Church dogma and the RH Law

As the July 11 Inquirer editorial correctly pointed out, without the charge of grave abuse of discretion, the petition against the Reproductive Health Law has absolutely nothing to stand on.

This is a stark example of how the Catholic Church conducts itself, it uses dogma—tenets put forth as authoritative but without adequate grounds—to keep a grip on its flock and justify its existence.

Throughout its long history, the Church, led by its “infallible” pope, has condemned, excommunicated, caused untold suffering, sent to the gallows and even burned at the stake (as in the case of the excommunicated Dominican Friar Giordano Bruno) those who contradicted its dicta of the time. Many of those so-called heretics, who were actually scientifically advanced for their time, were later proven by science to be correct. Many, I would say, were not only scientifically advanced, but spiritually advanced as well.

Along with mystics from more than 2,000 years ago, up to today’s mystics, C. S. Lewis makes this declaration: “You don’t HAVE a soul. You ARE a soul; you have a body.” The truth of this statement has been experienced not only by mystics and highly advanced meditators and contemplatives but also by thousands of people all over the world who have had near death experiences, and by many thousands more who have experienced past life regression therapy. Information on these is at anyone’s fingertips, one only has to google it.

Dr. Michael Newton and his team at The Newton Institute have been able to go even further, they are able to take their clients to an even deeper level of hypnosis than past life regression, they do Life Between Lives regression therapy. At this level of hypnosis, their clients are able to report back their experience as souls. They describe our souls as home, as a place of love and understanding, and of timelessness, among other things. They also report that when they feel they are ready, they come back to be born as humans with their memory as souls blocked. This amnesia is necessary, they explain, so that we go through life’s trials to learn and progress spiritually. One interesting report from souls is that they usually join the human life at its mother’s third to sixth month of pregnancy.

About 2,400 years ago Plato said: “Once free of the body the soul is able to see the truth clearly because it is more pure than before and recalls pure ideas it knew before.” Writing about reincarnation, Plato said “Souls must travel over Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, whose waters produce a loss of memory from our true nature.”

When a person is in dire poverty, necessarily all his time must be spent tending to simply survive from day to day. He will have no time to figure out how to travel over Lethe. In the first place he will not have the opportunity to even know such a thing exists. Scrapping the RH Law will keep even more people mired in poverty and this should be anathema to a Church whose mission is to uplift man’s spirituality.

—PHILIP S. YCASIANO,
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