Carvajal: Pact with the devil
SunStar Cebu
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
HOPELESSLY out of touch with the reality of their constituents, the Catholic hierarchy thought of a Catholic vote to lure politicians into voting against the Reproductive Health Bill.
The bishops have since expressed their veiled threat of a disappointment over Sen. Noynoy Aquino for his pro RH stance.
Most recently, they dangled a Catholic vote for the administration candidate, Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, as they asked him to withdraw his support of the bill.
I was riding a taxi home from the airport the other day and my usual small talk with the driver somehow drifted towards the Simala shrine scandal. I soon realized I was dealing with someone who was rabidly anti-clergy. He denounced the whole clergy as only interested in money; and he had an interesting reason for it. He said that if they are not just after money, why are they opposed to population control? Why are they against the Reproductive Health Bill “nga gikinahanglan namong mga pobre?”
St. Paul said the greatest of the three virtues (Faith, Hope and Love) is Love. The Church seems to forget that in the controversial Reproductive Health Bill issue. It is very clear in their stand against the Reproductive Health Bill that they’d rather see the death rate of poor mothers and children continue than have their doctrine on natural law be defiled. With bloc voting, it seems that they’d vote for devils in politics who oppose with them the RH Bill.
The Reproductive Health Bill represents Hope for poor families whose mothers and children die at an alarmingly fast rate.
Above all, the Reproductive Health Bill is an act of kindness on ignorant and poor mothers and their children, both born and unborn, who are dying prematurely for lack of proper reproductive health care.
Many of us cannot see the dreaded phantoms the hierarchy sees in the bill. If the bishops are really pro-life, the least they can do is give the concern for the poor supporters of the bill the benefit of the doubt and not condemn them as evil. Opposing it now is to oppose the intention of well meaning officials and citizens to help and serve that the bill epitomizes. They should oppose the actual implementation later should they find it immoral.
Furthermore, if the bishops are really pro-life, they should denounce the perpetrators in high places of extra-judicial killings and of graft and corruption and not dangle the Catholic vote before these people in exchange for a vote against the Reproductive Health Bill. This could mean making a pact with the devil. We want leaders who will serve. We do not want leaders who will do anything, including oppose the RH bill, in order to get elected and then run this country to the ground.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on September 23, 2009.
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Re-posted by; Catholics for Reproductive Health (C4RH) Cebu
* Orlando P. Carvajal is the President of the Phil. Federation of
Married Catholic Priest, Inc.
