Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Building on research that problematize the ways in which Filipinos embrace, in varying degrees, Roman Catholicism, my study probes how socially differentiated Filipino migrants in Brussels intimately explore Roman Catholicism’s values as they create the Filipino Chaplaincy within their unstable diasporic context. Roman Catholic religion, as it is a source of idioms, rituals, and material representations, plays a significant role in the lives of and is produced in many ways by Filipinos, given their varying social position in Brussels. As this study shows, among the Roman Catholic principles and concomitant resources that Filipino Catholics appropriate, along with their fellow Filipinos in Brussels, “standing for the marginalized” becomes a potent force for church authorities as well as Filipino religious and civic leader’s claim to cooperation, leadership, and dejection. Even while this is shared by Filipino Catholics in Brussels, this research shows the particularity of Filipino Catholics’ appropriation. Hence, this study probes further the sociopolitical circumstances in Belgium and the inter(and trans)-personal mediations within the Filipino network of relations that make the Filipino Catholics strategic in their want to create the Filipino chaplaincy in Brussels and, correspondingly, yield favorable results in their handling of their diasporic drama. It also explores the various forms of mediations and constraints–residency, gender, ageing, job options and security–that (re)contour the Filipino chaplaincy as enabler of moral subjectivities, made manifest in agents’ expanded purpose. In doing so, this research will further stir the longstanding questioning of received essentialist notions of Filipino religiosity and sociomoral values.