When religion makes undue intrusion into governance and news reporting

[Joe Carillo]

This morning (February 19), I read with terrible disquiet this news story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

Storm heaven with prayers, Filipinos urged

MANILA, Philippines—Catholic bishops on Friday said they are praying and hoping for a change of heart among Chinese officials that would allow the reprieve of three Filipinos facing execution for drug trafficking even as President Aquino called on all Filipinos from all religions to unite in prayer for their condemned countrymen.

“I call on all Filipinos, led by our religious leaders of all faiths to unite ourselves in prayer beginning today at sundown, at the pealing of the bell for the Angelus or during the most quiet and meditative times consistent with our respective faiths,” Mr. Aquino said in a statement read for him by deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte.

“All our prayers will soar to the heavens to touch the heart of God, the god who ‘will make a way when there seems to be no way,’” he said.

The first thing that struck me was the utterly flawed semantics and licentiousness of that story’s headline:

Storm heaven with prayers, Filipinos urged 

Storm heaven with prayers? What kind of journalism is this? All along I thought that the word “prayer” was universally understood as a supplication to God in word or thought, addressed to Him ever so humbly and earnestly, for a much-wanted wish or favor. Now this headline, in reference to the impending execution in China of three convicted drug mules who happen to be Filipinos, is reporting that all Filipinos are being urged to attack heaven with prayers—which means to compel God by brute force to spare the lives of the three convicted criminals, or else!

This, I must say, is not only semantically reckless but also an outright heretical thing for anyone to say, particularly for a respectable newspaper, in a predominantly Roman Catholic country like the Philippines. For whether used literally or figuratively, the verb “storm” can only mean doing an impetuous, angry, and violent act. Take a look at the various definitions of “storm” in the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

storm
Function: verb
Date: 15th century

intransitive verb 
1 a : to blow with violence  b : to rain, hail, snow, or sleet vigorously
2 : to attack by storm  <stormed ashore at zero hour>
3 : to be in or to exhibit a violent passion  : RAGE  <storming at the unusual delay>
4 : to rush about or move impetuously, violently, or angrily  <the mob stormed through the streets>
transitive verb   : to attack, take, or win over by storm  <storm a fort>
synonyms see ATTACK   

Now, from a journalistic standpoint, the next question that comes to mind is this: Did the news story proper itself warrant that use of such violent language in the headline?

From the standpoint of the Roman Catholic clergy, I don’t think so. The lead sentence of the story itself clearly says that Catholic bishops said “they are praying and hoping for a change of heart among Chinese officials that would allow the reprieve of three Filipinos facing execution for drug trafficking.” Nothing in that very level-headed statement indicates that they were urging the faithful to storm the heavens with their prayers.

So what could have prompted the Inquirer’s headline writer to wrongly think that the Filipinos were being urged to storm heaven with prayers to compel God to instruct the Chinese government to grant a reprieve for the doomed drug traffickers?

I have a feeling that it was this strange-sounding statement read for President Benigno Aquino III by Malacañang deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte:

“I call on all Filipinos, led by our religious leaders of all faiths to unite ourselves in prayer beginning today at sundown, at the pealing of the bell for the Angelus or during the most quiet and meditative times consistent with our respective faiths…All our prayers will soar to the heavens to touch the heart of God, the god who ‘will make a way when there seems to be no way.’”

This stirring call to the Filipinos still runs far short of urging them to storm heaven with prayers, of course, but I think its rhetoric is too intense and soaring and its prescriptions for prayer too procedurally and ritually specific for a statement coming from the President himself. The tenor of that statement certainly makes it sound like the President is enjoining the people to pray in the context of a doomsday scenario like, say, the total annihilation of mankind. It certainly beats the language of the Roman Catholic bishops themselves in ecclesiastic fervor and religiosity, and, truth to tell, it doesn’t sound like a well-thought-out statement from a secular government. Indeed, considering that the President was reported to have been laid low by fever for the second day yesterday (February 18), I get this nagging feeling that he never had the opportunity to review that statement and ponder its implications.

