All of a sudden the RH Bill is a signature away from becoming the RH Law. Recently, it’s been progressing so rapidly that you have to wonder: Why has it been stuck in legislation for so long?
There are several culprits, but three groups share most of the blame: bishops, legislators, and voters. Bishops, for bullying and lying to legislators; legislators, for allowing this theocratic meddling to happen; and voters, for electing both into positions of power. You read that right. Electing both. Because as I’ll explain, bishops are elected, too.
Obviously, there are no elections for Catholic bishops. The Roman Catholic Church is a theocracy, a dictatorship led by the Pope, an institution of the bishops, by the bishops, and for the bishops. Ordinary Catholics — the laity — have as much say in who they’re supposed to obey as in what they’re supposed to believe. That is, absolutely none.
But although there are no democratic elections in the usual sense, Catholics can still choose their bishops. If they wanted to, they could change their religious leaders any time they wanted. But first, they have to understand what it means to belong to their church.
Corporations
The Catholic Church is a corporation. A multinational corporation with several branches called dioceses. Both legally and dogmatically, a bishop is the boss of his diocese. You don’t change your boss by incompetence or insubordination. And you don’t change your bishop by disobedience or dissent.
Because the Catholic Church is a monolithic corporation, changing the bishop because you disagree with him is as difficult as changing the Pope himself. If you work for a company that doesn’t allow you to change your boss, the only way to change your boss is to move to another company.
Many Catholics take for granted that they’re not forced to be Catholic. It may not have been the case a few centuries ago, but people can now choose their religion without fear of death or torture. So remaining Catholic is a decision, however consciously the choice is made.
Bishops
Bishops aren’t elected, so choosing Catholicism implies choosing the Catholic bishops. When it comes to most religions, you can’t have one without the other. Still, there is freedom of religion. You could’ve chosen Islam (and its imams) or Buddhism (and its monks) or Judaism (and its rabbis) and so on. By choosing to be Catholic, you’ve essentially voted for Catholic bishops to represent you, regardless of how much — or how little — you agree with them.
A lot of pro-RH Catholics would object to this. What kind of RH advocate would want to be represented by bishops who routinely misinform and fear monger, even blaming natural calamities (Sendong, Habagat, Pablo) and human atrocities (school shootings) on the RH Bill?
They prefer to think they’re represented by progressive Catholic leaders, the silent pro-RH clergy who anonymously spammed text messages in support of RH, or the progressive theologians who say it’s OK to dissent because there’s freedom of conscience and, thus, freedom to dissent.
But there’s a reason the pro-RH clergy are silent: They could be fired by the Catholic Church, losing the little authority they have — not to mention their source of livelihood. And there’s a reason theologians are so relatively noisy: They can’t be fired by the Catholic Church — at least not directly — and they have no official authority whatsoever — at least not when it counts.
Think of it this way. A bishop is like an anti-RH congressman. Priests are members of his staff, and theologians are informal advisers and critics. The anti-RH congressman can have one or even several pro-RH staff (silent clergy). He can even surround himself with pro-RH advisers and critics (theologians).
But no matter how progressive the people around him are, only the congressman gets to cast and explain his vote on the RH Bill. And no matter how popular his staff or advisers are with his constituents, they won’t even be allowed to say a single word.
Clout
Religious organizations are essentially the same as political ones because both are ultimately after the same thing: numbers. If the CBCP has political clout, it’s because the Philippines is predominantly Catholic. In political terms, they have the most votes when the most recent religious elections were held.
Because our politicians don’t fully appreciate the principle of secularism, religious clout translates to political power. It’s no coincidence that our government panders to religious leaders in proportion to their religion’s numbers.
When the Pope and his closest bishops attend international human rights conventions, the world’s leaders listen to them for one reason, and it’s not the strength or validity of their arguments. It’s the fact that they represent 1.1 billion Catholics. And whether they like it or not, every Catholic, no matter how progressive, is counted.
