Life Obedient to Our Inner Law

General Faculty Assembly
Ateneo de Naga University
10 June 2008

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.

It is my privilege to welcome you all to this new academic year, 2008-09. The price of gasoline is skyrocketing. Rice is becoming more and more scarce. The planet is getting hotter. The number of poor increasing. A cyclone has devastated Myanmar, an earthquake China, and typhoons are lining up to visit our shores. Obama has not yet taken over the White House, and Malacanang remains in glorious petite hands. Still, we come together with a special smile and special warmth in our hearts!

Autonomous Status

Last year I declared on this podium that we were “on the threshold of autonomy.” We were. We had achieved Level III in what we considered to be five clusters: Humanities Education, Science and Mathematics, Social Sciences, Business and Management Education and Teacher Education. We had achieved Level II accreditation in Computer Science and in Information Management. We were also a Center of Development in Information Technology Education.

When the Regional Team of Experts evaluated our school for autonomy it awarded our school 400 points. Only 200 were needed for autonomy. Why then were we not granted our autonomy?

It boiled down to a dispute between programs – to be awarded 35 points – and clusters – to be awarded 70 points. We presented our Humanities Education, our Science and Mathematics, and our Social Sciences as three clusters worth 210 points. The Technical Working Group, however, considered this only one program worth 35 points. We presented our Business and Management Education as a cluster. The Technical Working Groups, however, considered this only a program.

Thus, while the Regional Team of Experts awarded us 400 points, twice the number required for autonomy, the Technical Working group awarded us only 180, 20 points shy of autonomy. When the list finally came out, we were only granted deregulated status for five years.

The interesting experience was twofold: When we did not get the points in Manila that the Regional Team of Experts felt we deserved, the RETE and all the officials of CHED Region V rallied behind us, supporting our appeal for reconsideration. After all, the evaluation of 400 points were made on a valid reading of CMO 52. This support, coming from experts of different schools and from the officials of CHED ROV, including and especially Dr. Dominador Peralta, was genuinely heartwarming. The second experience was in the meeting we had with the Technical Working Group. In evaluating our region’s appeal for reconsideration, it declared that Region V had committed no error in awarding AdNU 400 points. But it also simultaneously declared it was standing by its 180 points. While we had committed no error., neither had they!

The Technical Working Group never budged from this position. Neither did the CHED en banc.

What provided fresh warrant for the autonomy we now enjoy was the grant of Center of Development Status to Business administration and the same to Entrepreneurship. Together the 60 points earned by these two CODEs lifted our point value to 240. On this basis we were invited to reapply for autonomy.

However, no sooner had we applied than the rumors became rife that we had achieved Center of Excellence Status for Teacher Education – so deeply had Dr. Reganit impressed the CHED panel when they visited AdNU last summer.

Last Monday, June 2, CHED en banc not only approved Center of Excellence Status for Teacher Education. It approved autonomous status for the Ateneo de Naga University. In doing so it recognized its “Long Tradition of Excellence and Untarnished Reputation,” its “Commitment to Excellence,” and the “Sustainability and Viability of its Operations.” Though Commissioner Nona Ricafort texted me of the en banc decision as soon as it had been made, it was Commissioner Nenalyn Defensor who called at noon to inform me of the two en banc decisions. She assured me that while the formal documentation would take some time, the news could be shared with all.

For this recognition, long overdue, I wish to congratulate you all from the bottom of my heart. If Fr. Rolly Bonoan is remembered as having accompanied the process whereby Ateneo de Naga University achieved University status, I am privileged to have accompanied the process whereby you achieved autonomous status. There are 1,500 private colleges and universities in the country. Only 11 are autonomous, and you are one of them. Only four are outside of Metro Manila, and you are one of them. Only one in Southern Luzon is autonomous; and you are that one. You – all of you - achieved it through the time, sacrifice and effort you expended in making our service in education and formation excellent – and in documenting this! I congratulate you all!

