Sad Irony

A pro-abortion senatorial candidate said that he does not consider “abortion as murder” while Pope Francis said that “abortion is murder.”

One of my friends when she saw my Facebook post expressing my opinion commented that this senatorial candidate is alright because he is “pro-worker/labor” and has roots in Bacolod.

This is indicative of how people think when made to choose between what the church teaches and what society has to offer.

I assumed that the reasoning behind her comment is that it is okey to vote for this candidate because he promises to provide a better deal for the labor sector. But that is just how I understood her message, I might be wrong.

For me, it is a symptom of the Church’s irrelevance in public discourse. This is also the reason why I was amused about the fuss whether the Church in the Philippines should endorse a candidate or not. As if this would significantly change the trend of the people’s choice. There is no such thing as “Catholic vote.”

The most recent evidence of this was during the previous senatorial election when a few bishops stood strong against the passage of the RH Law. The Filipino Catholic populace conveniently ignored them and voted for their own choice regardless of what the Church is teaching. It is no different for this election.

I believed that without a clear stand on issues that concerns the teachings of the Lord, the Church would reduce itself into an insular enclave that concerns itself chasing its own shadow detached from societal realities.

Besides that, the presidency of P-Noy showed the Achilles heel of the Church in the Philippines, there is no unity among the bishops on how to deal with this issue. This made P-Noy took the risk. He would rather please Obama and those with liberal agenda than to please the Catholics in the Philippines, most of whom are Catholics by name only.

Bishop Navarra of Bacolod was the staunchest voice in the Visayas against the RH Law. However, the liberal-minded P-Noy sensing the weakness of the hierarchy, pushed through Congress the passage of the Reproductive Health Law under the patronage of Barack Obama.

After that long agonizing battle against the RH Law, during that time when we marched on the streets and across the entire island, expressing our stand against artificial contraception and abortion, the official newsletter founded by Bishop Navarra who staunchly fought against abortion now features a senatorial candidate who publicly expressed a pro-abortion stance.

While it is true that there is no Catholic vote, I wandered how many kind and simple folks will vote for this candidate because they saw him in the Official Newsletter?

And how many people will change their minds because they were informed that this is a pro-abortion candidate?

What a sad irony.