Ethics in crisis

THAT’S a beautiful way of saying an ugly reality. More and more people, even our educated ones, do not know anymore the nature, meaning and purpose of their actions. Or at least their knowledge is saddled with grave distortions.

Look at the recent Vicente Sotto Hospital scandal. As more data emerge, the more absurd the whole affair appears. It’s kind of funny, but in a bizarre way, since it is betraying a deeper, more serious crisis in us as a people.

The predicament we are in is that we seem to have lost touch with the proper sense of ethics and morality. Each one acts solely on his own. Now there’s really nothing wrong with that. That’s unless we highlight the modifier, “solely.”

While it’s true that as persons we are free to do anything, we seem to have forgotten also that as persons we are meant to be responsible for our actions. Freedom and responsibility are essentially inseparable.

Freedom and responsibility are precious human values that need to have their proper grounding and orientation. Without this condition, they can become very dangerous forces wreaking havoc in their wake.

Ultimately, we have to bring in the question of God, of where our faith finally rests in, of whether we have a proper understanding between the roles of faith and reason.

Ultimately, we have to know who and what we are to also know how we ought to act. These questions lead us to the answer of where we ground and orient our freedom and responsibility, and thus, our ethics and morality.

At the moment, there seems to be a good reason to doubt whether many of us know the significance of our actions, that is, of our human acts, those for which we are responsible, since we do them knowingly and willingly.

Our human acts are supposed to reflect our person and build it up. They can define us, make and unmake us. They are integral to our person. But now, signs are aplenty that indicate that these acts are detached from our person.

They have become purely mercenary, highly corruptible and often done at the behest of questionable motives. Without due reference to our person, and much less to God and to an absolute law, our actions are at the mercy of any motive and intention.

The only prevailing law that seems to rule our sense of ethics and morality is that we can do absolutely anything as long we don’t get caught, we don’t create a public mess, we avoid directly and physically hurting people, and things like those.

That’s at the initial stage, since if this mentality is made stable it surely will descend in a slippery slope toward more bizarre and grotesque forms of ethics and morality.

It’s a highly subjective mindset that makes each one of us our own law and lawgiver. The only consolation is that so far, at least in our country, we are not yet in the stage of formally and systematically rationalizing this attitude.

In the West and in most developed countries, this kind of cankerous thinking is getting dominant. And thus, what in a normal peaceful world are considered taboos and perversions are now regarded as garden-variety.

Infidelity is ok. Sex outside marriage is ok. Notice the number of celebrities who openly talk about coupling and uncoupling with sophisticated insouciance and nonchalance as if nothing’s wrong. In fact, it can sound elegant and cool.

In some avant-garde sectors, they have so discarded any restraint to the total loss of the ethical and moral sense that they are now into what is called as nihilism. That’s the belief that everything here in life really amounts to nothing.

This ism, together with its contrary counterpart like fanaticism, is what makes people prone to fall into terrorism, since life here offers them no meaning and reason to live.

We have to be wary of these developments that are taking place quietly and subtly in our world today. And all of us are duty-bound to do something about this.

The sense of ethics and morality should be restored, strengthened and defended. The challenge and requirements it demands should be faced and met squarely.

This means a lot—praying, sacrificing, recourse to sacraments, catechesis, ascetical struggle, developing virtues, sanctifying one’s work, doing apostolate, etc.

Following the US election

IF only because it gives me thrill, suspense and excitement, I closely track the current US presidential campaign. In a way, it’s like watching a game of basketball or soccer.

I enjoy the punditry that’s daily milled out of the press, giving us fresh insights and confirming or debunking theories and suspicions. The exercise challenges our power to discern and distinguish between spin and reality, between hype and substance.

Tracing possible motives and reasons for a candidate’s actuations and words, hunting and fishing for possible hidden ulterior motives, sniffing potential dangers of any kind in a candidate’s move—these are the usual elements that can give one high feelings.

Since the players are under extreme pressure to win, they can be very vulnerable to tempting and even immoral means. The Machiavellian tactics tend to worsen with each election.

The art of deception and hypocrisy is improved and refined, as players try their best to appear spotless even when caught red-handed in a mistake. Thus, a blatant lie, for example, is now just called a misstatement. An elitist statement is simply dismissed as misspoken words.

I actually don’t have much time for this. But when I can, I connect myself with the many relevant linkages now handily made available in the Internet. I see to it that this does not become an obsession. Rather, it should be a good material for prayer and for knowing where the world is heading.

