More on the myth of the "filthy rich Church"

Several weeks ago, the blog Adbokasiya published an interesting email thread / discussion regarding Elizabeth Angsioco's notorious screed on the Church's supposed wealth:

On the Church of the Poor Issue - further comments on the Church of the poor. 


The thread includes the following intervention by Fr. Romeo Intengan S.J.

...just a very short initial reply for starters. 

Pakipasa nga sa iba. 

(1) The critics' article fails fails to distinguish between the significance of of stock holdings and bank holdings, on one hand, and annual available income from stocks and bank interest, on the other hand. Even if the Church owned, let us say, P200 B in stocks (not just the P35 B tallied by the critics, the rest of the wealth being conjecture), at a supposed rate of 10% a year from the stocks--I would say an optimistic figure--that would be P20 B. Think how much it costs to run all those thousands of parishes and schools, those dozens of hospitals, social action centers, and the like, especially at sufficient levels of quality. Then you will see that P20B is not enough, is a very modest amount, by any fair measure. Many of these, located in mission or poorer areas, are not supported by earnings and are subsidized by prosperous institutions and from the money of the Church in banks and stocks. 

A large proportion of its income is used by the Church, through its institutions, to serve the poorest of the poor for free in remote areas where even the government cannot reach. 

(2) It is not a fact that the Church is rich. The Church is not a monolith. There are perhaps five to ten prosperous dioceses and some twenty or thirty prosperous orders and congregations, but there are many more financially struggling ones. These critics ought to live for even just a week in any of the poorer majority of Church institutions and see what life there is like. 

(3) The landholdings of Church institutions are quite moderate. The Church has hardly any farmland left, after the US colonial regime bought the friar lands, and after CARP. Do the critics begrudge the Church having churchyards and cemeteries, most of which are small and cramped? Do they want universities with cramped or no campuses? The Catholic Church does not even have the spare billions of pesos to own and run her own TV channel. Guess which religious group is rich enough to own TV networks? Not the Catholic Church. Instead of putting down what is already struggling, or damaging what is good, they should encourage the Church to raise the revenues to be able to serve the pastoral needs of the people.

One would think it more logical to encourage the State to improve the facilities of the public schools, rather than to scold to Church for having good facilities. In fact, the government recognizes the help of the Church in carrying the burden of filling the gap of public education, by helping private schools through the Fund for Assistance to Private Edcuation (FAPE). 

(4) If the Church institutions sold all her stocks and gave away all the money they had in banks, the money raised for that one-time outlay would not be enough to make more than a small dent in the deficit of basic social services in this country. To claim otherwise would be to betray a ignorance of the dimensions of financing needed. It is the State alone, with its more than a trilliion pesos of annual tax income, that would have the capacity to close the gap in social services. 

And after the Church sold all these, how would her institutions and works maintain themselves, considering that Filipino Catholics, on the average, contrary to the wrong impression given by the article, are not known for generous support of the Church ministries and pastors? Few Filipino Catholics practice tithing, and 3% support from their gross income would be a generous estimate, while the two richest non-Catholic churches in this country receive 15 to 20% of the gross income of her members. 

(5) I agree that Church apparel could be simpler, but it would serve no good purpose to make this shoddy. Besides the sumptuous apparel of some clergy is worn only during liturgy, and on solemn occasions at that. The daily garb of the bishops is quite plain. To put together the images of bishops in sumptuous pontifical garb and a beggar in rags, as if this contrast was the normal, daily situation, is a cheap shot, good for hostile propaganda but far from reality. 

(6) The Church is not "sitting on those billions." The latter phrase is another example of hostile caricature. These "billions" are invested in stocks or banks precisely to support the ministries, many of them gratuitous to the poorest of the poor, and the pastors. The Church is spending yearly the equivalent in goods and services of billions of pesos for the poor.

And please don't insult the poor. They are quite generous with what they have when they know it is for God or for God's holy purposes.

And as a matter of fact, one reason why the Catholic Church has not implemented Decree 118 of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II), approved in 1991, and providing for tithing, is hesitation to burden the poor (while other religions expect their members, rich or poor, to tithe). That is why in the Philippines, the bulk of Church contributions comes from the middle class. 

