11 deaths a day. From a mere statistic it has become a mantra of the reproductive health (RH) movement. No matter how often it is repeated, 11 deaths a day still moves many to action and some to tears.

Yet the anti-RH — led by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and anti-choice Catholic organizations — doesn’t seem to care about 11 deaths a day. Some, such as Senator Sotto and his supporters, have more disparaging reactions, ranging from mere denial to outright ridicule.

Invariably, the anti-RH believe they are never responsible for 11 deaths a day. Yet even if they eventually realize that their anti-contraceptive position is indirectly responsible for thousands of maternal deaths — and even more due to AIDS and hunger, casualties that can also be minimized by effective contraception and sexual education — the realization wouldn’t make much of a difference.

Because for these anti-RH conservative Catholics, protecting human lives is not as important as respecting God. The act of disrespecting God — and the Church that claims to represent him — is called blasphemy:

Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God – inwardly or outwardly – words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one’s speech; in misusing God’s name… The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ’s Church, the saints, and sacred things.
– Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Gravity of Blasphemy

St. Thomas Aquinas, whose teachings also form the basis for opposing the RH bill, taught that blasphemy is a mortal sin punishable by death. For Aquinas, there’s no contradiction in killing someone for blasphemy, because he believed that blasphemy was even worse than murder:

If we compare murder and blasphemy as regards the objects of those sins, it is clear that blasphemy, which is a sin committed directly against God, is more grave than murder, which is a sin against one’s neighbor. On the other hand, if we compare them in respect of the harm wrought by them, murder is the graver sin, for murder does more harm to one’s neighbor, than blasphemy does to God. Since, however, the gravity of a sin depends on the intention of the evil will, rather than on the effect of the deed, as was shown above, it follows that, as the blasphemer intends to do harm to God’s honor, absolutely speaking, he sins more grievously that the murderer.

– St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

If blasphemy is worse than murder itself, it is surely worse than merely letting mortals die. So it doesn’t matter if maternal deaths — or deaths due to poverty and AIDS — do infinitely more damage to people and the families they leave behind; no damage can be dealt to an immortal deity. What matters to Aquinas is the intention, not the effect; the gravity of the sin, not its actual consequences. Blasphemy must be avoided at all costs — even if the cost is suffering and death.

The Speckled Monster in Montreal

In 1885, one of the most horrible examples of avoiding blasphemy at the cost of human lives happened during the smallpox epidemic in Montreal, Canada. Smallpox was also called the “red death” and the “speckled monster” because of how it stained and ultimately killed its victims:

No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal –the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

– Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

Although he wrote one of the most poetic descriptions of the disease, Poe was wrong about one thing: It was not fear of their appearance that kept the diseased from the aid and sympathy of their neighbors. It was dogma — the fear of blasphemy.

If the Catholic Church hadn’t used dogma to meddle with the government trying to contain the disease, many lives would have been saved. As James H. Marsh, editor in chief of The Canadian Encyclopedia, wrote, this is the real tragedy:

Smallpox is one of the most contagious and loathsome diseases ever to menace humanity. But the real tragedy of the smallpox epidemic in Montreal was that it was preventable. The practice of vaccination, developed by Edward Jenner in England in 1796, was so widespread and so successful that it was widely believed that the disease had been eradicated.

Deaths that can be prevented. By a scientific solution. That has already become so widespread and successful. Sound familiar?

Red Death and Reproductive Health

When it comes to the Catholic Church, history often repeats itself. Contraception is not the first scientific solution to a serious problem that bishops have blocked because they considered it blasphemous. Many examples of this meddling are recorded in Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. The book chronicles how the Church prevented progress in several sciences — geography, astronomy, geology, archeology, anthropology, biology, meteorology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and many others.

In each instance, the story would be the same:

1. Someone proposes a theory that is contrary to Church teaching — dogma, doctrine, or tradition.
2. The Church does everything in its power — blackmail, torture, murder — to oppose inquiry into and development of the theory.
3. Accepting or even considering the theory becomes difficult — especially when reputations and lives are at stake.
4. After unnecessary delay, the scientific community — and then society in general — accepts the theory and develops it further.
5. After even more delay, from years to centuries, the Church finally accepts the theory.

This pattern is especially pernicious when the Church hinders progress in Medicine. When it comes to medical progress, delay is measured not only in time wasted but in lives lost. The smallpox epidemic in Montreal struck me especially because it’s so similar to our RH experience. Below is White’s account interspersed with my comments, comparing Montreal’s experience with ours:

In that year [1885] the smallpox broke out with great virulence in Montreal. The Protestant population escaped almost entirely by vaccination; but multitudes of their Catholic fellow-citizens, under some vague survival of the old orthodox ideas [1 paste below the early protestant theological basis of the old orthodox ideas], refused vaccination; and suffered fearfully.

Many who have escaped Catholic brainwashing already use contraception effectively. More than their conservative counterparts, contraception users are capable of reaching their desired family size, avoiding HIV and AIDS, avoiding induced abortions, and preventing infant and maternal deaths.

When at last the plague became so serious that travel and trade fell off greatly and quarantine began to be established in neighboring cities, an effort was made to enforce compulsory vaccination. The result was, that large numbers of the Catholic working population resisted and even threatened bloodshed.

11 maternal deaths a day, 500,000 induced abortions a year, and 7 new HIV cases a day should be enough to convince us: the RH bill is badly needed. And unlike vaccination, contraception will not even be compulsory. Yet the resistance was just as intense: from misinformation and fear mongering to threats of revolution and civil disobedience.

The clergy at first tolerated and even encouraged this conduct [threatening bloodshed]: the Abbe Filiatrault, priest of St. James’s Church, declared in a sermon that, “if we are afflicted with smallpox, it is because we had a carnival last winter, feasting the flesh, which has offended the Lord; … it is to punish our pride that God has sent us smallpox.”

This is no different from religious leaders saying that HIV and AIDS are god’s punishment for promiscuity, homosexuality, and even contraception. This also reminds me of an anti-RH lecture, wherein the lecturer said that the disaster in Japan was sent by God to punish them for having population control.

The clerical press went further: the _Etendard_ exhorted the faithful to take up arms rather than submit to vaccination, and at least one of the secular papers was forced to pander to the same sentiment.

Rather than cooperate, the anti-RH threatened to react with revolution, civil disobedience, or by not paying taxes. And instead of just one secular paper pandering to the anti-RH, I’ve read several columnists and cartoonists whose opinion seems to be based on nothing but Catholic bias.

The Board of Health struggled against this superstition, and addressed a circular to the Catholic clergy, imploring them to recommend vaccination; but, though two or three complied with this request, the great majority were either silent or openly hostile.

Instead of helping the DOH educate those at risk, the CBCP and anti-choice organizations instead give out misinformation about contraceptives: they don’t work, they all cause cancer, they are abortifacients. They even said the RH Bill is worse than corruption.

The Oblate Fathers, whose church was situated in the very heart of the infected district, continued to denounce vaccination; the faithful were exhorted to rely on devotional exercises of various sorts; under the sanction of the hierarchy a great procession was ordered with a solemn appeal to the Virgin [2], and the use of the rosary was carefully specified.

