legs. But then we went back to where and what we were before,
like a tourist who goes to the sea or the mountains for a week of relaxation but then returns to her
suffocating routine. She has moved, but sideways, only to come back to where she started.”

“I prefer the contrasting image of the pilgrim, who is one who decenters and so can transcend.
She goes out from herself, opens herself to a new horizon, and when she comes home she is no
longer the same, and so her home won’t be the same.”41

The Pope says, “This is the time for pilgrimages.” Are we ready to be pilgrims of hope? Or better
still, are we ready to be pilgrim guides of hope?

For comments, email me at

bikolbook@yahoo.com

41
Pope Francis, Let Us Dream, p. 135.