In March 2021, the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines marked the 500 years of the arrival of Christianity in the country. The quincentennial event sparked scholars to take a keen interest in how the Church of the future could look at the local level that, unlike in the years past, has become less receptive to its interventions in the public sphere. Using phenomenological inquiry, this study aimed to contribute to the discourse from the perspective of opinion editorials (N=110) (op-eds) from the online archives of three major national newspapers. A thematic content analysis of the op-eds surfaced three distinct but related themes describing the dynamics of the bishops’ interventions, namely, the out of touch, out of line, and out of the depths syndromes of interventions in the public sphere. The results of this study have application potential for identifying the factors that could influence the reception or non-reception of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ interventions in Philippine society with all its dynamic problems and challenges.
Keywords: Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines • Church • Content Analysis • Opinion Editorials • Public Sphere • Reception1) Abellanosa, R. J. S. “Discursive Detours and Weak Gatekeeping: The Deficit of the Philippine Bishops’ Church of the Poor Discourse.” Political Theology 16/3 2015): 226-246.
2) Abinales, Patricio N. “Review Essay: Church and State and Church as State in the Philippines.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 28, no. 2 (1996): 62-70.
3) Aguilan, Victor R. “Philippines` 500 years of Catholicism: A Protestant Perspective,” (2020), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 342465341_Philippines%27_500_years_of_Catholicism_a_Protestant_Perspective?channel=doi&linkId=5ef5741892851c52d6fdcedf&showFulltext=true [accessed 27 March 2021].
4) Allen Jr., John L. The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. New York: Image, 2009.
5) Andaya, Barbara Watson. “Christianity in Modern Southeast Asia.” In Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian History, pp. 247-257. London: Routledge, 2014.
6) Asiones, Noel G. “Implementing A Natural Family Planning Program: The Case of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro.” Scientia 10/2 (2021): 54-70.
7) Ballano, Vivencio O. “The Catholic Laity, Clerical Sexual Abuse, and Married Priesthood: A Sociological Analysis of Vatican II’s Lay Empowerment.” Cogent Social Sciences 6/1 (2020): 1813438.
8) Bautista, Julius. “Church and State in the Philippines: Tackling Life Issues in a ‘Culture of Death’.” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 25/1 (2010): 29-53.
9) Bender, Courtney and Pamela Edith Klassen, eds. After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement, vol. 8. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
10) Buckley, David T. “Catholicism’s Democratic Dilemma Varieties of Public Religion in the Philippines.” Philippine Studies Historical & Ethnographic Viewpoints 62/3-4 (2014): 313-339.
11) Carroll, John J. Engaging Society: The Sociologist in a War Zone. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo University Press, 2006.
12) Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. “Contraception is Corruption.” (2012) https://cbcponline.net/contraception-is-corruption-a-cbcp-pastoral-letter-on-the-latest-decision-on-the-reproductive-health-bill/ [accessed 27 May 2020].
13) Chansamone, Saisayak. “Christianity in Southeast Asia," (2008), https://www.academia.edu/4781739/Southeast_Asia_ Christianity [accessed 27 March 2021].
14) Clifford, Catherine E. “Pope Francis’s Call for the Conversion of the Church in Our Time.” In Conversion and Church, Stephan van Erp and Karim Schelkens, eds., pp. 147-177. Boston: Brill, 2016.
15) Congar, Yves. “Reception as an Ecclesiological Reality.” Concilium 77 (1972): 43-68.
16) Cornelio, Jayeel Serrano. Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines: Young People Reinterpreting Religion. London: Routledge, 2016.
17) Coutts, Peter. Choosing to Change: How to Motivate Churches to Face the Future. Herndon, VA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013.
18) Dillon, Michele. Postsecular Catholicism: Relevance and Renewal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
19) Dionisio, Eleanor R. “Catholic Partisanship in the 2013 Elections: ‘Churchifying’ Democracy or Democratizing the Church?” Philippine Sociological Review 62 (2014): 11-40.
20) Fernandez, Pablo. History of the Catholic Church in the Philippines 1521-1898. Metro Manila, Philippines: National Book Store, 1979.
21) Francis, Pope. “Priests Should be Shepherds Living with the Smell of the Sheep.” The Catholic Telegraph (March 28, 2013). https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-francis-priests-should-be-shepherds-living-with-the-smell-of-the-sheep/13439
22) Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun, 109-142. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1992.
23) Gomes, Robin. “Pope to Priests: Be shepherds with the smell of the sheep." Vatican News (June 07, 2021). https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-06/pope-francis-priests-students-church-louis-french.html [accessed 25 July 2021].
24) Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.
25) Johnstone, Ronald. Religion in Society: A Sociology of Religion. London: Routledge, 2015.
26) Krippendorff, Klaus. Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. London: Sage Publications, 2018.
27) Marchildon, Gregory P., Jennifer Y. Verma, and Noralou Roos. “Opinion Editorials: The Science and Art of Combining Evidence with Opinion.” BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 18/5 (2013): 161-164.
28) Mendoza, Ruben C. “Growing ‘to the Measure of the Full Stature of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13): The Laity in the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines.” Asia Journal of Theology 30/2 (2016): 248-266.
29) Nery, John “The Opposition’s Narrow, Viable Path.” Philippine Daily Inquirer (May 25, 2021): 5.
30) Ofreneo, Rosalinda Pineda. “The Catholic Church in Philippine Politics.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 17/3 (1987): 320-338.
31) Pope Benedict XVI. Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love). (2006).
32) Ratzinger, Joseph. Principles of Catholic Theology. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987.
33) Rush, Ormond. “Inverting the Pyramid: The Sensus Fidelium in a Synodal Church.” Theological Studies 78/2 (2017): 299-325.
34) Rush, Ormond. The Reception of Doctrine Appropriates Hans Robert Jauss`s Reception Aesthetics and Literary Hermeneutics, vol. 19. Rome: Gregorian Biblical Bookshop, 1997.
35) Sanks, T. Howland. “A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Dynamics of Tradition." Theological Studies 76/2 (2015): 298-310.
36) Schweitzer, Friedrich, and Wolfgang Ilg. “Can Empirical Research Predict the Future of the Church? Theoretical Clarifications and Results from a Longitudinal Study.” Journal of Empirical Theology 30/2 (2017): 198-217.
37) Skrabania, Jerzy. “The Philippines under the Spanish and American Colonization (1565-1912). A Historical-political-religious Development. Part 1.” Nurt SVD 148/2 (2020): 8-26.
38) Social Weather Station. “Social Weather Report Fourth Quarter December 13-16,2019 National Survey,” https://www.sws.org.ph/swsmain/artcldisppage/?artcsyscode=ART-20180328121738 [accessed 15 August 2020].
39) Whaley, Frank. “Catholics Mobilize to Defeat Politicians who backed Reproductive Health law.” New York Times (Jan 2013), https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/world/asia/catholics-mobilize-after-setback-over-reproductive-law.html [accessed 25 May 2020].
40) Willis, Adam, and Eloisa Lopez. “Church vs. State: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s Brutal but Popular War on Drugs has Forced the Catholic Church to ask itself a Defining Question: What is its Responsibility under an Immoral Regime?” Virginia Quarterly Review 95/2 (2019): 38-55.