By the time rosary was recommended, prayer had already been shown to be ineffective in other parts of the world. Inoculation and vaccination, on the other hand, had already saved countless lives. [3]

Maternal deaths, abortions, HIV, poverty — what does the Church recommend to solve today’s problems? Prayer. Faith, abstinence, natural family planning — we’ve tried these solutions and they’ve been shown to be inadequate at best, and outright failures at worst. And instead of just praying for solutions, the Catholic Church is even asking its flock to pray against the RH Bill, the most valid solution in sight.

Meantime, the disease, which had nearly died out among the Protestants, raged with ever-increasing virulence among the Catholics; and, the truth becoming more and more clear, even to the most devout, proper measures were at last enforced and the plague was stayed, though not until there had been a fearful waste of life among these simple-hearted believers, and germs of skepticism planted in the hearts of their children which will bear fruit for generations to come.

Like the other stories in White’s book, there was a happy ending for Montreal. But not before they paid the price. Smallpox is considered by many to be the most devastating disease known to man, killing more people than all other infectious diseases combined. The Catholic Church may not have known the extent of the devastation and the effects of their dogmatism then. But history and hindsight are now on their side.

True Blasphemy

They have a chance to learn from the smallpox tragedy for which they were indirectly responsible. But it seems they are content to continue committing the same mistakes. How much suffering and death must humanity pay before the Catholic Church finally learns that protecting human lives is more important than respecting an immortal God? And if there were a God, and if that God were good, I’m sure she’d agree.

If there were a good God, she’d take more offense at the Catholic Church’s hypocrisy: claiming to have the Truth while they continue to lie about contraception; claiming to be against corruption while they’re in cahoots with corrupt officials; claiming to be against poverty while they have billions they choose not to use for the poor; claiming to be experts on morality while they cover up and coddle clerical child abusers.

These hypocrites are the earthly representation of divine truth and righteousness? Now that’s blasphemy.
______________

[1] Theological Opposition to Inoculation and Vaccination

Below are excerpts from History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom showing how dogma made it difficult to accept inoculation and vaccination:

Rev. Edward Massey, who in 1772 preached and published a sermon entitled _The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation_. In this he declared that Job’s distemper was probably confluent smallpox; that he had been inoculated doubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by Providence for the punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to prevent them is “a diabolical operation.”

Not less vigorous was the sermon of the Rev. Mr. Delafaye, entitled _Inoculation an Indefensible Practice_.

A large body of ministers joined in denouncing the new practice as “flying in the face of Providence,” and “endeavouring to baffle a Divine judgment.”
Having thus settled his case for this world, they proceeded to settle it for the next, insisting that “for a man to infect a family in the morning with smallpox and to pray to God in the evening against the disease is blasphemy”; that the smallpox is “a judgment of God on the sins of the people,” and that “to avert it is but to provoke him more”; that inoculation is “an encroachment on the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it is to wound and smite.”

Among the mass of scriptural texts most remote from any possible bearing on the subject one was employed which was equally cogent against any use of healing means in any disease–the words of Hosea: “He hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.”

So bitter was this opposition that Dr. Boylston’s life was in danger; it was considered unsafe for him to be out of his house in the evening; a lighted grenade was even thrown into the house of Cotton Mather, who had favoured the new practice, and had sheltered another clergyman who had submitted himself to it.

“It was good that Satan should be dispossessed of his habitation which he had taken up in men in our Lord’s day, but it was not lawful that the children of the Pharisees should cast him out by the help of Beelzebub. We must always have an eye to the matter of what we do as well as the result, if we intend to keep a good conscience toward God.” But the facts were too strong; the new practice made its way in the New World as in the Old, though bitter opposition continued, and in no small degree on vague scriptural grounds, for more than twenty years longer.

The steady evolution of scientific medicine brings us next to Jenner’s discovery of vaccination. Here, too, sundry vague survivals of theological ideas caused many of the clergy to side with retrograde physicians. Perhaps the most virulent of Jenner’s enemies was one of his professional brethren, Dr. Moseley, who placed on the title-page of his book, _Lues Bovilla_, the motto, referring to Jenner and his followers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”: this book of Dr. Moseley was especially indorsed by the Bishop of Dromore. In 1798 an Anti-vaccination Society was formed by physicians and clergymen, who called on the people of Boston to suppress vaccination, as “bidding defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God,” and declared that “the law of God prohibits the practice.” As late as 1803 the Rev. Dr. Ramsden thundered against vaccination in a sermon before the University of Cambridge, mingling texts of Scripture with calumnies against Jenner;

[2] The Church’s Failed Smallpox Solution: Devotion to Mother Mary

At high mass, yesterday, in the Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Rev. Father Emard read the Papal decree, which is considered as applying to the smallpox epidemic in Montreal, and which was issued by his Holiness Pope Leo XIII… The decree alludes to the ravages of epidemic and plagues among the faithful throughout the world last year, and impresses upon Roman Catholics the efficiency of prayer in crushing these regrettable calamities.

– New York Times Archives

To Mary, therefore, we must fly – to her whom rightly and justly the Church entitles the dispenser of saving, aiding, and protecting gifts – that she, graciously hearkening to our prayers, may grant us the help they besought, and drive far from us the unclean plague.

– Leo XIII

[3] The Effectiveness of Vaccination

In Berlin, during the eight years following 1783, over four thousand children died of the smallpox; while during the eight years following 1814, after vaccination had been largely adopted, out of a larger number of deaths there were but five hundred and thirty-five from this disease. In Wurtemberg, during the twenty-four years following 1772, one in thirteen of all the children died of smallpox, while during the eleven years after 1822 there died of it only one in sixteen hundred. In Copenhagen, during twelve years before the introduction of vaccination, fifty-five hundred persons died of smallpox, and during the sixteen years after its introduction only one hundred and fifty-eight persons died of it throughout all Denmark. In Vienna, where the average yearly mortality from this disease had been over eight hundred, it was steadily and rapidly reduced, until in 1803 it had fallen to less than thirty; and in London, formerly so afflicted by this scourge, out of all her inhabitants there died of it in 1890 but one. As to the world at large, the result is summed up by one of the most honoured English physicians of our time, in the declaration that “Jenner has saved, is now saving, and will continue to save in all coming ages, more lives in one generation than were destroyed in all the wars of Napoleon.”

– Andrew Dickson White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

Morality is such a divisive issue. In simple terms, morality is “the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.” The divisiveness lies not in whether an act is in accord with certain standards of right and wrong, but on which standard should the rightness or wrongness of an act be judged.

In society, Church morality and secular morality often come into conflict with each other because their standards, and especially their underlying premises which dictate these standards, are as different as night and day. As such, their moral conflict is essentially a matter of premise, as follows:

.

With such opposing premises, it is of no great surprise that the Church blames secularism for destroying the morals of society, while secularists accuse the Church of trying to impose a misogynistic and bigoted moral system straight out of the Middle Ages.

