A headline on the CBCP website reads: “CBCP apologizes over PCSO fund mess,” referring to the pastoral statement of CBCP president Nereo Odchimar, A time of pain, a time of grace. But reading the statement makes one wonder if the CBCP has indeed apologized.
Apology is defined as “an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret.” Notice that the definition has two parts: 1) the admission of error, and 2) the expression regret. Let’s take a look at some key passages from the pastoral statement and see if they satisfy the definition of apology:
…we are sorry for the pain and sadness that these events have brought upon you.
We are saddened that many of you…have been confused because of the apparent inconsistency of our actions with our pastoral preaching.
We express again our deep sorrow for the pain that the recent events have brought to you our beloved people.
We can see no admission of error in those sentences (or anywhere in the entire pastoral letter), but only an expression of regret: the first sentence “apologizes” for the pain and sadness brought by the ‘events’; the second says they are saddened by the confusion over the apparent inconsistency of their actions with their preaching; the third expresses deep sorrow for the pain brought about by, again, the recent ‘events’. What’s missing is the part where they are supposed to actually say that they are sorry for the involvement of their bishops in the PCSO scandal.
The pastoral statement is actually a “non-apology apology.” The humorist Bruce McCall noted that “with sufficiently artful double talk, you can get what you want by seeming to express regret while actually accepting no blame.” The political consultant William Schneider said that nonconfessions like “mistakes were made” should be referred to as the “past exonerative,” while presidential speechwriter William Safire defined the phrase as “a passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it.”
The CBCP’s “apology” is clearly a passive-evasive artful double talk in the past exonerative tense. There is no true apology here, only half-hearted excuses and weasel words. Surely the bishops can do better than that? In the words of the journalist Mignon McLaughlin, “True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive.” The CBCP statement is just a sorry excuse for an apology.
When has the Church ever given a formal and direct apology about anything?
like Sex Abuse: Apologized, then blamed hippies
I have a feeling the bishops will not give a proper and true apology unless we demand it from them; those corrupt perpetrators of moral decay think of themselves too highly to be truly humble and contrite. If you guys heard what that prick Oscar Cruz has to say about the mess his corrupt church is in, your blood will boil and you'll know what hell really means — it's spending eternity with such people.
Also, they know that if they want to keep on using their "Holier Than Thou (0/0)" trump card, they must never admit error explicitly (recall the excuses they made for the sex offenders among them). It's all a game to them. They know that giving a real apology is just like saying "Pass the RH Bill Now! And oh, lest we forget, we should also fight for equal rights and divorce."
ooh, "passive-evasive"… I have to add that term to the list of other weasel-talk techniques. Guess they got tired of using "passive-negative": "oh I don't know… seems like we're just making mountains out of molehills, its a complete non-issue, lets just forget about this and move on to more important matters"
Apparently, a lot of people were "moved" by the humility of the cbcp, even if the statement was not a real apology! So much so that the pro-lifers group launched a fund drive to raise P8M so the bishops can return the pajeros to the PCSO and still have the funds to buy new SUVs. What a sick joke indeed, considering that some of their more prominent members are politicos!!!