Running out of arguments

EDITORIAL

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07/23/2008

If stupidity marked the presidential spokesmen’s arguments in defense of Gloria Arroyo’s record-breaking drop in public satisfaction rating, so does stupidity mark the Catholic bishops’ argument against the reproductive health bill, which they call the anti-life measure. Talk about misleading “Catholic” statements!

Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto argued that it was unfair that Catholic taxpayers’ money is being used to fund contraceptives, saying this is the reason churchmen are concerned since they want to make sure that this money from the taxpaying Catholics will not be used against Catholic families.

Now that is really stupid and “unbiblical,” considering that even Jesus Christ did say, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” which could be translated today as the pronouncement on the separation principle between church and state.

But biblical sayings aside, tax payments, whether from Catholics, Protestants, atheists, agnostics and even cultists, have nothing to do with one’s religion or non-religion. These belong to the realm of the state, into which the Catholic church, or any church for that matter, has no business interfering.

Besides, even if this bishops’ argument is carried to the illogical arena, how does the bishop separate Catholic taxpayers’ money from the non-Catholic taxpayers’ money? Simply because there are more Catholics in this country than there are non-Catholics? But just how many nominal Catholics are there, compared to practising Catholics?

Still, if the churchmen make so much out of Catholic taxpayers’ money, it should then be asked why the church is exempt from paying taxes. But as the church isn’t paying taxes, it stands to reason that its leaders, the bishops, should have no say at all on the issue of where the taxes go. They are not taxpayers, and therefore have no right to even make any pronouncements — even on their claimed “moral” leadership or even impose Catholic dogma on citizens of the republic. Filipinos do not have, as head of their government, the pope, and Filipinos are certainly not under the Vatican government.

But even as bishops earlier claimed that they will not engage in politics, not after their Edsa II mistake where they, along with the evil civil society and their patroness Gloria, destroyed all democratic institutions, they are again venturing into politics, saying that the electorate should not vote for those candidates who go against their “pro-life” stand. Ridiculous really, considering the fact that they no longer have any political or moral clout, as they continue to embrace evil and have turned utterly amoral.

Still, if they insist on their stupid argument of Catholic taxpayers’ money being used against Catholic families by way of the tax money funding the reproductive program, shouldn’t they then also rail against Catholic money funding Gloria’s corruption and bribery? After all, it is also “Catholic taxpayers’ money” that is being used illegally and immorally, and all to ensure her political longevity. So why the silence, when it comes to Gloria’s bribing ways?

Why are they silent on these moral issues? Why do they continue to embrace the evil that lurks in Malacañang?

The truth of the matter is that the church leaders are running out of sound arguments and they are not being listened to by their flock — not even when they bring up the fear of excommunication.

Already, some local governments have started their population curbing program, giving out educational materials on birth control methods from which couples can choose, as well as providing couples with the birth control means, such as the pill, the intra-uterine device, the condom and even vasectomy services, among others.

So these bishops come up with an “anti-life” rally, coinciding it with an El Shaddai meeting to ensure that the crowd would be big, but so what? This is hardly going to change anything. People aren’t impressed by the Shaddai crowd.

Perhaps Congress won’t touch the reproductive bill, but does it matter when the local governments take it upon themselves to have their own population curbing policy?

But Bishop Aniceto says: “Behave like a Catholic, otherwise you are not what you profess.”

The same can be said of the bishops, who certainly don’t behave as a Catholic.

But then again, these hypocritical bishops are not what they profess to be.

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