(7) Do you want the Church to be able to offer the high quality education and health care to all, and not just some of its members? Do you want the Church to be able to support its ministries? Then join my humble but urgent advocacy for the implementation of Decree 118 of PCP II on tithing. For as of now, contrary to what that figure-quoting but ultimately shallow article is trying to convey, the Church is not wealthy--it cannot even adequately finance the ministries it should give to its members. And this is true even if the money and property of the prosperous dioceses and orders were distributed equally among the Catholic institutions and circumscriptions.

Archie, SJ

Romeo J. Intengan, S.J.

Another response to Angsioco on the rights of the unborn

Know What You Support: Recognize The Language of Abortion

By "TruthSayer" of Filipinos for Life

Unborn vs. Mother. That’s the title of Ms. Elizabeth Angsioco’s latest opinion piece. Given that the RH bill makes no mention of protecting the unborn, and in fact when talking about “post-abortion complications” totally ignores the existence of the aborted, it is rather interesting that Ms. Angsioco views these bills as pitting unborn vs. mother.

It is an issue raised by those who choose to take the perspective that protecting one incontrovertibly means apathy towards the other. For pro-lifers everywhere, nothing could be farther from the truth. For us who defend life, mother and child are always equally important and worthy of protection. That this notion of unborn vs. mother even enters the discussion is a clear indication of just how far the pro-choice agenda has taken us. We are now debating whether an unborn child is human or not. Even Fr. Bernas tells us that our constitution provides for EQUAL protection of both the life of the mother and the life of the unborn FROM CONCEPTION. Since when, in the history of the Philippines, have we as Filipinos ever doubted the reality of human life in the womb? If the unborn isn’t human, what is it? And if the unborn doesn’t have rights, how does any one of us have rights?

CONTINUE READING HERE

Angsioco: letting the cat out of the bag

Angsioco versus unborn

Willy Jose

With prominent RH bill proponent Elizabeth Angsioco's latest tirade entitled "Unborn versus mother", one is convincingly left without any iota of a doubt as to the main agenda of the RH bill: it is all about Abortion with a capital A. Unless the RH bill proponents disown Angsioco's statements, her astonishing message reveals the strikingly clear motive. The title of her opinionated (and grossly erroneous) piece is in itself a dead giveaway. Why, is there an inherent war between ''Unborn vs Mother"? Does Angsioco herself feel that her mother is at war with her from the moment of her conception up to every breathing moment of her life? I suppose not, for even Elizabeth Angsioco herself should probably make a convincing case for the timeless adage "only a mother can love''.

Angsioco takes umbrage at the various bills pending in Congress that seek to put teeth into the Constitutional provision requiring the State to ''equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception". While she acknowledges the provision, in the same breath she claims:

''A child is someone who is born into this world, a complete human person like you and me. A child is a citizen, and therefore, has human rights. Calling the unborn a child to me is going beyond what the Constitution provides."

So according to Angsiocotic philosophy, the unborn is not a complete person until it is "born into this world". If the unborn is not a "complete person'', what is it then? A half-person? A quarter-person? Semi-person? A clump of inhuman cells? She bolsters her argument by referring to the Constitution but I do not see anything in there that says the unborn is a partial human person. What I do see in there, is that the unborn is accorded by the State a presumptive personality from the moment of conception. A presumed person that merits protection by the State. Why, because the Constitutional Commission precisely said so. If the state presumes the personhood of the unborn it does not consider it as an incomplete human unworthy of protection. She harps about the right of the mother (the unfettered right to abort, if that is not clear enough) and completely turns a blind eye to the right of the unborn. The records of the 1986 Commission flatly rejects her imaginations:

"Whats being affirmed in this formulation is the moral right as well as the constitutional right of the unborn child to life, If this should entail the granting of presumptive personality to the unborn befinning at the moment of the conception, then so be it. Xxx Respect for the rights of the woman with child and respect for the rights of the child in her womb are by nature intimately linked such that any deliberate harm that should come upon one will doubtless effect a corresponbding harm to the other. Conflicts of rights is fictitious. Xxx The conflict is only apparent. It is easily resolved by applying the following principle: When two rights come in conflict, the more basic right and/or the right concerning the graver matter takes precedence over rights involving the less basic or less serious matter. It is clear that the right to life is more basic than the right to privacy or any other posterior rights. Therefore, since removal of the fetus would most certainly result in violation of its right to life, the woman has no right to evict the temporary resident of her private womb.”

