Political Tidbits
Bishops have to be pro-poor
By Belinda Olivares-Cunanan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 07/22/2008
Filed Under: Poverty, Churches (organisations), Family planning, Religion & Belief, Population
Catholic bishops will hold a rally on the University of Santo Tomas campus this Friday in support of the Catholic Church’s stand against contraceptives and abortion, and to commemorate the 40th year of the issuance of “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical that promotes the sanctity of human life. The bishops maintain that the use of artificial family planning methods is against moral law and they advocate only the natural method of birth control.
The rally is also aimed against renewed moves in Congress to aggressively push artificial birth control as a means to control the growing population, as well as reproductive health programs using such means. The bishops are against such methods as they believe it would promote a culture of promiscuity especially among the young.
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There are people who hope that the Church will bend and agree to the use of contraceptives, but I cannot see this happening. I recall the dilemma of the Church in refusing to give in to King Henry VIII’s demand to recognize his marriage to Ann Boleyn in the 16th century, after divorcing his legitimate wife Catherine of Aragon. As a result of the Church’s refusal, the king left and founded the Church of England, and the schism exists to this day.
The Church’s stand against artificial birth control is based on its teaching that all life flows from God, and in the secularism of our time this stand is yet another cross it has to carry. The issue is most difficult for both the Church and the faithful, and there are pained prelates who would rather just keep quiet about it, just as there are followers who quietly ignore the Church’s teaching and resort to artificial methods. One cannot help but feel a lot of sympathy for both sides.
In the end, the faithful have to fall back on their own conscience and as my Carmelite friend stresses, their own intimate relationship with God, which will enable them to make enormous sacrifices.
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A generation ago, our parents didn’t have this dilemma. If my parents did, I would never have been born into the world, since I was their eighth child. My parents raised 10 children and educated every single one of us in the best schools (Ateneo de Manila for my brothers and Holy Ghost College for us girls, before I went off to the University of the Philippines and my sisters to University of Santo Tomas). They worked hard and survived trying economic vicissitudes by having an abiding faith in God. In those days most couples’ attitude was, “kung ilan ang ipagkaloob ng Diyos sa amin” [however many children God gives us].
But times have changed, and families now are concerned with coping with the high cost of bringing up children, which is why they seek to stop at two. One can only sympathize with young parents’ dilemma these days.
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But I must confess that I was startled to read former secretary of health Alberto Romualdez advocating a zero birth rate. He ignores the fact that countries that preached this demographic aberration are now having a huge problem. They are now pushing families to go out and multiply, to the point where couples are even bribed with romantic vacations abroad just to put them in the right mood—to no avail. These countries are now forced to open their doors to foreign labor. After last May’s magnitude 8 earthquake killed so many young students in China’s Sichuan province, it was pitiful to hear many parents cursing their government’s one-child policy.
Some legislators constantly hammer at our growing population as the favorite scapegoat for our economic woes, conveniently overlooking that people are causing Metro Manila to burst at the seams because there are fewer opportunities for jobs in the provinces. If over the decades the huge sums that went to allowances of the legislators were marshaled into meaningful infrastructure and economic programs, perhaps we wouldn’t have such an avalanche of people going into urban centers. There’s also the corruption in various administrations that resulted in the squandering of precious resources that should have gone to education, health care and housing for the poor.
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I cannot see the bishops softening their stand against artificial means of birth control, as they also have their inner voices to follow. But I wish they would also put their hearts to actively promote the welfare of the poor and marginalized in our society, who are the worst-hit by the rise of fuel and commodity prices.
The bishops cannot go on with a business-as-usual attitude toward the poor, when they are demanding such tremendous sacrifices from them in these times. If they advocate natural family planning, the parishes and dioceses have to be marshaled for massive education in this method. They should also help alleviate the massive poverty through job generation, feeding kitchens, health clinics and scholarships, and campaign among the faithful to be active in such programs. The Church has to be pro-active for the poor.
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TraveLife, the glossy magazine published by my daughter Christine Cunanan, is organizing, with the Korean International Travel Co. (KITC) of the North Korean government and Lakbay.Net, the first-ever, once-in-a-lifetime chartered tour of North Korea from Sept. 18 to 24. The unique tour includes a spectacular extravaganza of the Arirang Festival, featuring over 100,000 performers in dance, gymnastics and acrobatics, a perfect introduction to this enigmatic country that has been a mystery for centuries.
In addition, it will include a tour of the capital Pyongyang, the Panmunjon DMZ Zone, the legendary Mt. Kumgang, the North Korean movie studio, Bopdong Fish Farm and Ullim Waterfalls, schools and farming communities, with a stopover in Singapore where the tour group will converge. This will probably be the only opportunity for ordinary citizens to visit North Korea in a long time. Space is limited, so call or e-mail now for more information and reservations, to TraveLife, +632 8922620 and +632 8138400, or travelife@travelife.biz.
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