This worked before. Maybe it’ll work again.
Introduction
Chris, a good friend of mine, has recently informed me of a series of disturbing events concerning the Catholic Church (Henceforth to be referred to as “the CC”). It seems that Quezon City Councilor Joseph Juico is being harassed by the CC. Long story short, Juico is the main sponsor of the population management and reproductive health ordinance for the city, and now the CC and its constituents are conducting highly juvenile behavior.
This is unacceptable.
Make no mistake: I am good friends with an endless number of catholics, and I consider as friends certain individual priests and brothers (All of whom are pointedly Jesuit) who, priestly as they may be, are respectable and reasonable. My beef is with the rest of the CC, and how they conduct themselves.
The Challenge
Stop your excessive campaigns (specifically harassment, but if you want to stop it altogether, I’m not complaining) against contraceptives, birth control, and what-have-you. You must recognize that the Philippines is a multicultural society, and you are not the only religious entity here. Thus, you must acknowledge that by exercising your disproportionate control over Philippine politics to muscle in your own agenda into state affairs (which, by the way, is illegal), you violate the citizenry’s rights, as well as the rights of other religious organizations.
If you are strong as an organization, and confident in your constituents belief in your system, then there should be no effect on you. There is nothing stopping you from imposing your own laws and restrictions on your own followers.
If you don’t want contraception and population control, fine, but keep it to yourselves. Don’t force other people to follow you.
Recap
In case you didn’t quite get what I just said, let me rephrase them in an ordered list.
Your current course of action is mutually exclusive (i.e. logically incompatible) to the following:
1. Confidence in the strength of your influence on your congregation
2. Concern for the rest of the population not under your belief-system
3. Recognition of the fact that the Philippines is a multicultural society
This means that should you continue your campaign, you prove that you have no confidence in your congregation, that you have no concern for the rest of the citizenry, and that you do not recognize the Philippines’ multiculturality.
If this is fine by you, go ahead. Continue along your way. But think very, very carefully.
Separation of Church and State in the Philippines is fail, period. However, they have as much a right to speak out against any proposition or the like as any other person or group, majority or minority.
For them, it’s a major issue which much be campaigned against. The true root of the problem is the amount of power they wield over the people and the politicians. Even the article says that the dude was scared that he would be denied communion.
On that level, they’re still within their normal functioning. Support artificial birth control and help spread the sin in society, get excommunicated by the church. Ho hum. It’s what could very well happen by the laws of any other non-government organization. Break a rule, be expelled.
Problem being, everybody is so frigging clingy to the idea that the church is always right and that it has the final say in everything. Thus, politician shunned by large faith organization = bad publicity.
Then again, maybe somebody is going to turn this around and work it the same way scandals about songs/movies end up making them more popular. =D
I hope that one day in the future, people can tell their kids
“Hey, you know, I was excommunicated by the Church before!”
“Really daddy? Why?”
“Oh, ‘cos I used a condom.”
“Daddy, that’s silly!”
“Yeah, it’s sort of like how slavery was condoned before right?”
“…daddy, what does condoned mean?”
“Nevermind.”
I agree with self. The CC, I guess, has the right to take their stand whether it be for or against any bill. And they have the right to proclaim such a stand. [Sucks that we have such an outspoken Church]
Your blog takes away my spacing if I don’t put the right tags. But isn’t in your list, so I don’t know if this will work.
They can also argue that to believe without action is useless. because they think it’s such a moral dilemma, then all the more they need to speak out against it. Prevent temptation and all that. *shrug*
I am amused by the Fr. Johnny Go thing. XD
Maybe that’s why I despise organized religion. =/ It’s ridiculously self-justifying.
And yet, without people who act for what they believe in, the world wouldn’t have gotten all that far either. We’d all be such pushovers. =P A world without revolutions, whether Katipunan Style or People Power Style? Hm hm, it’s all in what stance to take.