Let us celebrate our autonomy with deep gratitude to the Lord on June 17! Let us celebrate the whole day and the whole night! At the high point of this celebration, let us all come together in Eucharist presided over by our new Provincial Superior, Fr. Jojo Magadia! At dawn, let us re-consecrate our autonomous University to Ina!

There are heroes of our autonomous status. The AVP, the deans, the visionaries behind our Centers of Development and our Center of Excellence. But there is one quiet, self-sacrificing, tenacious hero of our autonomy. That is Dr. Fred Fabay. Let us give him now a special round of applause in gratitude for his hard work.

Challenge to Greater Achievement

There are privileges which come with autonomy. Among these is the freedom from regular monitoring and evaluation by CHED, priority in the grant of subsidies and other financial incentives from CHED, the privilege to determine and prescribe curricular programs to achieve global competence, the privilege to offer new courses or program in the undergraduate or graduate levels, and the privilege to establish branches or satellite campus without securing government authority from CHED.

With the privileges come great responsibility – the most obvious of which is the necessity to keep up the quality of our instruction, the competence of faculty, the appropriateness of our facilities, the meaningfulness of our student service, and the strength of our outreach. This is a year of re-evaluation by PAASCU. Once again, then, we shall be called upon to evaluate our own achievements and shortcomings as a university community – in the hope that so doing we can improve ourselves. Once again, we submit ourselves to the evaluation and criticism of our peers from other universities, in the hope that we might not be found wanting, but if wanting, that we might then find the courage and stamina to improve ourselves.
Our aim, of course, is not only to maintain past achievements, but to achieve greater service as a Filipino, Catholic and Jesuit university. Because we are the latter, allow me to share with you a little of what happened in the 35th General Congregation.

General Congregation 35

The 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus was held (some would say, “celebrated”) from January 7, 2008 to March 6, 2008. It was called almost two years earlier, on Feb 2, 2006, when intensive worldwide preparations began. What happened at this Congregation?

First, we elected a new General Superior. Though Jesuit Generals, like the Pope, are elected for life, in our age life has become longer. At the age of 80, Fr. Kolvenbach was finally granted papal permission to retire. The first major task – and achievement - of GC 35 was the election of the new General. This was preceded by much prayer and discernment. That a new General emerged in the manner prescribed by the Jesuits is in itself remarkable. There is no politicking allowed. No one is allowed to campaign for a candidate. No one is permitted to say, vote for me, or vote for Fr. Huang, or vote for Fr. Danny. No gatherings in caucus are allowed. The only interaction permitted is to question another delegate about his knowledge of another Jesuit. The rest was to be left to the Holy Spirit. Incredibly, after just two votes it was the soft-spoken Spaniard, former Provincial of Japan and President of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, who was elected. We have welcomed the election of Fr. Nicolas, intimately familiar with the affairs of South East Asia, with much rejoicing.

The second major event of the Congregation many describe as its great grace: the encounter between the Pope and the General Congregations, first, through his Letter to the Jesuit Superior General at the start of GC35, and second, through the extraordinary face-to-face contact between the members of the Congregation and the Pope on February 21, towards its end. In an ecclesial context where the role of religious in general and the role of Jesuits in particular is no longer universally appreciated, Fr. Danny Huang has described the encounter with the Pope as the Society of Jesus finding its place in the contemporary Church. In his letter the Pope said, “To all and to each should arrive this greeting from the Successor of Peter, who follows with affection and esteem the multiple and appreciated apostolic works of the Jesuits, and who encourages all to continue in the path opened by your holy Founder and walked by innumerable hosts of your brothers dedicated to the cause of Christ, many of whom are inscribed by the Church among its saints and blessed. From heaven may they protect and sustain the Society of Jesus in its mission which it carries out in our current age, marked by numerous social and complex challenges.” The words, “affection,” “esteem.” “appreciated apostolic works,” “encourages,” “saints and blessed,” “protect and sustain” are words to warm the heart.

