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Bridge Generation
1.

An Eye-Opener.
We discover that this bridge is a hanging bridge, small, made not from steel bars and cement, but
from natural products like bamboo, a few rattan strings keeping the parts together.
Yes, he..he..he.. ...holding hands with the other is needed and try to keep the balance together.
Don’t carry too much, one light backpack maybe and then.....I think I’ll take the risk.....

2.

“Faithfulness to the Charism of the Congregation, the Order, the Institute, is no

longer seen as a repetition of how it was lived in the past, but as living it in a creative way”.

“Faithfulness to the religious practices in the parish, the family, the tribe is no longer seen as a
repetition of how it was lived in the past, but as living it out in the here and the now in a creative
way”.

It is well known that religious congregations and seminaries in Asia and Africa appear to be
filled quite rapidly in the nineties and till now. And it is known throughout the world that
churches in the Philippines on Sundays, Feast days especially on Christmas and the Holy week
are filled till the maximum during Eucharist celebrations.

It would however be illusory to think that this influx has changed the socio-eco, political and
cultural situation in many communities, countries in Asia and Africa. Just look at the
unbelievable poverty, the horrible wars among tribal groups, etc.
It is also often observed that in Northern Countries as in Europe and North America, one
convent after the other is closed by lack of vocations and that seminaries are converted for other
purposes than priestly formation. Churches are closed down, parishes disappear or are forming
one parish where before were about five or six.
It is also observed that in those countries newly ordained priests and newly professed religious
showed an increased conservatism, consequently resulting in, sometimes even discriminatory,
problems in collaboration and cooperation between lay and religious in the works of the
ministries.
We observed here in the Philippines also an invasion of religious congregations from the North,
Italy to name one country, recruiting candidates and forming them in a very conservative and
western way.

One of the conclusions drawn from a series of sociological surveys in North America was that
the shortage of candidates for ordination is a sign not of a spiritual but of an institutional crisis in
the Roman Catholic Church.
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3.

The Crisis

We are indeed increasingly becoming conscious of a deep crisis in the Catholic Church, called
by K. Rahner a “winter-time” of the Church or using the more traditional Teresian expression:
there are “hard times”.
The most visible sign of this crisis can be found not in the internal conflicts and discontent of
the Church, but rather in the countless tacit defections of those originally baptized into the
Church.

Conflicts are inevitable part of the ecclesiastical institution, as they will always be part of human
existence. Furthermore, unity of ecclesiastical communion should not be all about conformity
and the absence of conflicts, but instead should be about the love that has built bridges of respect
and friendships across these conflicts.

By denying a spiritual crisis, it was meant that there is no lack of faith and devotion in the
catholic population, nor lack of an absence of readiness for ministry and service, as the number
of persons in lay-ministries shows.

The institutional crisis, at least in the West, springs from the fact that the young men and women
who would be viable candidates for the seminary, religious formation or formation for pastoral
ministries according to present discipline, are generally uninterested in accepting the conditions
for ordination, life within the existing presbyterium, belonging to an order or congregation or in
service of the “parish” (priest!!!).

Many baptized into the Catholic Church, many good willing lay, do not get also the expected
support and the answer of the Church in their struggle to cope with the modern demands of
family life, and to resist the very friendly but cruel demands of the economic powerful
(inclusive the Church with its ever increasing payments for sacraments). They just stay away and
join sometimes charismatic groups and others.

When in this critical situation one notes the conservatism of newly ordained priests and newly
professed religious on the local level, and of those from abroad coming to the Asian countries
and are being formed priests and religious within Asia by conservative formators from the
North or by those trained in the North, there is cause for deep concern.

Globalization of communication and the media has definitive opened doors and windows for
people in the “South”, especially the searching young, to hear the voices and read the demands
for new ways of being church, more openness to the rule of the laity, changing the dominant
institute Church into a caring and loving co-traveler to a world of justice, love and peace.

Formators must be visionaries in order to assist the formandi in their preparation for the pastoral
ministries four or five years from now. There is a great need for the people belonging to the
bridge generation to answer the call of John XXIII : to read the signs of the Times.
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While the authorities in the Church repeatedly raise the question of what is needed in the
preparation of priests, religious and lay who are able to respond to the issues of the day, by and
large they have kept a conservative image of the role of priests, religious and lay pastoral
workers.
Conservative priests, religious even bishops are repeating again and again: “the people are not
yet prepared for it”. It would actually be better for them to recognize their own unpreparedness
and sometimes even unwillingness to take “aggiornamento” seriously.

