The Church’s Voice in the Wilderness: Repent!

The streets filled with prayers and hymns as the Archdiocese of Davao conducted the Archdiocesan Penitential Walk against Corruption in the waking hours of October 25, 2025. It was a show of public repentance as both the clergy and laity marched together to San Pedro Square—fronting both the San Pedro Cathedral and the City Hall of Davao. And with contrite hearts, ten thousand Catholic faithful in the city implored God to heal the moral wounds of our country.

The number is unusual for a religious event. But the sheer number of people did not strike me.

What was particularly noteworthy is what came next—or rather, what didn’t. There wasn’t any outrage, any charges of “Church interference,” any cacophony of voices crying out “separation of Church and State!” That silence was significant. It’s almost like, for an instant, everyone recognized the truth: that the Church not only has a right, but a responsibility, to speak and act when corruption enters in to ruin the soul of our nation.

Catholics and non-believing skeptics and atheists can squabble over policies and political parties. But no matter how deeply some might deny it, there is an unmistakable awareness in the depths of our common conscience that the Church’s moral witness is meant to be in public life. That it is necessary, with political corruption rampant and brazenly out in the open, that the Church simply has to boldly cry out the Gospel and warn the corrupt.

After all, everyone wants our nation to heal. But as Archbishop Romulo G. Valles of Davao said, “A nation cannot heal if its moral arteries are clogged with corruption.”

Filipinos are naturally a religious people. Faith runs through our veins as deeply as our sense of family and community. Our resilience, that strength of character, comes from that faith. We understand instinctively the role of the Church in our nation’s conscience. This is why we constantly look to the bishops and priests to speak against corruption.

We recognize that the moral life of a people cannot be separated from its political life, because the same human person stands at the center of both. That is, the religious man and the political man are one and the same man. The man who lines up for confession and the man who lines up to vote is one and the same.

Not only that, but also that the quality of a man’s political activity flows from his religiosity, from his beliefs. The reverence with which man renders God His due will determine the reverence with which he renders justice to his fellow men. More so, for the Catholics, we believe what Pope Leo XIV says in Dilexi Te: “On the wounded faces of the poor, we see the suffering of the innocent, and, therefore, the suffering of Christ himself.”

This is why you cannot separate Church and state. To force such a separation would require dividing man from himself. His faith and his citizenship are two expressions of one moral identity. To require the exclusion of faith from public life is to mutilate the person, to ask him to act without the very convictions that make him human!

The 1987 Philippine Constitution declares that there is a “separation of Church and State,” and such separation “shall be inviolable”. But the real intent was not to banish faith from the public square. This “separation” in the constitutional sense was meant to protect religion from State control. That is, the constitution asks for the Church’s independence from the state, not her indifference towards it. This is why, I would argue that instead of “separation,” we really should rather emphasize the “distinction” of Church and state. Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei says that God “has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil… each power is supreme in its own sphere.” Nevertheless, the Second Vatican Council says, “the more that both foster sounder cooperation between themselves…, the more effective will their service be exercised for the good of all ” (Gaudium et Spes, 76).

Meaning, the Church and State—though not separated—are distinct because they have different missions: While the state governs temporal affairs, the Church is primarily concerned for the eternal happiness of man. Yet, nevertheless, both serve the good of the same individual man and the common good of the same people.

This requires, however, the affirmation that the faith cannot be reduced to mere private devotion. The Gospel must shape not only hearts but also social structures, not only individuals but the peoples.

In fact, is this not the reason why we note that a lot of these corrupt officials graduated from Catholic schools? Intuitively, we know there’s something wrong when that happens. Is this not why we applaud—and rightly so—the Catholic Educators Association of the Philippines President Fr. Karel San Juan, SJ, when he said of these corrupt officials: “Nakakahiya naman kayo”?

Corruption is not a purely political problem. I mean, virtually everything in politics is not a purely political problem. Corruption in particular is a moral failure—a sin against truth, charity, and justice. It betrays the poor, distorts democracy, and weakens trust among men and towards institutions. In short, the rampant corruption in the state is a sign that in our society, there is a deeply rooted spiritual crisis that now shows its political consequences.

This is why as Pope Benedict XVI once reminded the faithful in Deus Caritas Est: The Church “cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.”

When the priests and faithful walked through Davao’s streets in penance, they were not campaigning for a party or against an official. Theirs was a call, to the whole country, for conversion—one that begins with themselves.

That’s why the response—or lack thereof—to the Archdiocesan Penitential Walk is noteworthy. There was a respectful silence among the populace. I can even say that there was a relief that at least someone was calling out what everyone senses: that corruption has gotten too routine, too accepted, and that the wounds it inflicts have cut so deeply into our hearts that it now slices through the very fabric of our nation.

When people no longer feel shame in their corruption, the Church proclaims: “Make corruption shameful again!” But I think the people in the Penitential Walk want to take it a step further: Make corruption inconceivable again!

The Penitential Walk demonstrates what a matured faith can accomplish in a democracy. It neither imposes nor conceals. It quietly witnesses. It quietly prays. It sincerely calls all people to integrity. This is not theocracy as some people have feared; this is Faith lived now, used in the circumstances with which we are surrounded.

After all, the Philippines was never intended to be a secular vacuum. We know this because the very Constitution of our land begins with these words: “We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God.” Words that acknowledge that our democracy rests on moral pillars that originate in faith.

The Church needs to remind the State of integrity in service and virtue in governance. In doing so, she does not overstep her bounds; rather, she fulfills her mission of safeguarding the moral order. For without morality, the law becomes hollow; without truth, freedom crumbles into chaos; and without the motherly care of the Church, the people are left vulnerable to the State’s tendency to devolve into a corrupt Tyranny.

The Penitential Walk was an act of humility. In it, we see a Church walking not in triumph but in repentance. With shame in our own faces as we ourselves, in our own sinfulness, have become enablers of a corrupt system—even by stealing only a “piso” from our parents’ pockets, as Fr Amiel Arado said. And I say, more than political corruption, all kinds of moral and spiritual corruption must also become inconceivable.

Certainly, there are those who would say that the Penitential Walk is an event with rather insignificant political implications. Whether this causes ripples whose effects we cannot yet imagine, that remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the faithful must not waste time thinking about that.

Better spend more time in prayer than to speculate on what the princes of our nations will or will not do. As the Psalmist reminds us: “Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.”

We rather put our trust in the Lord, who has said in the Scripture: “You have but little power… [Yet] I will make them come and bow down before your feet. And they shall know that I have loved you.”

O Most Sacred Heart of Christ the King, have mercy on us!

(By Raven Jard Castañeda)