(Bernas, J.. The Intent of the 1986 Constitution Writers (1995), p. 119.)

Not only does Angsioco twist legalities, she also manages to twist mathematics as well. EQUAL Protection means, well, EQUAL Protection. The right of the mother for protection is EQUAL to the right of the unborn for protection. Not GREATER THAN nor LESS THAN. Of course there are exceptional cases where the medical treatment of the mother might result to a NOT DIRECTLY INTENDED harm to the unborn. Angsioco apparently, is not capable of acknowledging the nuanced distinction whatsoever. She is clearly all for the 'rights' of the mother to abort the unborn regardless. After all according to her, the unborn has no rights whatsoever until it is born. Well, she has a right to her opinion, however twisted it may be. The State guarantees EQUAL protection of freedom of speech to the erroneous person as well as to the factual person. I presume her mother would love her in spite of that. As to the rest of the pro-RH bill advocates, I presume they would love to gag her from now on. She just let the screaming cat out of the bag.

UNMASKED: The true face of the RH bill?

Elizabeth Angsioco of the Manila Standard Today is one of the most vociferous proponents of the RH Bill, and an opponent of the various bills for the protection of the unborn now pending before the Philippine Congress. In her latest column bashing the proposed bills for the protection of unborn children, Angsioco unmasks her real views regarding the status of the unborn:

First, all these bills speak of the unborn as a CHILD. I take issue with this because the Constitution does not call the unborn a child. If the framers meant to equate the former with the latter, they would have done that. An unborn can be anything from an egg, a zygote, to a fetus about to be born. 

A child is someone who is born into this world, a complete human person like you and me. A child is a citizen, and therefore, has human rights. 

Calling the unborn a child to me is going beyond what the Constitution provides.

Anyone who understands basic logic can see the implications. For Angsioco, the unborn cannot be defined as "children". Angsioco admits that children have human rights, but denies that the unborn are children, the inescapable conclusion being that for her, the unborn obviously do not enjoy the rights -- the HUMAN rights -- that children have. (She leaves the obvious conclusion unsaid, perhaps realizing what it will do to her advocacy, but we will neither mince words nor play games in this blog.)

Thank you, Ms. Angsioco, for showing us the true face of the RH Bill.

If the supporters of the RH Bill indeed uphold the rights of the unborn -- as many of them claim to do -- then they must distance themselves from this shameful statement and repudiate Angsioco as well. Not that I expect them to do so...

First response to anti-Catholic "Church of the Poor" article

Short quick response to Angsioco article

Jemy Gatdula

Here’s a short, suggested response to this nonsense:

The Church is not rich. By her logic, the Philippines is rich. And yet, why doesn’t she ask that the Philippines, being the 13th largest economy in Asia and the 33rd largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity according to the International Monetary Fund in 2010, with a GDP - purchasing power parity of $373.6 billion in 2010, yet sees 33% of its people under poverty line.

In fact, by that logic, then we should be demanding that the Philippine government, all the pharmaceutical companies, and even international organizations like the UN and WHO, or even large local companies like ABS-CBN or the Lopez Group of Companies, to dispose of all their assets, buildings, etc. and donate them to the poor. But presumably that would be wrong because these organizations apparently do more good to Filipinos if they are existing and operating. Well, the same could be said for the Church and more. The argument regarding supposed Church wealth is very old and very dumb. It’s not that you own a lot it’s what you do with what you own. And the Church has been more effective than any other institution in dealing with poverty, not merely locally but globally.

The Catholic Church supports faithful from all over the world. And each Catholic Church is financially independent. The local Catholic Church does not get any financial support from the Vatican or it's own diocese. Rather, it’s the local church that supports the Vatican. Besides, being a 2000 year old institution, it has accumulated assets, including lands or buildings, many through donations, of which many are quite old.