That this Pope met the Jesuits at all was extraordinary. This elderly Pope, we are told, measures his activities very carefully, allocating only mornings for public encounters. He normally does not meet gatherings of religious groups in Rome, there being so many. But with the Jesuits it was different. He called the Jesuits to the Vatican on the afternoon of February 21, and even broke protocol to mingle personally with the delegates. He was warm and welcoming. In his address to the Jesuits on this occasion, he said, “Today I should like to encourage you and your confreres to go on in the fulfillment of your mission, in full fidelity of your original charism, in the ecclesial and social context that characterizes this beginning of the millennium. As my predecessors have often told you,”

Pope Benedict then repeats the words of Pope Paul VI: “Wherever in the Church even in the most difficult and exposed fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there has been or is confrontation between the burning exigencies of humanity and the perennial message of the Gospel, there have been and are Jesuits” (to GC 32). The Pope then exhorted the Jesuits to find inspiration in those who had been sent to distant peoples and distant cultures to proclaim the Gospel. We can think of Francis Xavier in Japan, de Nobili in India, and Mateo Ricci in China. But he points out that peoples today are not separated merely by geographical boundaries. “The new peoples, who do not know the Lord or who do not know him well so that they cannot recognize him as the Saviour,” the Pope says, “are distant today not so much from the geographical as rather from the cultural viewpoint. It is not oceans or immense distances that challenge the heralds of the Gospel but the boundaries resulting from an erroneous or superficial vision of God and man that stand between faith and human knowledge, faith and modern science, faith and the commitment to justice.
It is in considerations of these “new people and cultures,” “new nations,” “new frontiers” that the Pope calls. We should give “preferential attention” to them. We should be present to them. We should be present in them with our lives. We should bear witness that contrary to what may appear to be in this confused world, “there is a profound harmony between faith and reason, between the Gospel spirit, the thirst for justice, and initiatives for peace.” This shall not be easy. It needs outstanding preparation. It is “among the most difficult and demanding of tasks.” Nevertheless the Pope challenges the Jesuits to this task, “in the tracks of your predecessors with the same courage and intelligence, but also with an equally profound motivation of faith and enthusiasm to serve the Lord and his Church.” We should appreciate the difficult tension. We are called to service of the Lord and his Church beyond our comfort zones, beyond our familiar environments, beyond the old country, to the frontiers, while remaining faithful to the Church’s preaching and authoritative teaching of the word of God. We are called to confront the dark forces that “cause the dramatic situation of spiritual and material enslavement of our contemporaries” in subjectivism, relativism, hedonism, practical materialism,” to wrestle furthermore with the resulting frontier “themes” such as the salvation of all humanity in Christ, of sexual morality, of marriage and the family, as contemporary reality demands, but we are also called to do so in harmony with the Magisterium and avoiding confusion and dismay among the People of God.”

To the many suggestions for change, called postulata, but especially to the challenges of the Pope in his Letter to Kolvenbach and in his Address to the Congregation, GC 35 responded with six decrees: First, the warm response of the Society of Jesus to the Invitation of the Holy Father, accepting “With Renewed Vigor and Zeal” “to be missioned to this work at the new frontiers of our time … [but always] rooted at the very heart of the Church.” There was acceptance of this “tension, specific to the Ignatian charism” which opens the way to true creative fidelity.

The Second Decree is a decree on Jesuit identity, entitled, “A Fire that Kindles Other Fires.” It is the most beautiful and inspiring of the GC 35 documents. It recalls the fire of our original inspiration, and the challenge to be “a fire that kindles other fires.” From its many beautiful passages, I wish only to share with you today the following:

“To find divine life at the depths of reality is a mission of hope given to us Jesuits. … This mission of attempting “to feel and taste” the presence and activity of God in all the persons and circumstances of the world places us Jesuits at the center of a tension pulling us both to God and to the world at the same time. Thus arises, for Jesuits on mission, a set of polarities, Ignatian in character, that accompanies our being firmly rooted in God at all times, while simultaneously being plunged into the heart of the world.

