This is an archive for open letters and declarations, illustrations, treatises, opinion pieces, interviews and videos that support the orthodox Catholic position on the so-called "Reproductive Health Law" passed by the Philippine Legislature and signed into law in December 2012. (NB: Inclusion of a given piece in this blog-archive neither necessarily signifies the blog owner's agreement with all of its assertions, nor does it mean that he endorses it as completely accurate or precise.)
Aug 22, 2012
The very same day that Fr. Jett Villarin came out with an official letter to quell the fire of dissent started by the 190 or so professors who publicly and surreptitiously used the Ateneo’s name to push their ideology in support of institutionalized contraception espoused in the RH Bill, hordes of Ateneo students, graduates and faculty, started beating on the drums in support of their president and in support of these dissenting faculty members and their cause. I was amused (and baffled) at the “drum beating” because Fr. Villarin explicitly said that the Ateneo rejects the bill and supports the position of the Catholic Church on the matter of rejecting the bill and the teaching on contraception, which means (not sure if they got this) that the Ateneo is dissociating themselves from these faculty members. Did the drum beaters’ clouded minds miss this fact totally or was there a cryptic message that the ADMU president sent to them that the rest of us, including the Bishops, didn’t know about?
While many welcomed the letter, including me (tiny woohoo, what could I do, sigh ), in reality, Fr. Vilarin merely repeated the perfunctory, mild dissociative statement issued by Fr. Ben Nebres three years ago when 14 faculty members made their first stand. Would those 14 abscess into 190 if that letter was stronger in tone and if reprimands were given and enforced, I wonder, hmmm. Looking at the statement in detail, one cannot miss the double-speaking style that pseudo-orthodox dissenters are so fond of employing. The letter, in my opinion, serves one purpose and one purpose alone and it is to satisfy (and douse) the Bishop’s warning that Catholic schools who do not tow the Catholic line may be stripped of their “Catholic” status.
The Jesuits, it appears, are so very fond of doing the finger wagging with the left and patting the back of dissenters with the right hand. It is the “Ateneo magisterium’s” interpretation of Christ’s words, “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Without going into details, the letter appears to be an adaptation of Fr. Joaquin Bernas’ idea that we can accept the bill if we remove the “problematic” provisions in them. He penned this in his blog with the title “Do not burn the house down to roast a pig.” Strange for a priest to essentially say, yes we can accept contraception for society but as Catholics we should obey Church teaching and shouldn’t…huh?? You mean artificial contraception has no negative societal effects and is only applicable to Catholics, really?
Oh my dear Bishops I am afraid you no longer have to do any canonical sanctions to the Ateneo because they themselves are jumping out the window committing spiritual suicide. They had already started to cut themselves off from the vine a long time ago and fortunately for them it is a rather thick vine from which they are still hanging on by a mere strand! They hardly realize they are at the edge of a cliff and see their worldly prestige, honor and accolades, their social justice activism and their championing the causes of the poor as their new “life line.” They no longer understand the meaning of the passage “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul for it.” A long time ago the Jesuits of the Ateneo had started this by inventing for themselves, an imaginary, separate Catholic “magisterium” devoid of any real accountability to Rome (brings me back memories of Fr. Tanseco and his famous alternate magisterium hypothesis). They say one thing and do another, that’s the trick, the official stand and the de facto stand which no one hears about except if you are an insider within the halls of the institution.
This is diabolical because of its insidiousness. It seems that Ateneo students really think that what they are being taught, this alternative, dissenting “magisterial” teaching, is what the Catholic Church teaches and that the CBCP and everyone else is, well, just too stiff, orthodox and not cool (they should get all the coolness they can for where they’re headed!). Could this be the “Catholic position”, that “…continues to be taught in our classes, as we have always done” that Fr. Villarin refers to in his letter? I only ask because based on my exchanges with Ateneans in that Facebook page, there is not a single iota of evidence I have seen that is reflective of this “Catholic position”, that corroborates the claim of Fr. Villarin, that the Ateneo teaches what the Church authentically teaches. Instead, you see students with an utter hatred for the Bishops and their requirement for the Ateneo to adhere to the Church’s line against the RH Bill. It appears that the dissent is alive and healthy within the House of Ignatius and it will be for many more years to come!