The increasingly vicious slugfest between the first would-be black president and the first would-be woman president is truly interesting. To me, it exposes a lot of what’s going on in the soul of America .

This is actually my underlying motive for observing this American event. I really don’t care much about the candidates’ positions on Iraq , the economy, health care, global warming, etc. To me, these are matters of consensus.

I focus more on what they think about abortion and other basic moral issues now dogging American and world life—issues that have direct and significant effect on personal integrity, marriage and family, education, etc.

To me, the moral issues are the most important things to consider. They are not a matter of consensus, but rather of what is in accord with our very own nature, with our very own dignity as persons and children of God.

The moral issues therefore concern all of us, not just a part of us, not even the majority of us. They are beyond personal preferences, opinions, statistics and popularity voting. They spring from our common humanity and are meant to build it up.

They become issues precisely because a growing number of people would like to have a differing view about what human nature and dignity is, and therefore about what is moral. They want these things to be a matter of opinion, subject to a continuing process of defining and redefining.

Sad to say, it seems that we are entering into a kind of politics where moral issues, not just political and social issues, are becoming the prominent issues to tackle and decide on.

Obviously, not everybody has this understanding of the moral issues. To many people nowadays, these moral issues are just like any other political or social issue, a situation that clearly needs to be corrected.

That’s why elections are very important, since among other things, they give us a chance to express our position with respect to the moral issues. They give us a chance to choose our political leaders.

I must say that our political leaders should be chosen primarily on the basis of how they stand on the moral issues. It is in the moral issues where their true integrity and the ultimate source of their leadership qualities can be found.

When he flipflops in these issues, when he does not know how to defend them in the face of popular dissent, then we have reason to suspect his capacity to lead.

Sad to say, we are seeing a lot of this phenomenon these days. Many of our politicians, in the US and here, seem to be dancing under the choreography of such capital sins as greed and lust for power, at the expense of morality.

Knowing the truth

AS I’ve been saying since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI three years ago, we have to learn to catch up with him, because his words just flow from his mouth like a kilometer a second.

And to think that these are not just casual words, but words that carry a lot of weight, that had been invested with hours and days and years of study and prayer, and that truly hit the mark, bull’s eye, where putting Christ to our current complex life situations is concerned!

This was clear during his recent US visit where we heard him speak quite at length in his gentle, mellifluous, heavily German-accented voice. The miracle was that people got mesmerized by him even if most likely they did not get even 80% of what he said.

His addresses, I think, are meant more than just heard. They have to be studied, meditated, parsed and analyzed, and hopefully put into action, applied into life, and made a living culture.

Thus, I am happy to know that the American bishops are conducting post-visit conferences to reflect more deeply and echo more widely the Pope’s many very interesting messages.

For if one is already a practicing Catholic, then he understands that listening to the Pope, and reading and studying his words are like listening and reading and studying Christ.

This is because the Pope, successor of Peter, inherits these words from Christ himself: “I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth is also bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is also loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16,19)

But if more than just a practicing Catholic, one is more sensitive to the Pope’s personal qualities—his deep spirituality and his tremendous mind—then he realizes that the Pope’s words indeed provide him with a wonderful picture of the world as seen through faith.

This is a point I would like to reiterate. Especially for those who may find the Gospel a bit dated, study the Pope’s words and you will most likely be fascinated to see how the Gospel becomes alive again and is directly in touch with our current reality.

The showtime of the papal visit should be accompanied by a quiet and rigorous study time and prayer time!

I myself am still wading through his many addresses. And I admit that I get overwhelmed at many junctures of his speeches. He simply has a way of presenting things that takes you out of your own world, your own cocoon.

In his address to the American youth and seminarians, there was a point that totally struck me. It was the point about our business of knowing the truth. We often think it is just a matter of studying, researching, gathering data, etc., in short, a purely human and intellectual affair.

This was what he said: “Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ.

“That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others.”

I must say that many things can be said of and from these words. To be upfront about it, these words challenge us to make a revolutionary turn in our usual way of understanding of what knowing the truth entails.

At least to me, these words explain quite well what St. John in his first letter said: “He that knows God, hears us. He that is not of God, hears us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (4,6)

Knowing the truth is dealing with God through Christ in the Spirit. It’s living by faith, by God’s commandments. It’s not just us with our human resources studying and discovering things on our own.

Especially now when we can become easy prey to alarmist claims of some our brighties, we need a sure guide and path to know the truth. And that’s simply dealing with Christ. Everything else follows properly.