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Friday, March 29, 2024

Used again

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The bishops of the Philippine Catholic Church have got it all wrong. The silence that they heard, if they listened hard enough, is one of approval, not one of fear.

I wish the good members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines had consulted with their priests on the ground before issuing that pastoral letter read in many churches last Sunday. Yes, the same clerics who have also avoided, for a lot of valid reasons, using their pulpits in order to once again meddle with purely secular affairs like politics.

I say only “many churches” because I’ve been told that a good number of priests chose not to read the pre-cooked seven-point homily denouncing alleged extra-judicial killings prepared by the CBCP. And I am convinced that if the bishops had asked their front-line clerics why they didn’t read the pastoral letter, they would have understood the situation better.

The overall theme of the CBCP’s sermon was that ordinary Catholics should overcome their fear and speak out against the reported killings of suspected drug pushers and users. By failing to be heard, the bishops said, the faithful had become accomplices in the deaths brought about by the war on drugs initiated and implemented by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The bishops bemoaned the “reign of terror” that was gripping the land. And despite admitting their own failings as churchmen—which they did not specify—they said they felt compelled to send out their message.

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My own belief, as an ordinary Catholic, is that the bishops have once again fallen into the trap of buying into a set of political beliefs without verifying these with their flock. And the main reason that the politically naive leaders of the Church have been gypped is because their current leader, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, is a foremost exponent of that belief system.

Villegas, if he were a tad more attuned to the true sentiments of the faithful, should have stepped down as CBCP president first before the pastoral letter was read in churches all over the land. And he could have asked some other bishop to write it, instead of claiming authorship of the document at its end, as if he was really proud of what he did.

But Villegas is an acknowledged protegé of the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin and spiritual adviser and family friend of both Cory and Noynoy Aquino. The fact that the bishops issued a letter written by Villegas himself speaks volumes of its lack of impartiality, as well as of the lack of empathy that those two former presidents are famous for.

And Villegas and his fellow top clerics are still smarting from the attacks that Duterte has leveled against them. They can be forgiven if they feel that they needed some payback – and they only had their pulpit to use in retaliation.

So Villegas and the bishops succumbed to the temptation. But they never thought to ask the faithful, who constitute the church, if what they said was really what the people believed.

* * *

Because the bishops, without any basis, can say that the people are cowering in fear as Duterte carries out his drug war, I think my own assertion—that they wholeheartedly approve of it—is just as valid as theirs. And I think that I have more evidence than just any bishop living in a diocesan “palace” possesses when I say that most church-going Catholics are law-abiding citizens who are actually (if silently) cheering the government on in its campaign.

For the life of me, I can’t remember ever hearing the Church denounce the evils of drug addiction. And even as I listened to last Sunday’s homily in its entirety (even if I felt a great urge to simply walk out), I tried to recall the CBCP condemning the Mamasapano massacre, the failed response to the victims of Typhoon “Yolanda” or even the massive theft of the pork barrel and DAP funds—and I drew a blank.

(This was the same church, after all, that used its parishes to remind voters about the commandment against stealing, which was a pointed reference to one of the presidential candidates that Villegas and his fellow Yellows really worked hard to beat. Tell me again it isn’t dabbling in partisan politics with this pastoral letter.)

But I already started to relate my experience at church last Sunday. Allow me to complete the story.

Because I was so incensed that our local priest had foregone his usual practice of explaining the Gospel and the readings to read the letter and even decided to ad lib on the same theme afterwards (he was a young man and obviously more easily swayed than other, more seasoned clerics, by conveniently packaged politics), I decided to approach him after mass.

After I had made sure that only he could hear me speak, I told him:

“I am praying for you.”

The priest looked at me with a smile and replied: “Thank you.”

Then I got to the point: “I pray that no member of your family ever becomes the victim of a drug addict.”

Then I walked away without saying another word. I didn’t even look back at the priest—and I didn’t hear him offer a reply.

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