Francisco Claver, S.J. has retired as the Apostolic Vicar of the vicariate of Bontoc-Lagawe, Philippines. He holds an STB and STL from Woodstock College, Maryland, USA and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado, USA. A visiting professor at the East Asian Pastoral Institute, Manila, Bishop Claver has 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.

It spread throughout the Philippines like wild fire after the Canon conducted a month-long seminar in Baguio City in 1975. Its phenomenal appeal at that particular time was largely due to the bad political situation the country was in. Martial law had been declared by President Marcos and social activists of all colors were at their wit’s end about what they should do about its many unfreedoms. Structural analysis presented itself as a way out of the country’s paralyzed situation, and for those in the church who were dabbling in liberation theology, it was a ready tool for conscientizing purposes.

It was not long, however, before unease with its use began to emerge in some dioceses. The unease was not only with its Marxist character and its advocacy and propagation by sympathizers and followers, within the church, of the National Democratic Front of the Communists (NDF). The problem was with something else: its supposedly "scientific" manner of assessing social problems and finding solutions. The unease centered on the fact that it was too structural. And because it was, it easily led its users to the simplistic conclusion that all that was needed to bring about broad and radical change in society was merely to do away with evil social structures, political and economic especially, put good ones in their place and society would be transformed.

What was wrong with Houtart’s structural analysis, became clearer and clearer as our involvement with problems of social change deepened. It was precisely its rather one-sided and myopic focusing on social structures and its ignoring of one crucial aspect of society: culture, the way of life of a people, the values and beliefs which underpinned—and guided the working of—those very social structures. True, Houtart spoke of cultural factors being normative in a social system, but what he meant by them was by and large institutions like churches, schools, mass media, and cultural structures, that is. The realization had grown among many of us engaged in the social apostolate that it is possible to change structures, overhaul them, perfect them according to one’s blueprints of social engineering; but without a corresponding change in the values, mind sets, and worldviews of the people to be changed—in sum, their culture—real and substantial change would not take place. Or at least, the change process would be fraught with all sorts of unintended and deleterious side-effects.

But there was something else: an approach to social change through structures alone also led to a ready acceptance of the use of physical force, violence even, to bring about change in society. The reason, we saw, was that in the approach as it was practiced then there was a tendency to look at structures as objects, as "things out there," and this tendency carried over to how one looked at and treated people themselves, people who, in the relationships they had with one another, made up social structures and institutions. They became simply objects to be used, manipulated—or ignored, if they were in the way—in the achieving of one’s goals of social change.

The tendency just mentioned and the danger it represents of treating people as objects is not as easy when the cultural aspects of change are given due consideration. For culture is something internal to people, its deepest reality reposing in the values and beliefs they hold. Thus, when one thinks of introducing change in a people’s culture, one immediately becomes aware that one is dealing with people in their innermost selves: the way they think, feel, believe, and not just the way they behave externally in relation to others in their society. Such change cannot be brought about by sheer physical force or violence, but by education and persuasion, by formation in new values and ways of thinking and viewing the world. This fact has much to do with one’s choice of methods and strategies, not to say philosophies, of social change.

Looking back now, we see the champions of Houtart’s structural way of analysis and change is well aware of the implications of also taking into consideration cultural facts and peculiarities in their approach. They disdainfully dismissed what they called "reformism," i.e., the gradual changing of a social situation by reforming the people in it, but without changing the system itself so they claimed. For them the revolution, theirs, was the only right way of radical social change. "Reformism" slowed down the revolution and by all means had to be rejected. There is a whole philosophy (ideology is the proper word for it) behind such thinking which many of us in the social apostolate, in the ‘70s and ‘80s especially, refused to buy into.

We have been speaking here mainly of the Philippines. But in contacts with social action workers in other churches of Asia during those years, we heard similar misgivings being expressed about Houtart’s method of structural analysis and its lack of attention to cultural factors. With those misgivings, the need of complementing structural analysis with cultural analysis for a more holistic social analysis gained ground in many Asian churches in a convergence of thinking that was quite remarkable. This is where Pope John Paul II comes into the picture.

In 1987 he issued Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, an encyclical commemorating the 20th anniversary of another great encyclical, Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio. And again, in 1991, on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, John Paul II issued Centesimus Annus. Both these documents, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Centesimus Annus, had a tremendous impact on the social action work of the churches of Asia. They affirmed and confirmed the position that had been developing in many of our churches in regard to the thrust of Houtart’s way of social analysis and change—a position that did not look at changing social structures alone but made just as much of the cultural matrix of those structures and the nonviolent way of correcting social wrongs.