“Being and doing; contemplation and action; prayer and prophetic living; being completely united with Christ and completely inserted into the world with him as an apostolic body: all these polarities mark deeply the life of a Jesuit and express both its essence and its possibilities.” (II, 8,9)

In Decree 3: “Challenges to Our Mission Today: Sent to the Frontiers” the mission of the Society of Jesus as articulated in previous congregations is affirmed: the service of the faith, the promotion of the justice of the Kingdom, the sensitivity to cultures, interreligious dialogue. But the new context for this mission is taken from the words of Pope Benedict: “Your Congregation takes place in a period of great social, economic, and political changes; sharp ethical cultural and environmental problems, conflicts of all kinds, but also of more intense communications among peoples, of new possibilities of acquaintance and dialogue, of a deep longing for peace. All these are situations that challenge the Catholic Church and its ability to announce to our contemporaries the Word of hope and salvation.”

In this context, Decree 3 stated, “As servants of Christ’s mission, we are invited to assist Jesus as he sets right our relationships with God, with other human beings, and with creation.” It also set global priorities: Africa, China, the Intellectual Apostolate, the Inter –Provincial Institutes in Rome, and Migration and Refugees.
Decrees 4, 5, and 6 are about Obedience, Governance and Collaboration at the Heart of Mission. We will leave a treatment of these documents to another forum.

Relevance for Us

Why have I tried so hard - inadequately, I know! – to share GC 35 with you? Perhaps, in order to share of its fire with you, fire which originates in the heart of Christ aflame with the Father’s love for us and for creation. Fire which for us is apostolic ardor and passion for the Kingdom. Fire which is light against darkness, and purification against corruption, punishment against injustice, and heat against loneliness and despair. Perhaps, I have shared GC 35 with you in order to impress upon you the nature and importance of the frontiers that the Jesuits are being asked to enter while staying yet at the heart of Christ. Such a frontier is the frontier of poverty – the complex problem of many people having too little to eek out for themselves human lives, and the resulting loss of self worth, personal responsibility, social initiative. Another frontier is that of youth, idealistic yet restless, energetic yet apathetic, spiritually motivated yet increasingly estranged from the institutional Church. Another frontier is that of corruption, eating away at our national life and identity like an impudent cancer. Perhaps I have shared GC 35 wth you in order to share with you the importance of the friendships that characterize Jesuits – friendship with the Lord, friendship with the Pope, friendship with the Magisterium, friendship with fellow Jesuits, friendships with collaborators in mission, friendships with those to whom we are sent. I have shared GC 35 with you because I sincerely believe that while it is originally addressed to Jesuits it is just as originally addressed to their partners without whom their fire is weakened, their frontiers largely unreached, their friendships diminished.

As a Jesuit University, the Ateneo de Naga appropriates the mission of the Society of Jesus: the service of faith, the promotion of justice, the sensitivity to cultures, interreligious dialogue.

If our autonomy be celebrated not merely as CHED’s recognition for superior achievement and for freedom from certain of its rules and regulations, but as our real coming of age, our achievement of mature adulthood, our achievement of self-unfolding-self based on its own inner identity, its own inner norms, then, what we celebrate in autonomy is our own independent life based on our own inner law, without which our autonomy would be anarchy. That is the inner law of our identity, the exhilaration of our freedom, the clarity of our vision, the validity of our mission, the source of our standards in instruction, research and outreach. This is the reason why we strive after continual improvement through verifiable outside accreditation exercises, the reason why our University Research Council is now producing solid research, the reason why we must deliver our outreach services to our partner communities in a coordinated fashion. That identity at heart is one with the Jesuit fire igniting other fires; that mission is one with Jesuits reaching into difficult frontiers – wrestling with ignorance, combating poverty, struggling to restore humane integrity - yet one with the heart of the Church. We have always known our nature and mission as a Catholic University to flow from the heart of the Church, ex corde ecclesiae; in GC 35 we are confirmed in this nature and mission. We, not merely the Jesuits, but we, the community of friends in the Lord constituting this university, live our autonomy in radical obedience to the law of the Lord-in-mission, an obedience which costs us sacrifice and pain, but also unites us profoundly, as servants of His mission, with the Risen Lord still carrying his Cross.