ONE OF the glaring lessons from the raging controversy over the RH Bill is clear and compelling. Catholics need to be disciplined. Those among us baptized Catholics who support, advocate or even sponsor the bill are committing a grave error—and with full knowledge and full consent, a mortal sin. Worst of all, we can cause a scandal that misleads others—an offense that merits the harshest punishment (“It is better to tie a millstone around your neck than to lead the faithful astray”).
For this reason, let us honor our priests who courageously admonish the faithful from the pulpit despite opposition and persecution. Perhaps the CBCP itself can also begin to implement punitive measures, not to judge or condemn, but to offer salvation out of Christian love, as Jesus tried to do with the Jews. Perhaps one of the reasons that the clergy is reticent from imposing punitive measures is fear from anticlericalism.
My humble suggestion to the CBCP is to draw strength from the words of Blessed Pope John Paul the Great, “Be not afraid!” From my own experience in family life, I am happy that our devout Catholic parents did not spare the “rod of discipline” in bringing up their five children, and now as a father of four, I can honestly say, the “rod of discipline” works.
Our whole family—and those of my siblings’—is staunchly pro-life and anti-RH: 28 in all. So if there are errant Catholics, it must be because we, collectively, as parents and priests, have allowed them to grow up into “spoiled Catholics.”
—WILLY ARCILLA,
willyarcilla@yahoo.com