It may be different in most other Asian countries, but in the Philippines e.g. the support
structures of priestly, religious or lay pastoral workers’ life, are those which uphold a
conservative order of ministries and of priestly identity, as well as a conservative attitude to the
place of the religious and the lay in human society. Not even mentioning the discriminatory
attitude of church officials towards the women in general.

With conservatism here is meant mostly the resistance to structural change and to new types of
relation between the baptized, the ordained and the professed religious.
It must be said, however, that in religious congregations or orders the support structures have
played a more positive role. This is attributed to the nature of the communities themselves. In
their internal life they do not place great stress on the distinction between lay members and
professed or ordained members.
They also have structures of government which are by nature participatory, promoting sharing
and supportive to new ventures in ministry. This can however not be taken as a general
description of conditions in religious orders or congregations, but a point is made about what
helps to promote new kind of ministries that is worth considering.

Attraction to priesthood and religious life in Asia seems to be linked with two things that
complement one another.
On the one hand, there is the foundation of a religious spirit, with its appeal to the holy, that still
pervades the cultures of people in Asia.
On the other hand, some of the candidates for priesthood and religious life come from
communities with vibrant lay-participation, and have indeed been themselves for a time lay
ministers and leaders in their local churches.

How in the years to come the religious spirit of these cultures is incorporated into the church, and
how ministerial structures within communities develop, will clearly be vital to the future of
ministry and religious life.
On the whole, considering ministerial needs and religious involvement, one has the impression
that the church has not persevered very well since Vat. II in reading the signs of the times. This
has hindered it from learning from experience, and from relating the ordering of its life to this
experience.
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4.

On the Bridge

Looking at the formation programs of the different orders and congregations, some diocesan
seminaries and formation of lay in the Basic Christian Community ministry for the last twenty
till thirty years, we may discover a dynamism leading to a re-examination of former life-styles,
ways and structures of life and formation itself.

And that had brought us on the “hanging” bridge.

It started in the 70’s, when in a special way communities inserted itself in the midst of the
people. This became a leaven for a new type of religious life emerging in the Philippines, which
is more in conformity with the New Church model, the Church OF the poor and not just FOR
the poor.
(Asian Bishops Conference in Taipe,1972, and repeated in the conference in Manila in 1979)

A Church where the poor have something to say and who through their participation are
modifying the way of being religious, priests and lay pastoral workers.
Religious men and women were challenged by “evangelization coming from the poor” in this
process. Then they took an active role and they helped by joining the movement through a more
simple, more friendly and more immerged presence among the people.
Little by little, accompanied by many congregational and ecclesiastical tensions, the growing
immersion phenomenon has opened and is still opening up ways of religious and priestly life
which respond better to the challenge of history and the signs of the times.
Young religious in the Philippines have a better grasp of the roots and demands of their charism
in the Church, but are, sorry to say, many times afraid to speak out to their ( sometimes
dominant) formators.

Experience, however, has brought about a better understanding of the charismatic dimension of
religious life and how essential the following of Jesus according to the Gospel is in the life and
mission of the Church.
The identity of religious women and men is found in a church who’s mission is to be a sign and
witness of God’s plan for human beings: a church in the midst of the world, sharing its
searching, its aspirations and its hopes.

With this as a starting point, the identity of religious life is experienced as a charism, inspired by
the spirit for the service of others, a service being en-fleshed in the changing circumstances of
history and being fulfilled according to a specific way of understanding and living the “following
of Jesus”, the synthesis of every Christian life.

That is why faithfulness to the charism, to past religious practices in families, parishes and in
indigenous communities is no longer seen as a repetition of how it was lived in the past, but as
living it in a new and creative way. The General Chapter in September 2013 calls for being filled
with hope and to animate and encourage renewed community life, sisterhood and brotherhood in
the midst of the people we are living.
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5.

What does this mean for us, being members of the bridge generation?

“First of all we are honest people who are by no means lending support to the awful image of
the Church that is usually portrayed by the media who, in general, only mention the Church in
order to commend on some scandal or other (preferably of a sexual nature, a financial nature,
or on the subject of internal conflicts, whether they are real or perceived.)
This unfortunate image is only a fabrication by the press, of less substance than the column
inches it occupies. And yet this will continue to occur due to the classic rule that applies in
journalism, that only the more scandalous or outlandish topics make news; while other topics
make news for the more serious reason that – however much they deny it – the media is in
reality, at the service of the money, and not for the truth.

