Some things never change

Today, the country commemorates the naval victories of the Spanish and Filipinos against the marauding Dutch armies that threatened our country with hegemony and eventually dislodging the Catholic religion with the latter’s predominant Protestant religious conquest in 1646. Caught by surprise and in near panic, the Spanish mobilized in haste two trading galleon ships and armed them with artillery and whatever fire power and untrained naval personnel available. Even the Dutch historians would attest later to the unique victory of the ill equipped merchant ships against the impregnable Dutch naval battle vessels in all five engagements at the bay stretch from Cavite to Manila and Bataan.

But the Spanish and Filipino Catholics were quick to attribute the naval victories to the powerful intercession of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, since a divine intervention and prayer would be the only recourse in view of the impossible prospects of winning the battle. The people were on the shores of Manila Bay praying, down on knees and in a procession in bare feet begging the Lord through Mary to save the country and the Catholic faith.

The victory is now immortalized in the annual feast of the Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of La Naval de Manila in Sto. Domingo Church.

This victory is reminiscent of a similar naval victory one century earlier in Europe, in The Battle of Lepanto which took place on Oct. 7, 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Spain and autonomous Italian territories, the papal armies, the Knights Hospitallers and others put the Ottoman ships at bay and eventually came the latter’s decisive defeat. This victory gave the Holy League dominion over the waters of the Mediterranean and shielded Rome and the rest of Europe from the invasion of the Ottomans. The victory was credited to the intercession of the Virgin Mary’s rosary. Dominican Pope Pius V instituted a new Catholic feast day of Our Lady of Victory to commemorate this naval victory as the feast of our Lady of the Rosary or our Lady of Victories.

The rosary is the most popular Marian devotion in our country and has always been a “prayer in battle” especially in times when the Church suffers from onslaughts by its enemies from within and without. St. Dominic de Guzman received the vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary handing him the rosary at a time when the Dominicans are up against the doctrinal yet fatal heresies of the time, such as the Albigensians and Cathars.

Today, it would seem that the Church is again in an uphill battle against forces that would jeopardize its doctrinal and moral integrity especially issues on the basics of life and its inception. Call it archaic or traditional, but this is the Church’s way of self-preservation, its modus vivendi the core foundation of its two thousand year existence and chronological persistence. Like any other sociological entity, survival (not dominance) and resoluteness (not obstinacy), sense of duty (not interference) are still the characteristics of the Church that includes an efficient corporate structure and a hierarchy that guarantees a more less inductive flow of authority streaming from claims of divine sourcing and empowerment.

There is no question about the Church’s aggiornamento or dynamic updating which has been patching the holes in the Church’s traditional teachings and ways that are no longer relevant to contemporary society in practically all fields. However, some things never change, “non-negotiable” because they are meant to be and are the core of the Church’s raison d’etre.

Hence, we cannot expect the Catholic Church to budge even a little bit from the battle against the Reproductive Health Bill’s morally questionable items. The bishops are not only accountable to God and the local Church in the Philippines, but to the Holy Father in Rome and to the 1.6 billion Catholics dotting the globe.

In this ongoing issue, the Church should be seen not as “one of those few advocacy groups” trying to meddle into the state affairs, but as an entity whose accountability extends beyond this country and the world. As in the two battles of Lepanto and La Naval de Manila, the looming victory of the negative forces would be met frontally by spiritual weapons such as the rosary, which powers and formula for winning are all beyond our comprehension. –Larry Faraon, OP, Daily Tribune