Consider the following bewildering elements in that statement from Malacañang: “unite ourselves in prayer beginning today at sundown” (Why sundown in particular and not any other time of the day?); “at the pealing of the bell for the Angelus…” (Why must the Filipinos, particularly non-Catholics, be instructed to specifically wait for the pealing of the Angelus bell to say the requested prayers?); “during the most quiet and meditative times consistent with our respective faiths” (Why must the Filipinos wait for “the most quiet and meditative times” to pray? Why the prescription for consistency with “our respective faiths”? Will such micromanagement of saying prayers make any difference?); “All our prayers will soar to the heavens to touch the heart of God…” (How and by what measure, in the name of God, can anyone say this with confidence?); and “…the god who ‘will make a way when there seems to be no way’” (This needless qualifying phrase implies that there are other gods who won’t make a way “when there seems to be no way”—something that, of course, runs counter to the country’s predominant monotheism and the President’s being a Roman Catholic.).     

It’s clear that both the Malacañang communication staff and the Inquirer editors and headline writer had gone semantically and rhetorically overboard in this particular news story, each badly succumbing to the heat of the burning issue. This need not happen, though. I submit that as frontliners in the public communication effort, no matter what news may come, they should be much more precise and circumspect with their facts and with their use of language. Indeed, I believe that more than any other social institution, both government and media should know that, as one truism goes, “A society is generally as lax as its language” and that they should always be on guard against committing and abetting such laxity.

[hill roberts]

Indeed, apart from anything else you said about the lack of circumspect of the use of simple language,   catapulted this new president into high office. His minions--religious in convincing people to be religious, dictate how, where, and when to pray. The pro-media is littered with such flowery, incoherent and fancy words to make sure that it is indeed religion that is the driving force in their quest to perpetuate confusion in day-to-day life of ordinary Filipinos. If only I could scream.  Amen.

[Menie]

Yes!  Thanks for posting this.  I definitely share your views.  But first, a note on the semantics.  My personal awareness of the phrase "storm the heavens" came only in the last decade or so, but it seems that this had been around for at least half a century. I googled "storm the heavens" and came across this page http://bluepanjeet.net/2009/04/18/4474/storm-heavens-prayers-storm-novena/. It talks about a "Storm Novena" and reposts an article published in 1947.  The 1947 article cited passages from Luke from which it concluded that "Thus man has power over God."   So you are correct that the Inquirer's headline implies that God is being compelled to do something.  But I think the headline writer was just using a cliche and was not implying anything violent.  There are also “prayer warriors” and the proverbial “battle of good versus evil”.

More important than the semantics is the issue of going overboard about the three convicted Filipino drug mules.  As the highest official of the Philippine government, the President is expected to maintain a good sense of balance and dignity.  The statement attributed to him, which did sound as if he was calling on us to avert a doomsday scenario, as you so aptly described it, seemed to be, well, unhinged.  His excuse could be the fever that he suffered from at the time the statement was published, but did his whole communication staff also have fever at that time?  It certainly seems as if they were struck by a religious fervor (do “fever” and “fervor” share a common origin?) that led them to the overly dramatic and overtly Catholic rhetoric.

Probably his communication staff was reacting to the media’s hype over the three convicted Filipinos.  Well, someone told me that media is business, so since hyping this issue seems to be good business, we can understand why media insists on giving it more than its reasonable share of coverage.  But the presidential communications staff should stop thinking like media people and start thinking like statesmen.  They should give the Office of the President its dignity and grace.  I hope there will be no more statements of this kind in the future.

[Joe Carillo]

Thanks for the feedback and the link to the “On the Wings of My Dream” website.

That website looks like a personal religious blog that, among other intensely religious advocacies, provides details on how to do the so-called “Storm Novena” of the Capuchin friars. According to the blog, “A Storm Novena consists of nine visits to the Blessed Sacrament in one day, praying on one’s knees, and with outstretched arms, to obtain a speedy and unfailing answer to prayer.” In short, it’s a religious ritual specific to the Roman Catholic Church.

The Philippine President’s call for prayer was supposed to be ecumenical—meaning that it was addressed to all Filipinos irrespective of religious belief or affiliation—and the official statement certainly didn’t call on them to specifically do the “Storm Novena.” So, if we assume that the Inquirer’s headline writer knew what a “Storm Novena” was to begin with, he or she should have been journalistically prudent enough to avoid using the headline “Storm heaven with prayers, Filipinos urged.” This is because it would be a blatant misrepresentation of the substance of the President’s supposedly ecumenical call to prayer. I therefore think that the Inquirer’s headline writer simply took uncalled for semantic liberties in coming up with that highly questionable headline.   

I must also add that I disagree with you that the term “storm heaven with prayers” is a cliché. I doubt that it has attained enough currency in the English language to achieve cliché status. I would rather call it just a figurative expression, an invitingly mellifluous phrase no doubt, but one that's factually inaccurate and semantically unfit as headline for the news story in question.