For instance, on the issue of birth control, the Church asserts that it is God’s will that the unitive aspect of sex cannot be isolated, through man’s initiative, from its procreative purpose, meaning sex should not be done only for the sake of pleasure and bonding while avoiding the responsibility that comes with bearing children. And on the issue of gay marriage, the Church insists that God designed marriage to be the exclusive union between a man and a woman.

Secularism, on the other hand, operating on the premise that no one really knows the will of God – assuming he exists – has no objection towards contraceptive sex as long as the state laws on marriage, rape, and abortion are not violated. As for gay marriage, secularism has no opposition to its legalization as long as it is between two consenting adults.

If a moral system is based on the premises of the Church, it is easily justifiable to ban contraception and gay marriages since both are condemned by God, and the pleasures as well as the sacrifices of this life are nothing compared to the potential happiness and suffering in the next. But as the blogger Philosophy Bro once tweeted, ”‘Because God said so’ isn’t a bad excuse if He really said so – proving that is the hard part.”

Since it is clear to the secularist that this life is the only life we really know exists, welfare and happiness in this life should take precedence over any imaginable but unverifiable condition after death – especially since we have absolutely no idea how to secure an advantage in the next life, if there is one. What’s wrong with passionate sex without the possibility of pregnancy if both partners are enjoying it and hurting no one, not even a fetus or a zygote? What’s so objectionable about two people of the same gender falling in love with each other and wanting nothing more than to publicly proclaim such love and enjoy the legal rights and benefits of a state-sanctioned union?

These intimacy and relationship issues appear to go beyond the appreciation of the Church hierarchy, who in turn seem intent on imposing a great deal of self-denial on others not only by preaching against hedonistic sex but by actually blocking laws that help poor couples enjoy sex without having more children than they can feed. As Bertrand Russell said, “Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.” Indeed, what can one expect from powerful men whose own institutional tradition bound them to become lifelong virgins?

The official news website of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recently published an article titled “Church and state: Why can’t they be friends?” which tells of the Pope’s warning on the dangers of secularism.  The following are some key excerpts pertinent to the Philippine situation and worthy of analysis, in an attempt to answer the title question why the church and state can’t indeed be friends.

[T]he pope warns that societies without the moorings of Christian values will be lost at sea, unaware of or indifferent to the truth that anchors humanity to justice, peace, respect and solidarity.

This statement implies that the principles of justice, peace, respect, and solidarity are held exclusively not only by religion, but by a particular religion, which is Christianity. It is a very arrogant statement that insults not only nonbelievers but believers of other faiths as well. Such a premise alone is already reason enough as to why church and state cannot be friends.

The separation of church and state, which is a hallmark of a democracy, “has also gone onto the separation of God and life unfortunately,” in which religious beliefs and values are expected to be left not only out of the process of public decision-making, but out of people’s own personal lives, too, he [Fr. Theodore Mascarenhas] said.

Secularism does not really intend to eradicate religion as much as keep religion a private affair. In our country alone, millions depend on religion for hope, happiness, and peace of mind, and secularism has no problem with that. It’s one thing to want to keep religion separate from government; it’s totally another thing to try to wipe it out.

One key topic, in fact, under discussion at the 2010 special Synod of Bishops for the Middle East was how to promote “positive secularism,” a form of separation of government and religion that still allows people’s faith to have a role in society without consecrating one religion as the religion of the state. The church supports a form of church-state separation that ensures religions have a voice in society and that laws reflect moral values — including laws dealing with life and marriage.

The main problem here is that different religions disagree among themselves on important issues including those involving marriage, such as birth control and divorce – both of which the Roman Catholic Church condemns while other religions accept. If our laws were to reflect religious moral values, the halls of congress would be filled with a cacophony of voices and our laws would conflict with one another.

In the West, secularism is understood as the problem of God being foisted out of the public sphere; but for the East, it’s a positive state of affairs in which governments show respect and protect all religions, letting them have a voice and not treating anyone better than the others, he said.

In the Philippines, one religion has the loudest voice and is listened to more than others.

“A real church-state separation would be that the church can freely express and ask its followers to adhere to the principles it holds dear,” Father Mascarenhas said.

Sounds just about right, for as long as the legislators, most of whom are members of both state and church, do not forget that they represent the former when they are in congress, even as they heed the latter for guidance on how they live their personal lives.

“Show me one human situation that is not reflected in the Gospel,” he said. Not only are the human challenges of death, fear, doubt and persecution detailed in the Bible, it also spells out the solutions, too.

How about three: cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering. But there’s a situation about disobedient servants that the Gospel of Luke (12:47) talks about and spells out a solution to: “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.” Should this be incorporated in our Labor Code?

“The answer to death is the resurrection, and the answer to doubt and anguish like Jesus felt in the garden of Gethsemane is give yourself over to the will of God,” he said.

But who gets to declare what the will of God is, assuming he exists? The Vatican? What about the other sects and denominations? What about the other religions?

In The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer wrote:

“Religious freedoms must always be protected, but the price for this security is the separation of religion from government. Historically, where church and state were wed, individual liberty suffered, including and especially religious liberty.”

Former supreme court justice Isagani A. Cruz explained this separation as follows:

“The rationale of the rule is summed up in the familiar saying, ‘Strong fences make good neighbors.’ The idea is to delineate the boundaries between the two institutions and thus avoid encroachments by one against the other because of a misunderstanding of the limits of their respective exclusive jurisdictions.”

Indeed, Church and State can be good neighbors for as long as the strong fence of secularism stands between them, because rights are trampled every time either of them crosses that fence and steps into the other’s territory. And no matter how noble their intentions are, they can never, ever be friends.

______________

Image from www.thesimsupply.com

A false notion of secularism is that it prohibits any form of public religious expression. At least that much I can agree with on John Pesebre’s recent article. Where he chooses to go from there, however, is an entirely different train wreck.

First and foremost, he states that Red’s recent article exhibits the false notion stated above. Nowhere in the article was it stated that the act was an outright violation of the separation of church and state. All it did was express valid concern over how this prayer was done in poor taste.

Let it be clear that we know how secularism does not prohibit any form of public religious expression. If we’re going to delve strictly into legal terms–”No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”–there was no violation as no laws were made that pass the criteria for one. As some would incessantly insist, it would appear to be “just another prayer”. Well it would not have been a problem if our dear senator had said the prayer in his bed, or with his family, or before his meal, or before eating his family in bed. Heck, he could have even prayed in senate on his own and you wouldn’t have heard as much as a squeak from us. The clincher, however, is how the obviously Christian prayer was broadcast on a pedestal that is the highest legislative office of a country to its pluralistic people. If that does not send a message of Christianity dominating as the pseudo-official state religion, then I don’t know what does.

