What Church leaders have failed to do

In the wake of continuing debates between pro-lifers and advocates of the controversial Lagman bill (what is euphemistically called Reproductive Health and Population Management Act, a coverup of the promotion of the use of artificial contraceptives by the State), there’s need to clarify certain points. Real issues have been beclouded.

I have long been searching for some thoughtful responses to the bill, which is said to already have the majority vote of the House of Representatives. Yesterday, I found it in the column of a fellow columnist in this newspaper—Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino, theologian and dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law.

While his thoughts on the bill were rather lengthy, it boils down to this: “Let us not blame the bill for what we Catholics and Catholic leaders have failed to do.” I say amen to that.

The debate is further exacerbated with two presidential aspirants —Liberal Party standard-bearer Senator Noynoy Aquino, one of the authors of the bill in the Senate, and administration candidate Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro—supporting the bill. They say the bill, once enacted, would give the people the choice to decide how they would plan their families. They could go the natural way or otherwise.

Fr. Aquino made a telling comment when he said: “We [referring to us Catholics] cannot demand laws that rest solely on Catholic dogma or Catholic morals.” In a secular age, this is impossible.

It is unconstitutional. It might feel good for a Catholic when Congress passes a law that prescribes only natural family planning, but how would we feel if Congress were to make it compulsory for all Filipinos to observe the holy month of Ramadan? It is then for Catholic theologians and philosophers to provide arguments that will be recognized in a secular form and that can count as valid even to a non-Catholic audience. The legislative audience is definitely broader than the Church.

“The trouble is that when the spokespersons of the CBCP, for example, oppose artificial means of contraception, they do hardly anything more that repeat the well-worn theological arguments that are convincing only to Catholics, but have absolutely no impact on those who do not share our creedal premises,” Aquino adds.

In other words, if there is confusion even among us Catholics on which way to go—natural family planning or the use of artificial contraceptives, since we have the right to choose according to what our consciences dictate—it’s because Church leaders have failed to clarify issues in connection with the RH bill.

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I am a practicing Catholic. I was born a Catholic and I’ll die a Catholic.

But if there are Catholics in Congress and even among the faithful who believe in the need for a Reproductive Health and Population Management Law because of our burgeoning population, blame it all, as Fr. Aquino said, on what Catholic leaders have failed to do.

I believe in making choice depending on one’s faith. As a Catholic, I believe in the Church dogma that taking artificial contraceptives is wrong.

There are some aspects of the RH bill that are good, like providing people choices. But I cannot accept the fact that the State should intrude into my bedroom and tell me what to do in conjugal love. And I cannot accept the fact that what I pay as taxes to government should go to the promotion of artificial means of birth control. And above all, I cannot accept the plenary provisions of the bill which penalizes me when I advocate against the RH bill if enacted into law.

Santa Banana, under the many provisions of the RH bill, it would be a return to dictatorship and a death knell for democracy. The State will dictate how we plan our families! –Emil Jurado, Manila Standard Today