Even then, these assets are not liquid assets. Most are held in trust for the people of the world to use or simply look at. So when a socialite writer, just for example, wants to go touring Rome and see the valuable paintings at the Sistine Chapel, it must be remembered that the huge upkeep for these treasures are shouldered by the Vatican (with funds from either donations or minimal museum fees; note that there are even days you can visit the museum for free), which in the end is a non-profitable endeavour to it.

A lot of the physical assets such as cathedrals, chapels, etc. are not built for the benefit or vanity of the priests but because the believers themselves (who are human beings and can be reached through the senses) would hopefully be inspired to see through their surroundings and by it seek to know more and be closer to the One who created all. The same reasoning goes for museums, they are done in such a way to provoke interest (even inspiration) for history. And this has to be emphasized again: Church property is not so much owned but rather is held in trust by the present for those faithful to come in the future.

Any profit (or any asset, in fact) that the Church owns is utilized for the costs needed by the faithful the world over. Aside from the upkeep for maintaining churches, masses, priests, etc., it must be emphasized that the Catholic Church is the leading charity in the world. It has, at any given time, donated more money, effort, goods, than any other multinational organization, charitable organization, or even governments.

This bears worth emphasizing: no pharmaceutical company or international org or government has done more than the Catholic Church in terms of charity, education, health and hospital care, scientific research, poverty alleviation. Bill Gates can actually learn from the Church on how to conduct charity.

In the US alone (simply because these are the easily available figures), the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at no cost to taxpayers. But this does cost the Church 10 billion US dollars. Note that enrollment in all of these schools is open to all religious faiths. It also operates in the US 637 hospitals which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people not just Catholics in the United States today, all shouldered by the Church.

Now clearly the foregoing was merely scribbled hastily and is obviously not meant to be an authoritative source on the charitable and beneficial works of the Church. But what it does at least demonstrate is that there is a very apparent and real benefit that the Church gives to the world’s poor. Note that the social, material realm is not even the primary focus of the Church, its overriding purpose is to save souls. Poverty alleviation and social development is primarily the duty of governments. It is significant, however, that even in this aspect it is the Church that leads the way.

Nevertheless, I have no illusions as to the effect of this blog entry. Proverbs 23:9 is most instructive: "Don't waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice." At the least, should this blog entry help fellow believers and defenders of the faith, then all is well.

(Addendum: note from my friend Ipe Salvosa of BusinessWorld. This is merely from Caritas Manila financial report for 2009, it does not include the rest of the activities of the Church in the Philippines: "A total of 146,139 families affected by tropical cyclones Ondoy and Pepeng were given relief assistance. It was made possible by the outpouring of cash and in-kind donations from domestic donors and from other countries and the thousands of volunteers that participated. Caritas Damay Kapanalig typhoon program for Ondoy and Pepeng raised over PhP 57 million (Cash = PhP 39,336,757.91 and in-kind = PhP24,099,285.52)."

"And although 2009’s highlight was the Caritas Damay Kapanalig Ondoy and Pepeng relief and rehabilitation efforts, throughout the course of the year Caritas Manila continued with its highly committed social services and development efforts. 5,463 scholars were maintained under the Youth Servant Leadership and Education Program or YSLEP. 98,552 patients were attended to through the different Caritas charity clinics in Mega Manila. Under preventive health care, 58,118 patients were given health counselling. 12,180 children were fed and monitored under the Caritas Hapag-Asa Feeding Program. 107 inmates were released through paralegal assistance under the Caritas Restorative Justice Program or Caritas RJ. These are just some of the notable accomplishments for 2009.")

Church critic versus radical anti-Catholic feminist over the RH Bill.

Erstwhile Church critic Herman Tiu Laurel is staunchly against the RH bill, and in one of his most recent articles he skewers Elizabeth Angsioco's inflammatory article Damaso and Ovaries in the following manner:

Angsioco, Damaso and DSK

CRITIC'S CRITIC

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/23-29/2011

The critics commentaries on the RH bill is reaching a crescendo and while new topic, the sexual assault case against IMF’s chief DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) is catching the attention of many newspapers columnists of many newspapers columnists, but most of these opinion writers miss the heart of the issue and fail to enlighten the public.