In the end, Pesebre even suggests that we just let it go, arguing that there are many more important things to speak up about. True, there are many other important things that we could speak up about, but that in no way stops us from speaking up about something seemingly small in society that we find wanting correction. Non-participation would be a valid option in most cases, but this is the Senate we’re talking about, and unless you’re willing to boycott the national facade that we call a democracy, I would suggest you speak up when there’s something you want to change about it. And it’s not like it will take tons of effort to fix this one problem. Pesebre’s suggestion of spending effort on other things implies that not praying would take lots of time away from other more important things, when the truth is all that has to be done by each senator to solve the problem of expressing religious favoritism during government time is not praying.

There are some of us who are sick and tired of being told to just deal with it, as if it was the most harmless thing in the world. It gets even worse when we see our taxes paying for time wasted on fancy words that don’t work. Yes, our taxes. Session time is secular time is precious time. And I can’t think of a worse way to defend secularism than to argue in favor of accommodating all forms of religious expression altogether. If the members of senate were diverse enough to belong to 10 different religious sects, I wonder how many would still be in favor of hearing each and every one of their prayers before settling down to finally do what their constituents are actually paying them to do.

In a nutshell, we contend that there should be no prayers or sectarian practices in any government-sponsored event. Whether or not this is legal is open to much discussion, but it is clearly an ideal that some of us seek to achieve, not only for our wish that religious influence in government affairs be lessened, but also for the simple courtesy of being considerate to people of other (or no) faith when engaging matters concerning our common government. If you say that you’re going to talk about something that concerns all of us, don’t go ahead and talk about something that doesn’t concern all of us. That is, unless you’re passive-aggressively hinting that we don’t matter. But c’mon, senators wouldn’t do that.

Would they?

—

[Image from: http://ashleyconnick.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/off-target.jpg]

These things have to happen first thing in the morning.

What joy.

After my class this morning, I had to sign something in the front desk of where I work. The form had no dates, and I readily admit I always forget what day/date it is on a constant basis. So I turned to the receptionist and asked, “Ano nga ba petsa ngayon?” (“What’s the date today?”)

She looked at me as if I swallowed an infant, rolled her eyes, and said, “September 8! HELLO! Birthday ni Mama Mary, noh!”

In a singular sentence, she has concisely encompassed my problem with how some Catholics act, talk and think. In my mind, the two words that flashed were: What arrogance.

Let me state, clearly, for the record, before anyone imputes something twisted into my statements and my past blog entries: I have no problem with Catholics practicing their faith. To each his/her own, live and let live. I am a fan of all those sayings. Not just because they’re stated in popular expressions, but because it is the right thing to do.

We are all familiar with the Golden Rule: Do unto others what you would others do to you.

I would never imagine telling someone that “based on MY faith, you are doing something wrong!”. Yet, day after day, I see Catholics who have no problem doing the exact same thing, and frighteningly, on a national scale. They see it as their “business” to meddle with someone who doesn’t share the same faith at all!

What arrogance.

It is arrogant to presume that the things you believe in as a matter of personal faith are the exact same things I would also believe in. Who gave you the right to make that unfounded, ridiculous assumption? When I was still in elementary and high school, the one thing I remember clearly being taught was that “no special position/place is to be assigned to Mary. She is merely a vessel for Jesus. She is also human. We only worship God, not other humans.”

As a teenager, I always found it odd when Catholics prayed to “Mama Mary”, based on what I was taught in my religion. But I would never dream of ever going up to any Catholic and say, “You are wrong to pray to Mary, she is nothing special!”. That is what your faith professes and practices, and I will always respect that.

Unfortunately, you do not return the favor.

Instead, you feel it your “right” to tell me, and anyone else who doesn’t share your faith, to “follow our way, we are holding ‘the truth’!”.

You expect us to know who your saints are.

You expect us to know their birthdays.

You expect us to also pray the rosary.

You expect us to be silent when a priest says mass.

You expect us to follow your stance of viewing women as inferior to men.

You expect us to view gay people as abominations.

You expect us to hate the people your religion “allows” you to hate.

What arrogance.

This is exactly why I strongly support keeping the discussion of religion out of the public sphere. Matters of faith and religion are intensely private affairs, they are decisions that are based on personal beliefs.

I need to emphasize the word personal.

That is a decision you come to on your own. And if that is the case, you need to ackowledge the fact that each and every person is different. It is only right, therefore, to keep matters of faith to yourself.

Using your faith to claim some illusory mantle of moral superiority reeks to me of false entitlement and haughtiness. No one faith is “better” than another. (It always goes back to it being a personal choice. You choose what is best for you, and no one else.) It doesn’t matter if there are 100 million in one religion and just 2 million sharing 55 other faiths. Numbers do not give you the right to judge another person’s religion as being “inferior” to yours.

Back to this morning, I finished signing, then turned to the receptionist, and said: “File this, and file it in your brain that not everyone is a Catholic.”

Something that bears repeating in a country that assumes everyone is.

–

Image from georgiehoon.multiply.com

Some anti-RH arguments are so stupid that satirizing them is almost too easy. Consider this series of lectures from an anti-RH forum four months ago. If we took the commentary out of the recap post, it could have passed for satire[1]. Which is why it took little effort from one of our writers to turn it into one of the most successful posts on our site. As of this writing, it’s received 95,187 views, 27,510 likes, and 4,745 comments.

Another successful satirical post is the one about the CBCP trademarking the term “Catholic.” It’s not as successful in terms of views, likes, and comments, but it succeeded in a different way: Despite the more ridiculous claims I tried to sell in that post, journalists from both social media and mainstream media bought it. Abante even interviewed several key people about the issue and published their report on the front page. (And they didn’t even give credit to their main source.)

What made these posts successful is the fact that although many of the claims made are false, they ring true. We never heard anyone use caves and the ocean floor as an argument against overpopulation. Nor did we hear that the CBCP even considered trademarking the term “Catholic,” let alone “moral,” “family,” and “life.” But these claims are at least consistent with much of the thinking and behavior that characterizes anti-RH individuals and organizations. This is key: In order to satirize well, you have to be able to characterize your target accurately.

This is why it’s close to impossible for the anti-RH to satirize the pro-RH. Either they don’t know the pro-RH position well enough, or they distort it too much it becomes unrecognizable except to them. In other words, instead of portraying the pro-RH, they create a straw man:

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Consider how the pro-RH position was portrayed in the anti-RH forum mentioned above. They say that “separating sex from procreation develops in the person an anti-life mentality.” In other words, they’re saying that using contraception will make people hate life — treat pregnancy like a disease, despise babies, etc. You must be thinking that they couldn’t possibly mean this; their position must be more nuanced than that. But they also said in the forum that in Japan, when the elderly can no longer be supported, the pro-choice solution would be to kill them.

Would it really be possible for the pro-RH to kill their parents and grandparents? Do the pro-RH really hate babies and think pregnancy is a disease? Do the pro-RH really think RH is good only because the US says it is? Do the pro-RH really hate reproduction and health and only advocate RH because they want money? These are just some of the straw men anti-RH advocates love attacking. I’ve met hundreds of RH advocates, and none of them fit these false characterizations.

While satire reveals truths about its target, straw man arguments say less about the target and more about its author. Are the anti-RH so helpless in the face of the real pro-RH position that they’re left grasping at straws?

