Church head compares RH battle to Edsa I

Church leaders anticipate a head-on collision with pro-choice President Aquino and supporters in Congress of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill with Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal comparing the bishops’ stand against the bill to the position they took during the People Power revolt in 1986 that led to the toppling of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

Speaking before 500 delegates during the 17th Asia-Pacific Congress on Faith and Family, Vidal said the Church’s struggle to preserve and promote the values conducive to nurturing faith, family and life appears to be heading

“toward a head-on collision” with those who push for the passage of RH bill.

He noted that during Edsa 1, “when the issue was political, and the goal was toppling a dictator or a corrupt leader, the Church was hailed as a force for reform and liberation.”

As president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in 1986, Vidal said when the voice of the Church proved a useful instrument to attain the tipping point, “virtually everyone whose voice mattered praised the role of the Church.”

“Now that the issue is moral and much more proper to the Church’s concern, we are accused of using undue influence and interfering in politics,” he added.

He said he witnessed bishops and archbishops who drafted the post-election statement which declared the 1986 elections was marked by massive fraud.

He said had the bishops then thought it undemocratic to issue the 1986 statement and if they respected the views of those who thought contrary to their opinion, “history might have made a few more twists and turns before something like EDSA could happen.”

“I assure you, the drafters of the statement did not rely on surveys and opinion polls as they read the situation based on their collective experience as they illumined their experience with principles from Scriptures and Church doctrines because they drew conclusions using right reason and sound logical principles,” he added.

Vidal told the delegates that it is the same right to speak from the same principle which is being exercised by the Church as the issue then was not about toppling a dictator “but the reclaiming of justice.”

He downplayed claims by some sectors that the Catholic Church tries to impose itself on the rest of the citizenry.

“The Church is being portrayed as an intolerant power block bent on imposing its will on the nation, running roughshod over the will of most Filipinos,” the 79-year old prelate said.

“The issue not is not about claiming the power to dictate, but the protection of the values that hold our nation together and while the issues then and now may be different, the Church uses the same principles in its courses of action – what the Holy Father (Benedict XVI) calls as the ethical foundation of civil discourse,” he added.

Referring to churchmen who criticize the Church for its vigorous opposition to the Bill on democratic principles who “may have also missed the point” because to reduce the debate into a purely religious issue is to imply that the objective moral principles that ground consensus are subjective opinions which will be open to further debates.

Cardinal Vidal explained in many cases when consensus is not attained “the resulting action has always been one of license – to allow everybody to do what he or she wants as long as nobody gets hurt.”

He said there is more to the RH Bill in its current form than mere democratic consensus or license because “if the RH Bill, in its present form passes into law, ironically, it will annul consensus” because it will impose itself on the consciences of individuals.

“It will penalize virtually anyone who speaks against it because it will mandate employers, even if against their will, to provide contraceptives to their employees,” he added. He also explained the bill will subject the country’s young to a brand of sex education that is foreign to Philippine culture and corrosive to values as it purports to reject abortion but classified abortifacients as essential medicines.

“It is this spectre of a society that has lost its moral bearings that keeps me from throwing in the towel even though I am now retired,” Vidal said.

He reiterated his commitment to stand with human life advocates as they engage the larger society in dialogue as well as work together in “purifying” reason to recognize the objective moral principles essential to the proper functioning democracy.

The CBCP will also consult legal and medical experts as it gears for a dialogue with Malacañang on its population policy, CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar said.

The CBCP would have to get the assistance of lawyers and medical practitioners to seek their opinion on reproductive health, he added.

“We bishops are aware of our limitations. Since our major line is on morality, we would be enlisting help from the lay people who would be with us representing their specific expertise,” Odchimar said.

“This is also a presentation that the majority of the church in the Philippines is composed of lay people… so that would be a concerted presentation of the position of the church not only by the CBCP, but in the totality,” he pointed out.

Asked when the supposed dialogue with Aquino would take place, the prelate said it has yet to be scheduled but said they hope to present the RH bill issue on the aspects of demography, economics, legal and medical.

It was in early October when Aquino sought a dialogue with Catholic bishops and various stakeholders on the government’s policy on reproductive health.

Aquino, however, clarified that his pro-choice stance on family planning remains unchanged. –daily Tribune