The time has come
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Catholic bishops and their priests in the Philippines should really let up on their demonization of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that is now in the House of Representatives, and will, in all likelihood be passed by the Senate.
They can argue until they are blue in the face that human life must always be upheld, even when this particular issue has no bearing on the use of contraceptives that are, in reality, not abortifacients, since these prevent conception — which means no meeting of the sperm and the egg, and therefore, no fertilization and no conception, which means no human life has formed or has been destroyed.
The bishops argue too, that with the passage of the RH bill, there will follow the passage of “immoral bills” such as divorce, that will destroy the institution of marriage and destroy too, the lives of children of a wrecked marriage through divorce, which is also a no-no in the Catholic Church.
Yet these same bishops cannot seem to explain, except in doctrinal terms, the fact that through their nullity of the marriage bond, which is annulment in civil terms, the outcome is the same: The marriage bond is dissolved and the lives of the children of that union, now nullified by the Church, should logically also be destroyed, because in essence, the Church sanctioned nullity declaration is no different from civil annulments and even in instances, no different from divorce.
As a matter of fact, the Church does allow the “innocent spouse” who brought charges against the other, the right to marry again — by the Church. The only reason such a second marriage blessed by the Church cannot be deemed bigamous by the state is that no second wedding license from the state is secured in a second Church-blessed wedding. The state sees this as adultery while the Church sees it as a blessed in heaven cohabitation.
The point really is, if the Church sanctioned nullity declaration is “blessed” in heaven and is not deemed immoral by the Church itself, why then should state divorces, in the eyes of the Church, be deemed immoral?
For that matter, in preventing pregnancies the Church-sanctioned way, which is hardly reliable — why should the Church method not be deemed immoral, when both contraceptives and the Church sanctioned methods also have the goal of preventing unwanted pregnancies?
Is it because one is a natural method, while the other, a more reliable way of preventing pregnancies, is artificial?
The bishops can never prove their claim that the artificial contraceptives, such as the condoms, or the pills are abortifacients as both prevent conception. Yet they insist on these artificial contraceptives as being abortifacients, and therefore no different from engaging in abortion.
But what is immoral to the Church is not necessarily immoral and illegal in the eyes of state. And frankly, if the local bishops stop interfering in the affairs of the state, there would be more harmony in society.
Not even the Pope blasts the Italian government and the Catholic Italians for having a divorce law, or even blasts at the easy access of the people to contraceptives. Why then do the local bishops and their priests try to be more popish than the Pope?
Perhaps the reason the local Catholic Church leaders and their faithful supporters insist on getting what they want from government is that this makes it much easier for them to impose their religious beliefs on the entire nation— many of whom are merely nominal Catholics, plus of course, others who do not embrace the Catholic faith, such as the Muslims and Protestants — than to be closer to their flock, get to know their thoughts and problems, then try and convince them that the ways of the Church are sacred and must be followed religiously, if they are good Catholics.
And the faithful, if the bishops don’t know it yet, are turned off by bishops and priests who threaten them with hellfire. That no longer works.
There is a time for everything, it is always said, and it is now the time for the passage of the RH bill.
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