***

[1] Since Youtube User Tamtampam thanked God for an earthquake that killed thousands of atheists in Japan, netizens have been debating about whether she was doing satire. Only when she came out as a troll was the question really answered. It’s tough to tell satire from straight news because there are actually people who think God should be thanked for teaching Japan a lesson. One of them is our very own Dr. Montes, from the same anti-RH forum above:

(while showing the population growth rates of Japan) “Ayokong isipin pero hindi ko ma-help i-connect yung disaster sa Japan doon sa facts na ang tagal-tagal na nilang nagaabortion at may policy on population control.” (I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t help connecting the disaster in Japan with the fact that the Japanese have long been purveyors of abortion and population control.)

Years ago, I needed to go to the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) to file something-or-other. It pains me to have to go through this country’s bureaucratic, uhm, processes, but some things are just unavoidable. I remember going mid-afternoon because of the stifling heat, and wanted to minimize my exposure to it.

The guard directed me to the main office where the general transactions are filtered. I forget now if there was a queue or a number system, but I was waiting to be served. Suddenly, there was an announcement over the PA system, saying “It is now 3 o’clock. Please stand up for our midday prayer.”

Dumbfounded, I searched for the insignia that said “Republic of the Philippines – Bureau of Internal Revenue.”

I was in the right place, at a government office that I needed to be in.

Why was I suddenly in the middle of a prayer meeting?

This is my life as a non-Catholic, in what has long been touted as “the only Catholic nation in Asia”.

Back at the BIR, most everyone stood up, and recited what seemed to me like a rehearsed prayer. It was apparently something they’ve been doing all their lives, because even as they “prayed,” some were combing their hair, some were passing snacks around, still others were fiddling with their computers or documents on the table, all while “praying.” Talk about multitasking.

There were two other people in that area who also remained seated, like me. Our eyes glanced at each other, and I remember the older gentleman shrugging his shoulders as our eyes met, as if to say “Wala tayong magagawa.” (“We can’t do anything.”) We obviously were the non-Catholics in the room, and saw no reason to pray – certainly not a prayer that wasn’t one of our choosing or one we didn’t even know the words to!

This exclusion from the religious majority is something that I have had to deal with all my life. I have never been a Catholic, nor had the desire to be one, even though we lived in a village that had their more-than-plain-pious Catholic badge stamped all over. The village church would always broadcast its prayers so that the entire neighborhood could hear them, and when the announcer always came to the part that said “pray for us, now and in the hour of our death,” my mom would always cast a frown, because in the religion that we were taught, once you’re dead, no more intercessions can be made, you will be judged on how you lived, period. She would always say that if we could “pray our way into heaven,” then there really is no point in doing/being good, because people on earth could still “pray” for you to get into heaven anyway, which made a lot of sense to me back then, and even until now.

I was pretty much shielded from the exclusion up until my high school years, because we went to a conservative Protestant school, and boy, was religion pounded into us rigorously. We had Sunday school, church services, one of our required subjects was Bible class, and every school activity started with prayers, invocations, and a smattering of Bible readings and verses. As you can tell, I was never a stranger to religious indoctrination or preaching. So I am well aware when a religion is trying to extend its influence on my life.

Only when I entered college did I slowly but surely start feeling that I was a very small part in the religious mix of this country. As is the case with most freshman classes, they usually assign “blocks” which made sure that you would have the same classmates subject after subject. When they started introducing themselves, they were all from Saint something-or-other school. And there would be the ever-present “preachers” who would ask if I wanted to join them in Bible study or some prayer meeting (I don’t really know what it was called). Whenever the block would meet socially or for homework/assignments, there would be a rosary and a corresponding prayer present. One of them asked why I didn’t seem to be praying, and when I said that I wasn’t Catholic and I didn’t know what they were praying, she said, “Oh…that’s right. You’re a Protestant.” Then she looked at me with a mixture of pity and ridicule.

Outside of school, in other social gatherings like parties of our relatives, the same thing would happen over and over. Most of my relatives are Catholics, and we would be forced to go along with whatever rituals it was that they did.

The biggest observation I’ve gathered,  based on what I experienced in my formative years in school, and what I experience now that I have become the minority, is that the Protestant indoctrination happens in a private setting, either in a church or a school that was clearly affiliated with that religion. And my parents chose that school – children don’t really have a say yet where to study in the elementary and high school years – it was chosen out of their own religious convictions.

It was, therefore, a big surprise that even in a supposedly non-conformist and secular environment such as UP (the University of the Philippines), the Catholic influence is so pervasive and intrusive so as to force people to do things that are clearly counter to one’s religious convictions or preferences. True, it wasn’t a police state situation, where there were armed guards ready to beat the daylights out of me if I failed to pray a rosary. But the ensuing judgement and pressure to act Catholic – in appearance only, which is what truly matters – is something even more potent than if it were a stick threatening to beat me for not conforming.

A well-meaning (Catholic) friend did listen to me harping on this point, and her response was something that I have heard countless times as the “bleeding heart” response: “I know it’s hard, pero ano ba naman mawawala sayo kung mag rosaryo ka, o magpakitang tao ka na nagdadasal ka din? Ilang minuto lang naman yun, tapos back to regular programming na, diba?” (“I know it’s hard, but what will you lose if you do the rosary, or just show people that you are also praying, just for show? After a few minutes, we’re back to regular programming, right?”)

I suppose I could let it slide, but what about the concept of freedom of religion?

Last I looked, we have a Constitution that guarantees that “no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion” and “no religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.” (Section 5, Article 3, Bill of Rights, 1987 Philippine Constitution. See http://www.chanrobles.com/article3.htm for full entry.)

Which is what has been weighing on my mind as a response to that: Why should I be forced to do it? Why should I be forced to follow Catholic doctrine when I am not a Catholic by faith nor choice?

In the current debates about the RH (Reproductive Health) Bill, it is rather clear to me that despite all the secular arguments that the anti-RH camp has come up with, the “fire” that keeps them burning with the intensity to oppose the RH Bill is because their religion (and religious leaders) dictates to them that artificial contraception is “immoral.” Note, however, that they are not against contraception per se - withdrawal, rhythm method, abstinence, these are all forms of contraception. (For those foaming at the mouth at this last sentence, kindly check the meaning of the word “contraception,” because it includes any method that prevents the sperm from meeting the egg.) So, as long as the kind of contraception has the “Catholic-approved” seal stamped on it, they see nothing “wrong.”

This intrusion has gone far enough.

The “fire” that gives me my intensity to fight for the RH Bill is because this is symptomatic of what I have had to fight for all my life: The freedom to choose my own religion, and be free from attempts to undermine that choice by clerics who would have their religious doctrines – Catholic, of course – be inscribed into law, subverting the concept of freedom of religion. This is essentially what the battle lines have become: Which side will you be on? One which honors and respects everyone’s religious preferences, and even the absence of one, as not everyone needs religion to have a fulfilling, meaningful life? Or the side that forcefully abrogates a singular religious doctrine, so that all will be forced to follow, regardless of religious preference?

