DEAR BISHOP,

What a welcome gesture! “We are ready for dialogue and we hope the congressmen are ready for dialogue in the spirit of humility, respect and truth.”

We trust that by extension, lay persons, without access to the inner circles of the hierarchy are included in the invitation. Bear with the presumption, but the media are the only way to get to you.

Where are “we” coming from? We are people who get together now and then. What we have to say comes from casual talk, informal meetings and discussions, e-mail and various readings. We are “alternative voices” who may not always tell you what you want to hear. Many are pro-choice and pro-life, which are not mutually exclusive positions; and let not a Bush clone tell us that “you are either for us or against us.” I can assure you we are as Catholic as the next fellow and equally concerned about the common good.

Lend us an ear for we trust that you believe that lay persons have the right and the capability to make suggestions to hierarchy. Imagine what would happen if the executive government and Congress declared that only they among themselves can initiate reform and that civil society should keep quiet.

Here then are some questions asked, comments made that may help both sides:

RH has become a public issue with failure or inadequacy of family and Church. As such it is the duty of the State to step in, given the great poverty creating acute problems in feeding, housing, educating, etc.

The law exists for public order and cannot intrude into private domain. Contraception is private domain. No law can be passed that will intrude thereinto.

There are “surgical abortion” and “medical abortion.” The RH bill does not promote or legalize the first; but it does the second. IUDs are abortifacient. Hormonal contraceptive pills are not; but “the morning after pill” and “the emergency contraceptive pill” like Mifeprex, Plan B, Optinor, are. Perhaps an “except” clause in the list of “essential medicines” and procedures or a warning note may make the bill more acceptable.

There is valid apprehension on the teaching of RH as it can encroach into religious freedom and parents’ rights over their children’s education. What assurances are there for: teacher proficiency, suitability of subject matter to given levels, a say in the making of the curriculum, agreement on what shall be “common to all,” parental consent and the teaching of moral values which are nil in the draft bill?

Why must offices and institutions implement RH whose framework should be the public health system? It is “overlap” and “overkill” not to mention the stiff penalties.

The Constitution shall protect the life of the unborn from conception. Do the Church, lawmakers, science agree on the moment of conception? Is it at fertilization, implantation, ensoulment (creation of the soul or placing of the soul into the human body)? When is there human life, biological life, a person? May science hold some surprises in the future. Clearly a point to ponder for both sides: how prevent a deadlock?

Name-calling like “abortionist,” “pro-death,” “excommunicated” is unbecoming a pastoral Church. “No communion” is judgment and punishment presuming grave sin. “I am sorry,” Jesus said, “but I cannot agree with all your decisions to send people to hell.”

Repugnant as it may seem to hard-line moralists, evolving paradigms do “modify” moral judgments: like conscience, sensus fidelium, (the sense of faith that the People of God show among themselves), history, science, human consciousness. Let’s be benevolent and presume a best-effort well-formed conscience. The less known sensus fidelium which can show “universal agreement in matters of faith and morals,” the vox populi that may be vox dei, is in fact one norm in the declaration of Church teaching. Is it true that “Humanae Vitae” could have rejected a swelling sense of the faithful? And may not the persistent cry for RH be a continuing sensus fidelium? Surely the Holy Spirit descends on laymen as well as on bishops.

Some US bishops attacked Catholic Joe Biden and Barack Obama (whose Catholic voters according to a priest must first confess before communion) over abortion. Catholic pro-life laymen rose to their defense on the-whole-spectrum-of-evils argument over the single-issue fixation. Look at the great evils of unjust wars, torture, racism, a nuclear policy. Was Bush pro-life? In our country, all the lying, the stealing, the unrelenting machinations of corruption are evils sweeping the land. Would that the bishops fought corruption with equal vigor and passion.

Unyielding attitudes can kill dialogue from the start. But there are collateral moral principles: Double effect, Tolerance, Compromise, Probabilism, Material Cooperation with Evil; based on one or the other of which, condoms, surgery during pregnancy, business “bribes,” political alliances with shady characters have been tolerated on certain conditions and resolves. Moral theologians can surely advise the participants.

We wish you the best for the dialogue. We are all anxious to see this RH matter finally resolved or else it’s going see you again next year. May God bless us all!

Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist. Comments to marda_ph@yahoo.com : fax 8284454