Today's Homily: The Courage to Believe.

The politicians currently wrangling over poll results want us to believe that they believe only in finding the truth. Few take them at their word. I feel particularly sorry for Nene Pimentel. Many of his former supporters have become disillusioned with his political stunts - especially after his four-hour-long filibuster for what seems to be a blemished, hopelessly-doomed cause.

The rest of us are free to choose our beliefs without any serious criticism, barring objections from family and friends. Despite that freedom, often we don't actively choose: we stick to the faith we've been brought up to believe, and we don't even think about the alternatives. We brush away any doubts, we bury any inconsistencies behind the rites of the faith we've learned to keep. We accept our crib-fed faith as Gospel Truth, and we learn not to ask any uncomfortable questions.

The courage to come to terms with our beliefs does not come to everyone. For those who summon it, the reward can be illuminating: true understanding beyond the pious platitudes. The true seeker rarely finds peace - but understanding never guaranteed peace of mind. The answers to your questions often lead to more questions. But you're a few miles down the road from where you started, and you're making progress: to me, that's what counts.

A few shout-outs to people who I think are walking that lonely road to understanding. Bea has often questioned the Catholic Church's stand on many, many things. It's not for me to repeat what she's shared in conversation, but she's slowly coming to terms with what being Catholic is all about, without a slavish reliance on Catechism and Church Tradition. The beauty of Catholicism is that it's bigger than the people who are running it (or, in the opinion of some, running it into the ground). Despite the outward appearance of conformity, Catholicism allows people like Bea and Fr. Andrew Greeley to keep believing in the Church's inherent beauty, and yet feel free to reject what they believe is a harmful deviation from the principles that Christ originally espoused.

Kudos, too, to my cousin's husband Chris, who gave up a promising career in the hospitality industry to minister to the poor in Davao City. I have my own reservations about his faith (he's a Born-Again Christian - let's just say I disagree with many things they believe in), but to take a stand for his faith like this takes some serious cojones.

I'm not saying we should all be doubters or missionaries, but I think it would make a world of difference if more people asked questions of their own faith. The people who have most obviously failed at this regard are, sadly, now at the forefront of world events. Christian missionary zeal permeates the American debacle in Iraq; there can be no hope for progress when a top American general in a predominantly Muslim country paints his mission in divisively Christian fundamentalist language, declaring that "I knew that my God was bigger than [the Moslems']. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Closer to home, the government's reliance on Church support has turned out to be a deal with the devil - the Catholic bishops are firmly opposed to causes that would help lift us out of poverty, and even the MTRCB has mustered the courage to denounce love between homosexuals (gasp!) as "abnormal". Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in defiance of a Constitution that divides the State and the Church, genuflects constantly to the Will of the Church Hierarchy on issues like population control.

I'm worried that the foremost proponents of their respective faiths, all over the world, have lost the capacity to practice their religions in directions that helped more people. They've institutionalized their religions, made them instruments for policy, for the consolidation of power. To stop this trend, we need more people asking questions, looking for the answer that keeps on asking, instead of having the answers handed to them, with finality, on a cafeteria platter like their pastors or parish priests would like. We are free, more free than we think, to reconsider the Gospel Truth handed down to us by religious authorities. We can doubt cardinals in the same way we doubt Nene Pimentel.

Personally, I would like more Catholics to ask why women shouldn't be ordained, or why contraception isn't a necessary evil in a world crammed full of unemployed Filipinos. I'd also like more Born-Again Christians to ask why Moslems shouldn't be viewed as members of a Satanic religion, why evolution isn't a valid tool for God's Creation, or why good people like Gandhi are spending an eternity in Hell just because they didn't take Jesus Christ as their Personal Lord and Savior.

But it doesn't sound right, having the questions come from a know-nothing doubter like me. More people should be formulating their own questions to their faith, and begin searching for the answers. And even if the answers aren't forthcoming, to keep moving down the road of understanding, step by step, because all that matters is that you're on your way.