I was never against Catholicism. I still am not. (Even though I find its mysogynistic and homophobic stances horrible.) Most of my friends are Catholics. This doesn’t hamper our friendships because they have never sought to forcefully induct me into their religion. Neither do I wish for them to change their religions because I don’t share the same one as theirs. We live and let live.

But when my rights as a non-Catholic are being readied to be trampled on, you can expect me to be uncompromising in defending my rights to the last. Stay out of my life, religious or otherwise. Why can’t we learn to respect each other’s preferences? Are tolerance and respect such alien and difficult concepts that men who claim to be the arbiters of morality cannot comprehend them on any given level?

Until the day that we officially turn into a Catholic theocracy, I will not be silenced.

–

Image taken from bible.ca

_{The following was published in Manila Standard Today on August 27, 2011}

If you respect the separation of church and state mandated by our Constitution, you can find better ways to start Senate hearings than saying a prayer. Yet this is just what our senators do, and the start of the debates on the reproductive health bill were no different.

What bothers me more than the fact that a prayer was said in a supposedly secular setting was what the prayer implied, politically.

The prayer was supposed to be led by Senator Panfilo Lacson, but because of problems with his voice, he asked Senator Vicente Sotto to do it in his place. Considering the content of the prayer, I’m sure Sotto was more than happy to oblige.

The prayer was originally delivered in 1996 by American Pastor Joe Wright to the Kansas House of Representatives. Legislators, including the House minority leader, criticized the prayer for its “extreme, radical” views. At least one legislator walked out. When the same prayer was said in the Colorado House of Representatives later that year, more legislators were angered; several walked out.

The reaction of our own senators to the same prayer was apathy—it was just another prayer. But senators who respect secularism, especially those who support the reproductive health bill, should have reacted at least as strongly as the American legislators did.

Not only is the prayer sectarian, it’s also anti-choice, and therefore, anti-RH. Here it is in full:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state. Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

What do these words imply?

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.”

Right from the start, the prayer privileges Judeo-Christian religions over non-Abrahamic ones. It implies that talk on good and evil should be done in religious terms, and it precludes the possibility of secular morality.

“We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.”

This implies that the Christian Bible is the basis for truth, and that pluralism —respecting the beliefs of many religions instead of just one—is bad.

“We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.”

So belonging to religions other than Christianity is wrong?

“We have killed our unborn and called it choice.”

Although our senators do not support killing the unborn, this statement frames the discourse by associating choice with abortion, a tactic frequently used by anti-RH legislators and advocates.

“We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.”

This part is more relevant to a previous Senate hearing on the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ “Kulo” issue. Just the same, it privileges the Christian perspective as the arbiter of what’s profane and pornographic.

“We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.”

This implies that the “time-honored values” criticized by the Enlightenment —theocracy, anti-rationalism, clericalism, etc.—are better than Enlightenment values—democracy, rationalism, secularism.

“I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ.”

Although most senators are Christian, the content of the prayer promotes a particular brand of conservative Christianity. What’s worse, the prayer completely ignores the beliefs of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and other non-Christian Filipinos our legislators are equally obligated to represent.

After Sotto concluded the prayer, not a single senator walked out. As far as I know, none have criticized it. Instead the other senators reverently made the sign of the cross and raised their bowed heads—like they always do. After all, it was just another prayer.

I recently had the pleasure of watching the absurdist play HARING +UBU-L XXX staged by the Sipat Lawin Ensemble at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Surprisingly, the content of the play wasn’t the most bizarre and surreal part of my day hanging around the CCP. At the open forum held on the Kulô exhibit and Mideo Cruz’s controversial Poleteismo, Catholic conservatives composed of priests, businessmen, and anti-choice activists lectured artists on what art is, in CCP. Apologies to the Sipat Lawin Ensemble but even their hilarious avant-garde piece couldn’t possibly compete with the sheer audacity of these conservatives.

What the conservative Catholics kept braying about during the forum was that Cruz’s piece offended the majority of Filipinos, which is still dominated by the Catholic Church, just going by the numbers. They still seem unable, however, to fathom the possibility of dissent among their ranks by naively assuming that every person baptized in the Catholic Church as a baby agrees with their single-minded cause of suppressing individual freedoms.

Yolly Gamutan, National Secretary of the Catholic Youth League of the Philippines, should be commended for saying something in the forum that every other conservative has been thinking these past months but was never brave enough to voice out. She said that “…to be Catholic, we cannot be independent in our thinking….” This brief moment of sincerity perfectly frames all the culture war issues in the Philippines right now—from divorce to the ever-contentious RH bill.

The underlying idea being fought over via church bulletin boards, bumper stickers, and Facebook walls is the seemingly novel concept of freedom. In this issue, the CBCP and its cohorts seem unaware that the concept of free expression is meaningless if it were meant only to protect the agreeable but not the offensive. And it appears that the word “freedom” means entirely different things depending on whether a conservative Catholic says it or whether a proponent of free speech says it.

To the conservatives, freedom is simply the “freedom” to act according to God’s will. This Bo Sanchez-esque cliché pervades each and every action the CBCP and its front organizations present to the public. The whole notion of self-determination and the freedom to act according to one’s own independent thoughts and beliefs is alien to them. The clerico-fascism that is the spirit of our times is crusaded for by the Church under the guise of well-meaning and an honest belief that they know better than everyone else. They’re only suppressing liberties because they know for a fact that people couldn’t possibly willfully disobey God or freely choose to go to hell.

Another absurdity proudly flaunted by the conservatives during the open forum was their call for relying on a so-called “absolute universal standard for art”. Instead of progress and a sign of maturity, they see the acceptance of new things as a sign of relativism, which is a mortal sin. The call for universal standards for art itself betrays a sense of crippling self-doubt on the part of the conservatives that the brain their Creator made for them is incapable of reaching its own conclusions. This Creator who is apparently so thin-skinned that even though he is able to create supernovas and black holes, he is still insecure enough to be insulted by what some insignificant creature built in some tiny planet. I am amazed at the gall and bravado of these mere humans who claim to speak for the feelings of an omnipotent deity, saying that God is offended by some art installation no one else would have seen had they not raised a stink about it. And they say it is the atheist who is arrogant and self-possessed.

Children, as expected, were used as arguments against Cruz’s work. Think of the children who would see such obscenities and sex-related imagery! But, I think I understand now who the children they keep referring to are. It is the conservative Catholics themselves who are the children—incapable of deciding for themselves what is right, impotent in the face of nuance, and unable to comprehend that other people exist and that they have their own wills and minds.

They called Cruz’s piece “trash” and “pornography” while unwittingly involving themselves in what is itself art—the unending discourse of what art is. And I should love to see a reenactment of the farce that occurred that Friday at the CCP. No avant-garde movement could ever challenge the sheer bombast and ludicrousness of the Catholic Church and the people who speak for it.

I’m ambivalent about Sen. Santiago’s RH sponsorship speech. As an RH advocate, I’m happy. Her speech was effective in terms of increasing the chances of the RH Bill passing.

