Some bishops of the CBCP have been caught in a bribery scandal involving Pajeros, the PCSO and Gloria Arroyo’s administration.
The CBCP, staunch defenders of Roman Catholic morals that they are (that’s been their rhetoric in the reproductive health, divorce and same sex marriage debates) have responded and oh boy… One would think that the moral thing to do when caught taking bribes would be to at the very least apologize and take action on the sinning bishops. Clean your houses bishops, it will be good for you.
But that’s not the first thing that they did.
Instead they petulantly whine, “but the other churches are doing it too!”. Oh persecution complex, you make everything so much more worse:
A ranking Catholic archbishop has challenged the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to identify other religious groups who received financial aid from the agency.
“If there’s malice in those donations to Catholic bishops, the PCSO must also identify all the other recipients from other Churches,” Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla said.
While an ex-president of the CBCP implicitly admits to the bribery allegations, the first reaction of current CBCP president Nereo Odchimar was to call the PCSO irresponsible and challenge them to name names.
The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Tandag, Surigao del Sur Bishop Nereo Odchimar, said last Friday he was not discounting the possibility that the issue that some prelates accepted vehicles from PCSO was somehow linked to moves aimed at discrediting the Catholic Church.
…
“They (PCSO) should be accurate because names are being destroyed. It would rather be irresponsible to be implicating names. They were just made suspects,” he said.
So the PCSO did. Well that shut him up. For now the CBCP are making noise about taking some sort of action. Or at least sitting around and talking about it anyway.
This kind of behavior, that of whining that other churches are doing bad things too and then sitting around on their derrieres taking the minimal action is not a foreign concept to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. This kind of thinking goes all the way up to the Vatican. In 2009, this is what the Vatican said to the UN Human Rights Council about the child abuse cases:
The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was “busy cleaning its own house” and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.
…
[Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN,] quoted statistics from the Christian Science Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.
Given the history of how the Roman Catholic church has handled sex abuse within its priesthood, one wonders how long it will take the CBCP to act on these bribery allegations and whether any meaningful justice will be served. It has taken the Vatican decades to sort out any sensible guidelines for handling child abuse and even then, the victims say these guidelines are not enough.
Bishops, where is this moral ascendancy that you talk about so much? How the CBCP handles these bribery allegations will reveal much of their morals but when the hierarchy’s response to Bacani being accused of sexual harassment is to have him go off to America for a vacation, you really have to wonder what kind of morality they are operating with.
If the CBCP can’t clean house on bribery, what more (or less) will they do for actual victims of rape from priests?
Just remembered all that outcry about Pnoy driving a luxurious car amidst all the poverty. People said that even if he bought it with his own money, it was still in bad taste and insensitive!
Now, I picture a bishop, who has a vow of poverty, visiting his poor flock as he rides comfortably in a Pajero that was given to him as a bribe! This thought just makes me puke!
I wish they'd stop hiding under their (un)holy garb and start owning up to their faults. Hay, Damaso.
Really shocking !
The R of P has not only the “best congress money can buy” – but even the (al)mighty Roman Catholic Church with its Bishops as representatives of Yahweh Jehovah/ The Lord the creator of the universe can be bought by Gloria M.A. to support her or at least to not condemn her corruption in public.
And this for a mere Mitsubishi Pajero with a list price between 2.55 million (Gas) to 2.75 million (Diesel)– so fricking dammed cheap ?!? Well an SUV Porsche Cayenne Turbo for 9.2 million Peso ok … maybe just suitable enough for a bishop, to use it for proselytizing … oooops meant of course to help the poor rural masa with distributing charity (almost forgot).
But as so many faithful Catholic commenter’s in Online news (inquirer, ABS….) mentioned: who is without sin throw the first stone (John 8:7) – well as I haven’t got a luxurious SUV from GMA for stopping my nasty comments in the FF Forum – I am still entitled to throw stones !!
I wish those faithful Catholics would tell the Bishops, “Let who without sin throw the first stone” when the Bishops call everyone else damned and bad for supporting same sex marriage, the RH bill and divorce. Jeebus, consistency much?
According to the news last night, one of the bishops asked for a high-end SUV from GMA as a birthday gift! Oh well, at least he had the sense not to ask for a mansion!xD
guess what that bishop was none other than Butuan Bishop Juan "NOT WORTHY" de Dios Pueblos.
I guess he is bitter Pnoy did not give him a new SUV.
Those bishops are hypocrites and extremely arrogant to even try to rationalize their stand at the matter…oh wait…rationalizing and the Catholic church don't mix together…never mind
I hope bacani or cruz were also implicated in similar bribery scandals, cause hopefully, that will shut them up being the more vocal bishops! Then again, maybe not…
Being the vanguards of morality that they project themselves to be, I thought the bishops should also have the highest form of delicadeza! After all, in other non-catholic countries, mortals of lesser morals commit hara-kiri, or at the very least, resign from their position once their personal integrity is questioned. But, here in our country, a bishop accused of immorality or bribery goes on the offensive, daring proof, or crying discrimination! What sheer arrogance!!!
Let's play with the argument a little 😀
To The Catholic Church:
Everybody Else has their child molesters jailed, and made somebody's bitch. Why aren't you doing that too?
Everybody Else is legalizing gay marriage. Why aren't you?
Everybody Else thinks that women should be treated as equals. Why won't you?
classic case of preaching the bible but not actually following it
let's quote a few choice passages:
Mark 9:42: "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck."
(so according to biblical lore, these pedo priests should all be drowned in the ocean!)
Matthew 7:5 "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
.. and classic John 8:7 "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
If the clergy wants to play "moral compass" for the rest of the country, they should fix the corruption in their own ranks first, else they have no business playing the moral highground
add this
John 15:15
"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."
If we are friends, why so many secrets, finger pointing and cover ups? the vatican has a HUGE vault where the public is forbidden to enter. How come we only learn about the CBCPs dealings lately? I thought we were friends?
current news: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/225105/regions/17-yea…
the priest involved is under pueblos' diocese. huzzah! the prick keeps getting dug in deeper and deeper.