At any rate, right to life is supposedly universal anyway, the only problem is that such a right intersects with other people’s rights to life as well. There are too many bloody definitions about when life starts eh. Some say fertilization, others say implantation into the uterus, others say when the fetus is recognizably human, others say when the being shows signs of sentience beyond that of an animal acting on instinct… and others oddly claim that every sperm and egg has life. Guess that makes every woman a serial killer (around once a month) and hostage taker, while every man apparently must make sure every single one of his baby sperm cells find their purpose in life. :|
I love the last sentence. :)) It reminds me of Legally Blonde the Musical. XD Every man’s ejaculation/sperm that did not result in a child can be considered reckless abandonment. Woot. O.o
Feature Presentation!
Church and State are BOTH back-asswards in this case. People do not have kids upon kids upon kids upon kids because they felt like gettin’ it on and didn’t happen to have any condoms.
Parents have kids upon kids upon kids upon kids because they see each child as an investment.
These crawling, crying “investments” will eventually grow into smaller, more obedient versions of human beings with an implanted loyalty to said parents.
Semi-matured investments are capable of doing basic manual labor for parents.
Fully matured investments are capable of earning jobs, and making money, part of which is to be spent on taking care of parents. These investments also have a certain chance of winning the lottery, or Wowowee, thus winning large amounts of cash, and spending even MORE on taking care of parents.
Logical FAILURE comes in when parents become too optimistic about their investments, and assume that they’ll mature properly despite lacking nourishment, education and decent living environments. Or when they assume that the winning chances attached to the lottery and to Wowowee are anything more than infinitesimal.
So, Church and State, if you can hear me, UR DOIN IT RONG.
Bonus Material!
Projected Outcome of BlogComment:
State reads this comment.
State goes “OMG WE R DOIN IT RONG KENNETH IZ GENIUZ”
State goes “WOWOWEE IZ TO BLAME”
State goes “EKZILE WILLEE REVILYAMEY TO ISPAZE”
Church goes “Behold! The servants of the Lord thus spake their most joyous agreement!”
State spends BILLIONZ of tax dollars constructing a spacerocket.
Willie Revillame is sent to space.
Willie Revillame crash lands on planet Krypton.
Willie Revillame realizes the Kryptonian Red Sun gives him powers.
Willie Revillame uses said powers to…
Establish Wowowee – Krypton Edition.
Krypton becomes overpopulated.
Krypton explodes.
Scientist Jor-El sends child into space inside rocket.
Superman arrives on Earth.
DOES THIS MEAN I GET TO BE BATMAN?
Actually, coming from med school and hearing stories, bunches of people DO have kids upon kids because they felt like getting it on and not having any condoms.
Some of the parents, they don’t know better. Seriously, where and when have you seen condoms (cheap ones!) advertised or offered to poor people? No? I didn’t think so. Poor people go to the drugstore for meds, not for condoms, breathmints and botled water.
Most of them have no idea on how family planning even -works- anywho. And they really can’t be buggered to find out “oh, we get pregnant if we have sex during THIS part of the month around 12 days after I started bleeding for god-knows-what-reason from my bits!”
Also, some people actually do it and go “wtf, dude, I didn’t know having sex could end in pregnancy.” I’m serious. It’s happened. The girl was 14 and the guy was 18, I think.
There are people who say, “Well, they can just NOT have sex,” then I dare them to do without a main, habitual source of entertainment for a month or so. Things like eat all you can buffets, bacon, computer gaming, and whatnot. ‘cos they sorta don’t have that sort of thing to hold on to, so they cling to the happiness they get from sex, alcohol, and… well, Wowowee. Oh, and religion — oh wait, whoops, that kinda just turned around and sorta bit them in the ass, didn’t it? =/
As for the rich dudes who have kids, well, they can afford them. Just a shame if they don’t raise their kids properly. Just, y’know, remember that income tax deducions only go up to four kids and we’re kind of swimming in a general tough economical spot and whatever.