But as an advocate of secularism, I’m disappointed. She replaced arguing from one religious perspective — CBCP’s version of Catholicism — with arguing from another religious perspective — the progressive Catholicism adhered to by most Catholic advocates I know.

This wouldn’t be a problem if she held progressive Catholicism as one of her private motivations for being pro-RH. But to use it as a public argument in Senate is indefensible. This bears repeating: The Philippine Constitution states that secularism shall be inviolable. Although the Philippines may be predominantly Catholic, it should have a secular government — one that is religiously neutral.

Sen. Santiago’s speech is as religiously biased as it gets. How many times did she mention God and the Church in her speech? She didn’t even try to be pluralistic; she could have made God and Church applicable to other religions. But it was clear from the start that she was focused on no other religion but the Roman Catholic one.

Her main argument was that Catholics shouldn’t blindly obey the priests and Popes, their doctrines and dogmas; they should follow their conscience instead. Why? Because the 2nd Vatican council said so. But by following their conscience, Catholics will only be obeying a different group of priests and Popes and doctrines and dogmas.

And while Sen. Santiago argues with the CBCP about which group of religious leaders Catholics should follow, non-Catholic Filipinos remain unrepresented. Non-Catholics don’t care what a Catholic Pope or bishop says. Nor should a secular government.

Some might think it’s a good thing Sen. Santiago is fighting fire with fire, pitting her progressive theology against the CBCP’s conservative version. But by doing so, she has conceded the battleground. She has implicitly agreed that the RH bill is also about theology — the CBCP’s preferred arena. Instead of setting the stage for secular arguments, she left the door open for CBCP’s religious arguments. And in a supposedly secular Senate, even one is too many.

I believe the RH bill has come this far because of a shift toward a more secular outlook — decreasing trust in religious arguments and supernatural causes, increasing reliance on scientific evidence and real-world effects. Although it aims to weaken an ancient authority, Sen. Santiago’s speech strengthens an ancient paradigm: the Philippines is a Catholic country and you have to use Catholic arguments to change it.

Maybe Sen. Santiago thinks the only way to win the RH battle is to fight it theologically. A victory against the CBCP on its own turf might just be the push the RH bill needs to pass. Though such a victory is still uncertain, one thing’s for sure: using theology as a tactic is a clear defeat in the fight for secularism.

In this episode, we discuss President Benigno Aquino’s second State of the Nation Address, and we deliver our own State of Secularism Address.

Every night, millions of poor Filipinos pray that when they wake up, they’d no longer be poor. Answering these prayers would take nothing short of a miracle. And a miracle, by definition, is highly improbable; just witnessing one is considered a blessing by many.

But a miracle might just be what Romulo Macalintal has performed. Together with Lito Atienza, Macalintal led a campaign to replace the vehicles returned by Catholic bishops in the wake of the recent PCSO scandal. In less than two weeks of fundraising, donations exceeded a million pesos.

But it’s not the amount of donations that I consider miraculous. Nor is it the fact that they were collected in less than half a month. The fact that Macalintal managed to convince so many that the bishops needed money — now that’s a miracle.

Because as friend and fellow RH advocate Elizabeth Angsioco pointed out, the bishops are filthy rich:

Based on Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) 7 July 2011 records, their holdings in these corporations are now worth a whopping P18,040,238,371.80.

There are a few more minor holdings that are not included here and many more corporations can be examined. Even without touching the RCC’s real estate properties (which are surely worth many billions), and its highly profitable businesses like schools and hospitals, it is quite clear that the RCC as a church, as well as its various entities are FILTHY RICH.

What 18 billion can buy

18 billion Pesos. That’s 18 thousand pesos multiplied by a million. Or 18 million pesos multiplied by a thousand. No matter how I put it, few Filipinos can fathom what it means to have such a huge amount. Maybe it will be easier to understand in terms of what the bishops can buy with all that money.

Consider the Araneta Coliseum. It can hold 15 to 16 thousand people. Picture every seat in every row occupied by a person, from ringside to general admission. With 18 billion pesos, the Catholic bishops can afford to give every person in a packed Araneta Coliseum their own SUV[1]. To be exact, the bishops can buy 15,272 SUVs[2].

If the bishops can afford this much, why did they have to ask PCSO for SUVs? Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t be the only time a bishop asked for something he could have paid for himself.

In Cagayan, the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao asked PCSO for money to pay for the operational expenses of a retirement home for priests. The PCSO gave them P200,000 plus an unknown amount for “finishing touches” on the renovation of the said retirement home. Forget about the fact that this is a clear violation of our Constitution and PCSO’s charter and consider this: Although P200,000 is no small amount, it’s nothing compared to the more than P100 million pesos the Bishop of Tuguegarao has invested in San Miguel and Ayala. With that P100+ million, the bishop could pay for the operation of 500 retirement homes, and he’d still have several million left.

Anyone can use a calculator and plug in the values, but I think there’s something wrong with Atienza’s arithmetic:

“We can do this quickly. If 8,000 Catholics donate P1,000, we could have the P8 million. If 16,000 give P500 or 32,000 donate P250, we could also reach that amount,” said Atienza

Atienza, who helped launch the Piso Para sa Obispo campaign in Cebu, can do the Math. But there’s something wrong when you divide the burden of raising P8 million among poorer people, especially when the beneficiary can afford to give P8 million each to 2,250 people (18B/8M).

The sin of obscene wealth

Surely if there’s anyone that should be doing the donating, it’s the Catholic bishops. Instead, they keep their billions invested where all it does is make the bishops even more rich. Angsioco discovered that from May to July of this year, the value of the bishops’ investments appreciated by P567 million. When Atienza said you can be sure that what you give to the church comes back to you (“Kapag nagbigay ka naman kasi sa simbahan, alam mong babalik din sa iyo”), he might have been referring to the stock market.

And while the billionaire bishops become even richer, millions remain poor and hungry. An organization that claims moral ascendancy should find something wrong with this picture, especially one that calls itself pro poor. Apparently it’s not only wrong — it’s a mortal sin:

The Vatican has revised the traditional Catholic “Seven Deadly Sins” with new ones, including “being obscenely wealthy.” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, announced the new sins in an interview published on March 10, 2008, in LOsservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper… Bishop Girotti explained that the sin of obscene wealth consists of “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few.”

Are the billionaire bishops guilty of “excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”? When a few people have enough money to give SUVs to 15,272 people, the answer is obvious. And the bishops owe society a lot. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that the bishops start giving away Pajeros. All I’m saying is that if you’re really pro-poor, you should be the ones giving to the poor, not the other way around. The question is, Have the bishops accumulated wealth so that they could be pro-poor? Or have they pretended to be pro-poor so that they could accumulate wealth?

The problem of evil

Anyway, let’s correct Atienza’s Mathematical mistake and see how much we can divide the bishops’ P18 billion among the people who really need it. According to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, 15.1 percent of Filipinos (14.2 million) are hungry and 2 percent of Filipinos (around 1.88 million) are severely hungry, having nothing to eat often or always. The billionaire bishops can feed all hungry Filipinos for more than a month. If they chose to help only the 1.88 million who are severely hungry, the bishops can provide food for more than nine months [3].

