Population issue the nth time
Sorry if I have to bring up this issue again. I'm actually tired to death talking about it. But there are just some people, even senators and others who tout themselves to having not only high IQ but also sharp human sensibility, who just don't get it.
I must say that if I were not a priest and have not studied this matter thoroughly, most likely I'd be like them. Perhaps, even more rabid than them, more sharp-tongued and critical, since I too used to have strong anti-clerical sentiments, I do have a temper and I'm quite capable of creating a mess.
Now though when I hear positions contrary to that of the Church about this issue, I tend to be very compassionate, because I know very well what the practical and concrete difficulties are when one has a big family to raise and he's poor.
I come from one such family, and I'm in touch with many other such families. I am fully aware of their situation. It's never a bed of roses. In fact, to survive is a daily concern. All sorts of suffering come.
And so, I try to reach out, to explain and clarify things as patiently as possible. Of course, these are just the consequences. What truly takes place before anything else is a lot of prayers and sacrifices to make people see the wisdom of the Church's teaching.
This is not easy at all, especially if one has to contend with a party who's both combative and articulate. One such party that has figured recently in the media is Senator Lacson who openly said the Church's position is "parochial" and "downright stupid."
No problem. Everyone is entitled to his opinion. No matter how much I disagree, we should respect the freedom of everybody else in expressing his views. My respect for him and his view has not diminished one whit.
I just would like to invite him to study the matter more thoroughly, and consider or reconsider an angle, so crucial and basic, that he seems to have missed, or worse, to have derided.
And also, if he can be more refined in his choice of words. We can always register our contrary views in a civilized way. We have to presume we are all honorable men. To mock anyone, let alone the Church, is below the belt.
The angle I'm referring to is that of morality, of faith, of the spiritual and supernatural reality that also governs us. We have to go past the purely economic, practical, convenient or popular arguments. These do not give us the ultimate answer.
If we would get stuck there, we can always come up with the most effective ways, like just killing the old and handicap. Of course, that may be illegal, but I'm sure if one is clever enough, eliminating these people without getting entangled with the law should not be a problem. There, lamentably, had been precedents.
The moral-religious angle is indispensable, and no one, much less, a senator, who is still at least nominally a Catholic or Christian, can claim exemption from such consideration simply because it's supposed to be a civil matter only, not a spiritual or religious one.
This is actually the underlying problem we have nowadays. People are not living by their faith. They are just keeping themselves afloat simply by using their reason and human abilities. Faith is just a word, and not much else.
Without faith, it makes no sense to have many children when these can only mean troubles, sufferings, frustrations, etc. Without faith, there's no point talking about a morality that goes beyond what simply is practical and the like.
Without faith, the negative things in our life possess no meaning, serve no purpose, and the only proper thing to do with them is to hate and discard them.
Some women even have the temerity to say they are losing their religion because of the Church's position. Some have called themselves "Catholics for choice," which means their Christianity is first and foremost theirs and not Christ's.
They play their own God. They fail to see the link between God, Christ, Church and personal conscience.
I wonder if they have a religion to lose in the first place, since it would seem their religion is just an illusion, a religion where God and his moral teachings are what they want them to be, not what God has revealed to us.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City, Email: roycimagala@hotmail.com)