It is not possible in this short piece to do justice to the rich contents of the two social encyclicals of John Paul II. Suffice it to point out, in view of the developments detailed above, how his stress on the need to take culture into careful account in any scheme of social change without neglecting the need for reforming social structures as well made for a more holistic approach to the church’s efforts to help in the transformation of societies. And in equally stressing the necessity of working for justice and development in the context of bringing about the reign of the peace of Christ, he eschewed violence as a means of social change, pushing instead the active nonviolence (ANV) approach that we in the Philippines associate with the exercise of authentic People Power.

His stance in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis for nonviolence and peace in the work for social justice is quite interesting in the fact that it was a commemoration of Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio. This encyclical of Paul VI’s because of its passing mention of the possibility of violent revolution in bringing about justice in extreme cases (a rehashing of the church’s traditional teaching on just wars), was often quoted by advocates of revolution in the Philippines to bolster their claim of bloody killing as a sanctioned last resort to bring peace to our country. In Sollicitudo, I find it most remarkable that not once does John Paul II allude to the use of violence as a means to righting injustices. I don’t think he repudiates the church’s long-held position on the morality of violence as a last resort.

But on a related question, that of death penalty, it is interesting that the first edition of the Catholic Catechism allows for it, acknowledging "as well-founded the right and duty to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty"(#2266). However, in the second edition which came out shortly after, strong reservations are expressed about its use by governments. "The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor" (#2267). The quick change is puzzling and we can only conclude some re-thinking is going on in regard to the church’s position on the moral use of violence to right wrongs. The Pope is in the vanguard of that rethinking.

John Paul II has been quite prolific in his pronouncements—encyclicals, exhortations, addresses, etc. The reaction of Catholics the world over to his pronouncements has not been uniform nor universal in approving or rejecting them, in agreeing or disagreeing with them. The North in general, the more liberal portions of the church there at least, has been on the whole less accepting of what the Pope has been saying on sexual ethics (homosexuality, divorce, abortion, artificial contraception, and the like) as well as what we can classify as "churchy," institutional issues (liturgical matters like girl acolytes, inclusive language, prayer text translations, women’s ordination, etc.). These are not quite the burning issues in most countries of the South. But inculturation is. So too is the development of indigenous theologies and local churches. And so, most especially, are issues of development and social justice, economic exploitation, neo-colonialism, dictatorial regimes, human rights violations, etc.

The structures that the various Roman Congregations (Dicasteries)—and not so much the Pope—now and again put against inculturation and the development of indigenous theologies and local churches are not always easy to accept. But though they are not minor matters by any means, they can be and are rather easily taken by many of us in Asia with the proverbial grain of salt (lots of it, to be sure!) and placed in a different scale of values than they are given elsewhere. When, however, the Pope addresses socio-political and economic issues, he finds a ready and supportive hearing among Asian churches. So at least that can be concluded from the way the bishops at the Asian Synod in 1998 dealt easily with those issues. It is what the Pope has been saying about problems affecting people deeply in their day-to-day life that has made for his enduring popularity in Asia even as it has waved among many in Europe and America.

In the light of what we started out with in regard to structural analysis and change, a little nuancing of the general appraisal presented above should be made here. And it is to the effect that church people who had been following a more Marxist kind of liberation theology were not so enamored with the Pope’s restrictions on Socialist ideas of change. I say "were" in the past tense, because with the demise of world communism, it is not clear where they now stand on some dearly held positions in the past which were greatly at variance with positions taken by others who, like the Pope, made—and still make—much of culture and nonviolence in their way of social analysis and change. I rather think they are now as appreciative of the crucial part culture plays in any scheme of broad social change.

The views expressed in this little piece are one man’s reading of the impact he sees Pope John Paul II has made on the churches of Asia, on their social work in particular. I am not sure they are lonely views. For the fact is Houtart has exerted a strong influence on many churches of Asia and it is this influence that Pope John Paul II has helped to modify—and mold—decisively towards a more common-sensical and evangelical approach to social change.

To end with a little footnote: using the term "Church of Asia" in the title of this short article is quite deliberate in view of the discussion above of the place of culture in the church’s work for social transformation and of John Paul II’s constant concern that it shouldn’t be overlooked. At the Synod of Asian Bishops in 1998, a Curia Cardinal objected to the term "Church of Asia" as it was being used in interventions on the floor and in some of the Synod’s preliminary documents. The correct term, he insisted, was "the Church in Asia." He made his little speech towards the end of the Synod when it was not possible to discuss his objection in general session. Evidently his opinion was shared by official Rome and the document written by the Pope after the Synod was itself titled "the Church in Asia." Those of us who are pushing for greater inculturation of the faith in our dioceses feel that the term "Church of Asia" is just as legitimate and shouldn’t be proscribed. It is not an altogether incorrect term, even theologically. For we have always said that we are not only a Church in Asia, we have to become as well of Asia. That is what the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) meant way back in 1974 when it said the Church in Asia must begin to wear an Asian face: it must be of, not just in, Asia. Or it would be forever foreign to the continent and its peoples.