The billionaire bishops are in a position to perform a real miracle in the Philippines. For more than a month, they can end hunger; for almost one year, they can put an end to severe hunger. The bishops are able. But as Epicurus asked in his early formulation of the problem of evil, “Are the bishops able but not willing?”

***

[1]
Assuming the average price of the 7 vehicles given to the bishops

[2]
P18B = value of stocks owned by CBCP and other Catholic organizations
Cost of 7 SUVs (Sacred Utility Vehicle) given to bishops = P8.25M
P18B / P8.25M x 7 = 15272.72727

[3]
Population of the Philippines = 94M
94M x .151 = 14.2M = hungry Filipinos
94M x .02 = 1.88M = severely hungry Filipinos
P974 = how much a Filipino needed in 2009 to meet his/her monthly food needs according to the National Statistical Coordination Board
P974 x 1.88M = P1.83B = amount needed to feed severely hungry Filipinos for a month
P18B / P1.83B/mth = 9.83 months = months the bishops can afford to feed severely hungry Filipinos
P974 x 14.2M  = P13.83B = amount needed to feed hungry Filipinos

(July 22, 2010) Manila – Filipino Freethinkers marched to Mendiola and Malacañang with other RH advocates from the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) and other pro-RH organizations.

One of their members dressed as ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), pulling behind her seven huge PCSO checks. Each check was carried by a member dressed in a bishop costume. The recipients and amounts listed in the checks are based on the details of the recent PCSO scandal, wherein 7 Catholic bishops were given PCSO donations approved by GMA.

“We want to warn PNoy not to commit the same mistakes of the past president,” said Kenneth Keng, RH advocacy director of Filipino Freethinkers. “GMA bought the bishops’ silence during the Hello Garci scandal by blocking the passage of the RH Bill during her term. The recently exposed PCSO donations to several bishops are only the tip of the iceberg. There may be more bribes that have yet to
be uncovered.”

Filipino Freethinkers also echoed the call for PNoy to clearly support RH during his upcoming State of the Nation Address (SONA). Keng said: “It is our hope that showing the President the broad based majority support that the most recent SWS surveys confirmed (70% of filipinos nationwide in favor of the RH Bill) and the dire consequences of delay in terms of innocent lives lost (100,000 maternal and infant deaths and 4,000,000 abortions since a vocal minority of religious opposition began opposing the bill 10 years ago) can enjoin him ahead of his upcoming State of the Nation address to take action in making the priority passage of the RH Bill this year a reality.

“We want to remind PNoy to fulfil his promise to provide RH for all,” said Keng. “He has unequivocally given his support to the RH Bill in public fora such as the recent UP commencement address. We’re here to celebrate this new promise while gently reminding him of the need to help push the Bill past all of the shameless, underhanded and undemocratic stalling tactics of groups led by the CBCP in both houses of Congress”

# # #
If you’d like more information about this, or to schedule an interview with Kenneth Keng, please contact us or send an email to kenneth@filipinofreethinkers.org.

One of the principles of secularism is doing good for goodness’ sake: “Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.” The English secularist George Jacob Holyoake, who coined the word “secularism” in the mid-19th century, asserted, “Individual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is the highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this life or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to the duties of this life.”

Since this utilitarian ethical principle is not grounded on the moral dictates of a transcendent being, i.e., God, it is not surprising that theists are quick to criticize it as lacking an ontological foundation, meaning there is no basis for conceptualizing such moral system in the first place. They then proceed to cite David Hume’s is-ought problem and G.E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy, insisting that it is impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is” or to infer moral obligations from mere observations of nature, and that what is naturally pleasant or desired is not necessarily “good”.

While Hume wrote in A Treatise of Human Nature that it surprised him to find an ought instead of an is, there seems to be nothing in the book expressing the impossibility of bridging the is-ought gap. Hume only said that “’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

Moreover, the rules apply to both theists and nontheists, and if the requirements for bridging the gap are set to go beyond common sense and into ontological obsession, I doubt that even Divine Command Theory can bridge it. Someone claiming that God exists and has laid down certain rules (an is statement) is also expected to explain why we ought to act accordingly, and after all the rationalizations have been exposed and eliminated, it all boils down to one thing: we ought to obey and please God for the welfare of our souls.

While the secularist does not necessarily rule out the possibility of a life after death since it’s unprovable either way, he gives priority to his welfare in this life: “For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as he who fails in this “duty nearest hand” has no moral fitness for any other.” And since claims of divine revelation are all hearsay and our common sense dictates that the Bible is a dangerous guide to morality, secularism “offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority.”

The word ought was originally used to express duty or obligation (and this is probably how Hume intended to use it), but modern usage has expanded its meaning to also indicate advisability or desirability. Since the secularist believes in the improvement of this life by material means and that science is the available Providence of man, if he wants to be happy then he knows what he ought –  what he is well advised – to do, and that is to seek happiness in ways that are conducive to the happiness of others so as to encourage mutual effort in perpetuating everybody’s happiness.

As for the naturalistic fallacy, while it is true that “pleasant” is not necessarily tantamount to “good,” it seems that all of mankind’s conscious acts are ultimately motivated by pleasure. The blogger Philosophy Bro put it succinctly:

As for the theists who define “good” as something that God commands or desires, the is-ought problem is thrown back at them: why do we ought to do good and obey God? And if they are honest enough they will admit that it’s because they want to have a pleasant eternal life in Heaven and avoid perpetual torment in Hell.

And so it seems that for the theist and nontheist alike, morality, or at least the standard by which a person judges actions with either approval or disapproval, is ultimately rooted in the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. In Of Vice and Virtue, Hume wrote, “For granting that morality had no foundation in nature, it must still be allowed, that vice and virtue, either from self-interest or the prejudices of education, produce in us a real pain and pleasure.” An article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy paraphrases Hume: “[I]t is because we are the kinds of creatures we are, with the dispositions we have for pain and pleasure, the kinds of familial and friendly interdependence that make up our life together, and our approvals and disapprovals of these, that we are bound by moral requirements at all.”

And while the secularist does not concern himself with ultimate or eternal scenarios of pleasure and pain as much as the immediate and foreseeable consequences of his actions, it does not mean that his morality is inferior. In The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer explained that “like everyone else, I face judges that are in their own ways transcendent and powerful: family and friends, colleagues and peers, mentors and teachers, and society at large. My judges may be lowercased and occasionally deceivable, but they are transcendent of me as an individual, even if they are not transcendent of nature…real people whose lives are directly affected by my actions, and whose actions directly affect my life.”

The secularist’s judges may not be as fearsome as a deity capable of sentencing people to eternal torture, but he nevertheless respects them deeply and holds himself accountable to them. That’s because in this life, which is the only life we really know exists, these human judges influence our welfare and happiness in ways that we can clearly see and foresee. As such, we are accountable to them because we are ultimately accountable to ourselves.