The current political campaign season is a dynamic showcase of all the candidates vying for public office and their supporters.
Each one is trying to put his/her best foot forward, and we see familiar faces, names, and tactics. The multiparty system has spawned alliances among most unlikely bedfellows, and a blurring of political ideologies. Each aggrupation advertises its bias for the poor, more health services, infrastructure, and education.
Most of all, each candidate projects an image of being “good”, and in doing so, portraying the opposite side as “evil”. All played out in real time, on television, radio and print.
Among the problems that has caught the attention of many is the campaign of the Catholic bishops and priests against the legislators who voted for the RH Bill.
For many Sundays, churchgoers have been passive listeners to the Diocesan Pastoral Letter purported to give moral guidance to the churchgoers as voters.
Last Sunday, the phrase: “Ayaw mo ug botar sa mga niboto sa RH Bill”(Do not vote for those who voted for the RH Bill)” was clearly spelled out, among the verbiage claiming the premise on moral guidance, even citing biblical references and other justifications.
One priest in the Cathedral even went out of his way, painting P-Noy in the negative light, right from the pulpit. The bishops and the priests claimed to be on the side of “good”, and inevitably, alluding to the team of P-Noy as “evil”.
Now, what can concerned churchgoers do, when held as a captive audience in the church?
Nothing. One just has to bear in silence this frontal assault on reason.
While our Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, there is an underlying principle of basic respect for the individual free will, and the gift of discernment, which require fair play.
When one expresses bias towards candidates of one type of persuasion, it should be done in a proper venue and at the proper time.
The pulpit in church was never meant to be a political platform, or a venue to demean or denigrate the character of any one, especially the President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III.
While the religious are entitled to espouse their own teachings, no one should use this position of trust and confidence to go into a one-sided diatribe.
This close-minded viewpoint had been carried to the extreme by the Diocese of Bacolod, when they refused to take down their oversized poster on Team Buhay vs. Team Patay, after they were instructed by the Commission on Elections. Instead, they filed a case for a temporary restraining order with the Supreme Court. In response, the COMELEC announced that it will take the necessary remedies and file the charges in court.
But Catholics bishops and priests should remember that they have a long way from claiming moral ascendancy.
This particular controversial Monsignor who attacks the RH Law supporters in his pastoral letters, is publicly known as the one who has a “girlfriend” conveniently stashed in a house which he caused to be constructed.
Or have they forgotten the “MitsuBishop Pajero” or the “Nissan SaPari” issue?
At the height of the PGMA impeachment, where did the P2 million grant, disguised as support for social action projects for Catholic dioceses, actually go?
Is it not that the clergy was silent during the time when they were supposed to stand for “good”?
Before they lose their credibility any further, the clergy should think hard about their own backyards.
It is of public knowledge that the Catholic Church is beset with sex scandals, corruption leaks — all the way up to the Vatican. So are these bishops and priests the force for “good”? Can we really paint the other side as “evil”?
Well, for some educated Catholics, these assertions of some bishops and priests can be dissected from their Catholic faith. Most of them are secure in their own religious formation.
In this season of Lent, these bishops and priests who engaged in black political propaganda are no different from the Pharisees who incited their believers into condemning Christ as a rebel, and turning them into a mob, shouting: “Crucify him!”
