Interesting article, ChinoF. Sorry if my comment’s kinda late.

Well, it’s all very simple really. The Church’s role is to tap into our conscience.

However, we must also take into consideration the separation of the Church from state. If you’re a devout Catholic (devout in a way that is educated and unlike those old women you see touching images of saints in churches or praying the rosary while kneel-walking towards the altar), you can always practice abstinence and such and use natural birth-control methods. If you are educated and disciplined enough, you can always be sure (to some extent) that there’ll be no unwanted pregnancies in the future. Simple as that. Which is probably why most Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches in Europe don’t really say anything. We’re somehow religiously backward here in the Philippines.

On the RH bill, it is simply for those nominally “Catholic” folks who can’t control their urges and don’t care about the disadvantages of providing for a s**tload of children. Sure, from a Catholic’s perspective, contraception isn’t right, but from a legal point of view especially in a country like the Philippines where nominal Catholics and other denominations thrive, it’s a viable solution.

It’s Machiavellian, actually, to separate morality from legality. Killing is morally illicit, but when you have a crazed madman/murderer/rapist/insurgent in prison and you have to instill fear into the hearts of others; to let them know what happens to criminals, then, you’d have to get the aforementioned criminal executed. It’s really a way of keeping order.

On another note, the CBCP is a weak evangelizing council, and unlike other countries, the CBCP is going deeper and deeper into politics.Yapping instead of evangelizing, praying and tapping into our conscience. If only they’d follow the examples of American members of the clergy, though. They’re pretty open-minded, yet, maintain that moral sense that’s distinctively Catholic. I have friends in America who are Catholic and they know their faith very well and are very devoted, unlike most of us (heck, when was the last time we confessed our sins?).

Finally, even Tony Blair, a Catholic (converted to Anglicanism when he became Prime Minister and back to Catholicism upon stepping down from power), did not like the idea of abortion, but this is what he said:
“However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice.”

I am not saying I’m pro-choice, by the way. But it kinda makes you think: in a country stricken by poverty and ignorance, sometimes, the unacceptable becomes commonplace just to maintain order.

Anyway, kudos to this post!

the church has no right to meddle with the affairs of state and the state shouldn’t listen to the foul cries of the”banal”. men of the cloth have no right to dictate how the people should procreate and run their families, when they don’t even have children in the first place due to their vows of celibacy.. (or so the claim)

it is more immoral to procreate carelessly and have more than you can support.

perhaps it would be better if we abolished the religious tax exemption.

“pakikialaman niyo kami ha? pakikialaman din namin kayo!”

batikos kayo ng batikos wala naman kayong magandang solusyon na hinahain. atsaka di kami makikinig sa inyo dahil di naman kayo nagbabayad ng buwis!

so…if the catholics in our country aren’t “allowed” access to contraceptives by the church , are the mulims still open to use it? divorce is legal for muslims right? so why not that as well?

but really…why take “family planning” advice from men who don’t have their own kids? and why the ’til-death-do-us-part? (different article…i know)

btw, i’ve been following AP for a while and i really appreciate what’s written in this blog. Good luck AP!

catholic/christianity is in itself backward, what else do you expect? proper thought processes?

For all their psycho-babble, there’s no use dealing with these annoying wackos.

I got no sex life. why do I care?

Galileo’s not dogma, but the earth revolving around the sun instead of the other way around is dogma. Or at least, should be. The sky is blue, that’s dogma. When you drop an object, it falls because of gravity, that’s dogma. When two solid objects cannot take up the same space, that’s dogma. Basically, the whole point of the Galileo story is that the Catholic church can and even will twist the truth to insist on its own dogma. The bad thing is that it even insists on its dogma on other religions. Basically, the Catholic Church is supremacist. That’s the bad thing.

The Philippine Constitution states that there is a separation of church and state so whatever Catholic or Christian related things you post here are irrelevant. If the interest of the people are in conflict with Church teachings or principles then the former should prevail. Nobody should really take the Catholic Church seriously these days.

The Pope and the Murphy case: what the New York Times story didn’t tell you
By Phil Lawler | March 25, 2010 2:55 PM

Today’s front-page story in the New York Times suggests that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), under the direction of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, failed to act against a Wisconsin priest who was accused of molesting scores of boys at a school for the deaf.

Is the story damaging? Yes. Should the Vatican have acted faster? Yes. Should the accused priest have been laicized? In all probability, Yes again.

Nevertheless, before assigning all blame to the Vatican, consider these factors:

1. The allegations of abuse by Father Lawrence Murphy began in 1955 and continued in 1974, according to the Times account. The Vatican was first notified in 1996: 40 years after Church officials in Wisconsin were first made aware of the problem. Local Church leaders could have taken action in the 1950s. They didn’t.

2. The Vatican, following the standard procedures required by canon law, kept its own inquiries confidential. But the CDF never barred other investigations. Local Church officials could have given police all the information they had about the allegations against Murphy. Indeed they could have informed police 40 years earlier. They didn’t.

3. Milwaukee’s Archbishop Cousins could have suspended Father Murphy from priestly ministry in 1974, when he was evidently convinced that the priest was guilty of gross misconduct. He didn’t. Instead he transferred the predator priest to a new diocese, allowing him to continue pastoral work giving him access to other innocent young people. And as if that weren’t enough, later Archbishop Weakland made sure that there was no “paper trail.” There was certainly a cover-up in this case. It was in Milwaukee, not in Rome.

4. Having called the Vatican’s attention to Murphy’s case, Archbishop Weakland apparently wanted an immediate response, and was unhappy that the CDF took 8 months to respond. But again, the Milwaukee archdiocese had waited decades to take this action. Because the Milwaukee archdiocese had waited so long to take action, the canonical statute of limitations had become an important factor in the Vatican’s decision to advise against an ecclesiastical trial.

5. In a plea for mercy addressed to Cardinal Ratzinger, Father Murphy said that he had repented his misdeeds, was guilty of no recent misconduct, and was in failing health. Earlier this month Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the chief Vatican prosecutor in sex-abuse cases, explained that in many cases involving elderly or ailing priests, the CDF chooses to forego a full canonical trial, instead ordering the priest to remove himself from public ministry and devote his remaining days to penance and prayer. This was, in effect, the final result of the Vatican’s inquiry in this case; Father Murphy died just months later.

6. The correspondence makes it clear that Archbishop Weakland took action not because he wanted to protect the public from an abusive priest, but because he wanted to avoid the huge public outcry that he predicted would emerge if Murphy was not disciplined. In 1996, when the archbishop made that prediction, the public outcry would–and should–have been focused on the Milwaukee archdiocese, if it had materialized. Now, 14 years later, a much more intense public outcry is focused on the Vatican. The anger is justifiable, but it is misdirected.

This is a story about the abject failure of the Milwaukee archdiocese to discipline a dangerous priest, and the tardy effort by Archbishop Weakland–who would soon become the subject of a major scandal himself–to shift responsibility to Rome.