Politics
I don’t know for sure, but I highly doubt that anyone in these conventions has refuted the Pope by asking him how many Catholics actually agree with him. The Vatican contingent has routinely weakened, delayed, and even blocked progressive developments on a global level. And every Catholic around the world shares the blame.
In the same way, every pro-RH Catholic shares the blame for the delay of the RH Bill, and inevitably, the difficulty of its implementation — not to mention all the other irrational, unscientific, and theocratic things the CBCP has the power to do.
We’ll have to wait for the coming elections to vote against anti-RH legislators, but Catholics can do something about their anti-RH bishops today. Choosing one’s religion has political ramifications, and it’s time more Catholics realize this.
When you belong to the Catholic Church, it’s not the pro-RH priests or progressive theologians you put in power. At the end of the day, it’s the bishops you vote for.
And let us not forget that these Filipino bishops are controlled by their handlers at the Vatican, mostly Italians. Their big boss is a German, I'm sure every Flipino knows this. All of them foreigners most of whom never set foot on Philippine soil. We Filipinos should never forget that about 120 years ago thousands of our ancestors died trying to rid our country of foreign rule — the Spaniards and the Americans to be specific. But little did we realize that another foreign power had taken residence deep within the Filipino society and the Filipino psyche, and this is the Vatican, which is located in the heart of Rome, Italy. For 500 years this foreign power ruled and controlled the lives of Filipinos, and this is still being felt today. We can be freethinkers, atheists, or agnostics, but are we patriots? Do we possess love of country? Love of our people? What is our purpose in life as freethinkers? We learned about Bonifacio, del Pilar, Aguinaldo, but we never learned about the thousands nameless Filipino patriots who gave up their lives to expel foreigners from our soil. And here we are, in the 21st century, still being ruled by a foreign power. What are we going to do as freethinkers?
I would give except ion to the Catholics for RH who bravely are trying to reclaim their Church by making their Bishops answerable to the sense of the majority faithful. A few very brave theologians joined us and spoke out and I know one Catholic nun who is an extremely repressive setting who did her best to convince those around her.
I think the laity spoke out good and well—look at the surveys. It is the priests and nuns who are proRH but did not speak who must do a lot of soul searching now. I must admit I had hoped to see a bigger breakaway of Catholic nuns and priests than what I saw.
And here is where we need analysis of the Church as you have done. It is so authoritarian that it has repressed dissent within itself. This is one indication that it has become dogmatic and has evolved from centralized and authoritarian to tyrannical.
For the laity, your question is valid–why stay with such a flawed institution? There are other ways to worship Christ that probably come closer to His real message. (I know, I am an agnostic but I accept that people genuinely can believe and for good reasons.) Obviously the Catholics for RH do not wish to cede their Catholic identity and their Church to the ideologues that now rule it. But perhaps others should think that if they cannot join this struggle, whether integrity demands that they leave.
For the pro RH priests and nuns the question is really whether they can still see their efforts as helping to build an institution they can believe in; one that can support their interpretations of what Christ's Church should be. The self reflection might be painful because some may no longer believe that they can make a difference but no longer have the option (age, lack of skills, fears of the secular world) to leave. For those who can leave, they should have the courage to do so. For those who cannot, the humility to accept that they have compromised.
Yep. We make our choices, the neighbors do not make them for us, the schools don't, our parents don't, our friends don't, not even the preachers do. We do, and the integrity of our choice is connected to the results we witness. If we back Sotto values, we get them. If we back a faith that believes women are second class, homosexuals should not exist, and men are raised in God's eyes if they abstain from ordinary sex . . . we get what we have seen. Overbearing attempts to intimidate reasonable and compassionate governmental acts and threats against the President and Mar Roxas, two people who are good and earnest workers on behalf of the Nation.
I back the President, and I back Mar Roxas.
That's my decision. It doesn't require endorsement from any church.