Secondly what is more problematic is the way the Church reacts in the face of the criticism it
receives: it displays a reaction that is always defensive, believing itself to have been unjustly
attached or persecuted , without stopping one minute to wonder if it has perhaps done something
wrong or indeed given some ammunition to these inflamed critics. Even the press, broadcast
stations, or communication networks owned by the Church seem to speak solely and exclusively
along the lines of “pro domo suo”,”in favor of your own house” ( if we may use the classical
expression of Cicero), rather than conveying information objectively.
This inability to peacefully accept criticism and go on to examine itself before the Lord, seems to
us to be the greatest evidence of this crisis. And it means that when the crisis is acknowledged, it
will only be in the context of placing all the blame for it on the evil of the outside world, while
silently grieving for the ancient world of ecclesiastical power and Christianity.
It is actually the control of the whole ecclesiastical arena by one single school of thought, (that
being the most extremely conservative), in regards to understand Christianity, with the express
desire of excluding , expelling and denying from this arena all other Christian paths, which are
labeled as examples of radical unorthodoxy.”
(Cristianisme i Justicia: “What is happening in the Church”, page 4)

Thirdly, being on the bridge means for all religious and priests, to have the courage to look back
at the past, the tradition and see what our founders or forefathers have done. They are exactly
founders, forefathers because they wanted to start something new, something which they saw
was lacking in living Christ-like at their particular situation and in their own time.
We would be very bad followers of our founders, our tradition, if we just copy what they have
said and done. Tradition, of its nature, requires openness to the new ways of the spirit and a
discernment of its action.

The laity also are challenged to have the courage to look back at the past, the tradition and see
what our forefathers have done, not in order to copy them, but to discover what has moved them
to be of service to the tribe, the family, the community and what were their priorities.

While one cannot expect a hurried change in our religious institute and Church ordering, it also
has to be said that there is a certain urgency inherent to the times.
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Spiritual renewal, a strong sense of mission, and a new approach to church ordering do
have to go hand in hand in the face of the vast and rapid social and cultural change.

Without that, even with an up-to-date formation of those entering religious life and the
seminaries and those who will take on ministries in the Basic Christian Communities , their
numbers will remain or will become few and unfortunately ill-suited to the leadership and
service the churches’ need.

Fourthly, as a member of the bridge generation, we must have the courage to leave old, smelling
and irrelevant baggage behind or dump them over the railing of the bridge, while focusing our
attention on the journey and our eyes on where we want to go: to the other side, the still
unknown and taking the risks of belonging to the bridge generation and assist in closing the
gap between the past and the hopeful future.
Taking risks as Jesus of Nazareth took the risk challenging outdated laws and regulations,
repeatedly asking and searching to give a human answer to life in his own time and culture. That
is the meaning of risking to be on the bridge as member of the bridge generation.

6.

Bridge Walkers – as human and courageous as Prophets

Following the footsteps of the biblical and very human Jesus, is exactly the prophetic aspect of
Christian and especially of religious life.
Without pretending to have a monopoly of the prophetic aspect of Christian life, religious
women and men – especially those who are immersed among the people – realize that, by
vocation, they are called to highlight the prophetic character of the Christian vocation. Their
awareness and experiences of the actual situation, where a situation of social sin is unveiled, will
transform prophetic proclamation and denunciation into a requirement of the Gospel for them,
being by vocation, totally dedicated to serving God’s reign.

In a situation of inhuman poverty, Christian love reveals socio-political demands.

From this perspective many religious and lay, while appreciating welfare types of charity, no
longer consider them to be unique and the most important.
On the contrary, they view them as ineffective when they are not connected with and oriented
towards human liberation, redemption, and even more towards plans to transform the unjust
structures which are the source and the cause of social oppression.

The practice of this kind of love with a social-political dimension led to the preferential option
for the poor, which is considered the most important tendency among, especially the young,
religious as well as lay.

It also brought about what this option implies in terms of danger, misunderstandings,
persecutions and the possibility of martyrdom, in societies based on institutional injustice. Being
committed prophets is an essential aspect of the Church’s mission.
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In Asia several religious women and men as well as lay are profoundly living this kind of being a
prophet. It is hoped that more and more religious and lay would move into this direction.

We like it or not but that spirit of being a prophet, we have to carry that with us in our
backpack while going over the bridge, which is indeed a hanging bridge, sensitive to a little
wind from different sides.

We cannot leave that backpack at home, we cannot dump that over the railing either. That is
the back-pack, which will sustain us in case possible and unexpected strong winds endanger
our mission being on our way to help in the coming about of a new way of being Church.

It is at the same time the identity card of our ecumenical spirit for the millions of other
members of the bridge generation following the call of Yahweh, Allah, Buddha or others,
offering them to hold our hands while marching on the bridge towards a world full of justice,
love and peace, which Jesus calls “God’s Kingdom”.