We’ll start with Elizabeth Angsioco of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (apparently a branch of Bert Gonzales and Jesuit Archie Intengan’s PDSP) whose twopart article “Damaso and ovaries” appeared in the Manila Standard sometime April and is one of the popular expressions of the pro-RH bill that has come out and appears frequently in Internet discussions.

I commented on Angsioco’s title in a recent OpinYon column of mine pointing out the highly picturesque and effective title she used in her article. But now that the climax of the debate is nearing, I take the opportunity to evaluate the content of her article. I have found it to be vacuous except for the hysterics.

A Maria Clara or a Josephine Bracken?

Angsioco raged against the Damasos for using the pulpit to harangue against the RH bill, the anti-RH ordinances of Barangay Ayala Alabang and seven Bataan barangays, and Mayor of Manila Alfredo Lim’s city programs of family planning that is limited to the natural methods but nothing on the issues that the RH bill itself represents.

At the end of her two-part article she states: “I dressed up as Maria Clara and handed out condoms and he was in a barong. People were more than slightly amused by the idea and started having their pictures taken with us.”

I would be amused too if Maria Clara, the quintessential conservative and traditional Filipino who would use the abaniko as Muslim women use the burqa to hide their “evil” feminine allures, were used as a poster woman for the contraceptives and condoms crusade because that’s totally inappropriate.

Josephine Bracken would have been the only appropriate Philippine historical female to represent women’s liberation.

The woman’s rage of Angsiaco is a shrill and hysterical as the eunuch-y fits and frenzy of the Damasos, with the latter calling pro-RH advocates “terrorists” and the former considering anybody questioning the RH bill as anti-women’s rights bigots.

Women’s Rights

I wonder if Angsioco or many of the other pro-RH advocates, crusaders and lobbyists have even read the many versions of the RH bill.

If they did they’d discover that there is nothing in it that changes any basic women’s right to their own body, as they argue today, or their ovaries.

All Filipino women’s rights are already robustly protected by the Magna Carta for Women passed on August 14, 2009 by the previous Congress.

None of the updated RH bills is even attempting to change the present status of the law’s abhorrence of abortion as most pro-RH bill crusaders themselves recoil from the idea of a blanket de-criminalization of abortion which is inherently reprehensible.

Nobody but the Catholic Church issues edicts against the use of birth control devices and pills, but who follows the Church among the women’s flock these days?

Mythical Poverty vs Population

The Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows: Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000.

Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lameduck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.

The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash (as Nobel prizewinning economist Simon Kuznets work demonstrated)--characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers. (As I've previously noted on this blog, GMA herself - whatever we might think of her -- is ostensibly anti-RH bill. CAP)

Veiled Pecuniary Interests

The real issue in the RH bill is Big Pharma and political pork barrel feeders’ disguised pecuniary interests: providing subsidies to purchase and distribute for free as “essential” medications and devices such contraceptive and condoms, hundreds of RH supplied “vans” politicos can skim from and put their names on, amounting to at least P3 billion clearly described in the RH bill plus untold billions mandated by the bill that others agencies such as PhilHealth, Presidential Anti-Poverty Commission, Pop- Com, etc. must extend to the RH program which is estimated to top P10 Billion per annum, and that such budgets included in the RH bill when it becomes law “shall be” provided for in succeeding National Budget that is tantamount to “automatic appropriations”.

All these subsidies when there has never even been a specific allocation for real killer diseases such as TB, dengue, and many other illnesses.

And they can’t even have a kind word for MRT/LRT working and wage earning commuters who are seeking a mere P4-5billion fare “subsidy” which come from their VAT and income taxes, anyway.

The Damaso’s and Angsioco’s hysterics do not benefit the public debate, they only obfuscate and obscure allowing the Big Pharma (that’s why Fidel V. Ramos is there, for the Carlyle group with billions investments in contraceptives and condoms) and political porkers to slip their greed past the people’s scrutiny.

(The rest of the article is about other matters.)