Antonio Gramsci And Edward Said's Image Of A Modern Day Intellectual And The Filipino Roman Catholic Priest

This paper takes the erosion of the intellectual status of the Filipino Roman Catholic priest as its starting point and proposes a framework on how to re-conceptualize this status in the context of present society that has already been altered by modernization, secularization and the educational empowerment of the laity. This goal will be accomplished by first examining the images of the intellectual as theorized by the philosophers Gramsci and Said. Then, this paper will test the compatibility of these two thinkers' idea of the intellectual with the concept of the Roman Catholic priesthood, by exploring the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Then, this paper will suggest that one very good way for the modern priesthood to regain its intellectual role is to go back to the model set by Jesus. Finally, this paper will analyze how the priest as a modern intellectual would fit into the Filipino model of Roman Catholic priesthood as it is propagated by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.