If that is the case my dear Ateneans, I believe that what Fr. Bernas said was wrong, it appears that we DO have to burn the house down to roast that pig!
is the subject of my Trade Tripper column in this Friday Saturday issue of BusinessWorld:
One of the fascinating things to see is how full the churches were last weekend, what with the celebration of Easter Sunday. But what’s sad to note is that behind the facade of apparent devoutness lies a certain lukewarmness, perhaps even ignorance, of the significance of Holy Week and Easter. At worst, hypocrisy.
The events we commemorate last week are not dead events. They were meant to teach us how to lead our lives. Of the many significant events of the last week of Jesus, let us take three to ponder upon. The first had to do with Judas’ betrayal. Certainly, his motivations for turning traitor were not mentioned in the Gospels (except for John’s laconic reference of Satan entering Judas after the latter dipped bread with Christ). Some commentators claim, however, that Judas felt disappointed with Jesus when it became clearer by the day that He was not leading a political revolution. Jesus’ somewhat weird statement that His followers should eat His body and drink His blood (which actually caused a number of His disciples to leave) may also have something to do with it.
The second event is Peter’s denial. This came after Peter chopped off an ear of one of the arresting soldiers. Before that, Peter had made loud declarations of his willingness to die for Christ. However, in Peter’s zeal to be near the developments, in his eagerness to be part of the events, he pushed too much into the crowd and there he was identified as a follower of Christ. This set the stage for his denial. Upon being recognized (by servant girls no less), Peter, the supposedly bold brave man, started to fear for himself and denied knowing Jesus three times. Which resulted in him forever being depicted with a rooster on his shoulder. But I digress ...
The third event is when Pilate asked the crowd to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. This was a profound choice. Barabbas, contrary to common knowledge, was no common thief. He was a revolutionary, a rebel, who was not above using violent means to achieve what are arguably good intentions. The name of Barabbas himself gives us a clue as to his identity. Barabbas means "Son of the Father." In effect, what Pilate presented to the crowd were two Messianic figures. But the differences between the two could not be greater. The crowd, of course, chose Barabbas.
What is the point? The point is that in all three situations, Judas, Peter, and the crowd were given a choice. That choice is something we also confront every day, every single day, of our lives. The choice presented was: do we rely primarily on our expectations, plans, abilities, knowledge, and understanding? Or do we first put our trust in Him?
Judas and the crowd essentially thought that Jesus was too otherworldly, too impractical, when what was needed was decisive human action. Pilate, incidentally, was another pragmatist, who knowingly allowed an innocent man crucified to save his career. Peter, on the other hand, was too eager for action that he forgot the teachings of Christ that he made himself vulnerable to turning away from Him.
Obviously, I’m writing this article in relation to the RH Bill (now re-named Responsible Parenthood Bill). We are seemingly so eager to rely on our abilities, our intelligence, our plans that we forget to have the humility of remembering that we don’t know as much as we think we do. To solve poverty, to care for maternal health, to reduce teen pregnancy and abortions, these are all good intentions. But the means with which we seek to solve them, the reliance on contraception, are not in line with the faith that we profess as Catholics and the facts we know through human experience.
The interesting thing about this is that in the zeal of RH Bill proponents to defend the indefensible, they even essentially started resorting to that line of Pilate: "what is truth?" Because it is the truth itself that is now being questioned to justify the use of condoms: the authority of the Papal office, the primacy of natural law, the teachings of saints Jerome, Augustine, and De Sales, to Popes Pius XI, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, the apostolic duty of bishops, religious freedom and the right to proselytize, the diversion of tax money from education and necessary medicines, the carcinogenic nature of many contraceptives, the fact that contraceptive use resulted in the increase of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted disease, have weakened societies, and with no proven correlation to alleviating poverty. All this has to be wrong to make contraception right.
Yes, there are problems that the RH Bill seeks to address. But the RH Bill will never be the solution. Human action unrooted in a morality, ethic, or faith will always be futile. Judas, Peter, and the crowd that chose Barabbas taught us that.
