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History Repeating Itself?
- Fr. Deo Camon, LPT, PhD
- Oct 27, 2020
- 4 min read
This is something I love about history.
In the drama of centuries, characters may change but not much the plot. Stories are almost the same with just a twist or two, here and there: same stories, but different characters.
I think this is why it has been an adage that every generation must have to define its values. You cannot presume that what the previous generation considered valuable will remain such in the succeeding generations. Every generation has to fight and won its battle.
Every generation must define its values like love, justice, and peace with many other virtues.
One of the most important lessons I have learned in the Bible is that the disciples “are in this world but not of this world.”
This Biblical description developed among Christians the attitude of being pilgrims here on earth (at least Christians during the Early Church period).
As pilgrims, wherever they are, Christians respect the laws of the land, but they never transgress the laws of heaven, their homeland.
Legislation has now become ideologically driven. Society is being changed by legislation.
In the United States, we see this when abortion advocates successfully made the US Supreme Court ruled on abortion as a “Constitutional right” (Roe v. Wade). It was a slide downhill from then on. One law after another was passed that contradicts Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Slowly we see it in the Philippines, starting with the passing of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law. It was a slippery slope down the hill of liberal gender-identity politics.
Religion is now becoming marginalized, if not made inutile, by legislation. Liberal ideologues and advocates turned laws into their tools to change people’s minds and push their ideological agenda changing society according to their imagination.
Nowadays, Catholic beliefs on abortion and cohabitation (live-ins) are considered dull and anachronistic, something one’s titas, lolas, and (occasionally) titos and lolos believed in but not for the Millennials and Gen Alpha. To paraphrase a young Filipina actress when asked whether she is living together under one roof with her love team, “Come on, guys, it is already 2020.”
Christianity is now replaced with another “religion,” the religion of moral relativism. It raised to its altar new deities called “equal rights” supported by civil laws.
It is a postmodern ideology that religion should be in the personal sphere, not in public. This ideological stance enforces the belief that you could believe whatever you want, but you cannot bring your faith in the polis or public life.
This paradigm has also infiltrated theology. How often have you heard in the media that “only the pastoral approach was changed but not the teachings of the Church?” This thinking is an offshoot of a postmodern ideology because it is alienating doctrines from practice.
Pastoral approach is derived from the doctrines of the Church, not the other way around.
The smug complacency that doctrines are not changed; therefore, there is nothing to worry about is exactly what the liberal ideologues want, which is to make the Church irrelevant. This thinking is, in effect, alienating the Church from the lives of the people.
The Catholic Church is reduced to an anachronistic institution that upholds its teachings as treasured relics of the past. While its adherents have moved on elsewhere, without heed to whatever the Church is teaching. Sadly, those who professed themselves as Catholics would instead follow secular laws rather than God’s laws.
During the RH Law controversy, I remember that many “Catholics,” even priests, campaigned for its passage while those who should have spoken were eerily silent.
Just ask how many Catholics are living together as couples without the sacrament of matrimony? My anecdotal observations even suggest that they would prefer to have “civil unions” rather than Church weddings because, after all, it is just the same.
For them, civil unions will suffice to give them the necessary documents to ensure their rights. Some would not even want to enter into civil unions because it is just bothersome paperwork.
A person can believe whatever he or she wants, but when the public laws demand that they act contrary to their faith, they have no choice but to bow down to the power of these laws.
It is not just about the separation between religion and state but also the separation between personal and public life. This belief has effectively castrated the Christian religion.
What we have now is an emasculated Jesus patting sheep’s heads on lush green meadows. Gone is the Jesus who angrily shouted to religious leaders “Hypocrites!” or the Jesus who overturned the moneychangers’ tables in the Temple.
The passage of the Reproductive Health Law during the P-Noy’s administration was the litmus test of both the Filipino society and the Catholic Church. It tested whether the common tao will be interested in this issue, given that they are Catholics. It also measured the Church’s resolve and unity against the liberal agenda.
Sadly, it showed that the common tao is uninterested whether the RH Law is passed or not. While the Catholic Church in the Philippines was proven helpless in the face of a president that many today now called a “weak president.”
The only thing that stands against other liberal agendas like abortion and divorce is the Constitution and the Family Code. But then again, those who have the grit, will, and numbers can undoubtedly find a way around.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, who can stop the Philippine Congress from passing laws that will further erode the Catholic Church’s teachings?
I think no one and nothing, more so today, just read the news for the past days, you will get what I meant. Same-sex civil union is up for grabs.
In the meantime, an institution that wants to be relevant in this postmodern world is actually becoming more irrelevant.
But then again, there will be those who would claim it is becoming more relevant…
So, which is which? Your guess is as good as mine.
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