Chance for ‘Monsi’ to apologize still waits

“Postscript to Monsi” (Opinion, 5/28/14) is what happens when the remarkable Conrado de Quiros ardently defends something he does not believe in. At least the De Quiros I know can’t possibly be a groveling sandal-licker who believes that Msgr. Josefino “Monsi” Ramirez “has done nothing wrong” and “done everything right” in accepting donations and favors from accused pork barrel scam queen Janet Napoles. Surprisingly De Quiros is telling people that Monsi’s handling of such donations/favors was “perfectly laudable” and “deserves praise” for it. Even our dear Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle said, “Technically speaking, accepting a donation the source of which you do not know does not make you culpable.”

This technicality that clears Monsi of culpability also clears the way for the blessed transfiguration of ill-gotten wealth into zero culpability, God-given wealth. Forgive my sarcasm but, theoretically, such cleansed donation can then be used to buy overpriced, substandard or even nonexistent “Livelihood with Values Education” kits from, guess who? The donor. Holy laundering?

Sorry, Bishop Oscar Cruz, good deeds launder dirty money pretty well.

De Quiros smartly asked: “What in God’s name is wrong with accepting a donation that is meant to help the poor” and “wipe the blood of the dying”? Well, for one, accepting plunderers’ donations helps the plunderers believe that charity to a thousand souls holds back the perdition of robbing millions, and they go on robbing. There would be so much less blood to wipe if the Church rightly showed how

alienated from God plunderers become, instead of making them feel right at home with a pack of priests living well-provided lives in plunder-paid mansions inside high-end villages. What differentiates Gloria Arroyo’s “Mitsubishops” from Napoles’ “Monsi pack” is the latter’s readiness to swear before God on the witness stand and protect their plundering benefactor. We still keep turning our Father’s house into a den of thieves.

That all Monsi did when s–t hit the fan was to defend himself (and Napoles) before the people is iniquitous. So is Bishop Ted Bacani’s “the born rich don’t steal” argument. It’s also iniquitous for a cardinal to pour technicality into the cup of spiritual resolution. But more so is passing off a pungent mistake as something “perfectly laudable.” There has got to be something inherently wrong, spiritually and materially, with dipping oneself, knowingly or blindly, in a pool of blood money.

Two millennia ago, a man meekly carried the culpability of people to Calvary. Monsi was given a golden chance to help carry that same spirit of culpability, to respond to controversy not by centering on defending himself but by sincerely apologizing for everyone’s blindness and coming clean. It was his chance to emulate a Carpenter, not a “trapo.” That chance still waits right outside his bolted door.

I imagine the Carpenter would say it differently: “Josef, it is still on your table. Will you drink of my cup?”

Monsignor, will you issue another statement?

—ERNIE LAPUZ,

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