MANILA, Philippines—The Cubao diocese has joined the Ozamiz archdiocese in threatening to refuse Holy Communion to politicians supporting controversial reproductive health measures.

Councilor Joseph Juico of Quezon City’s first district said he had to look for a new venue for his upcoming wedding after a priest of the Cubao diocese threatened to deny him communion should he get married in the diocese.

“I felt bad about it,” the 31-year-old councilor told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net). “It made me question my faith.”

Juico said he became the subject of scorn from local Catholic Church leaders and pro-life advocates after he introduced a population management ordinance for Quezon City.

The measure—eventually approved in February as “An Ordinance Creating Population Management and Reproductive Health Policy”—provides access to contraceptives like condoms, pills, injectibles, and intrauterine devices.

Juico said the ordinance also paved the way for free vasectomy and ligation, and “adolescent health education” for high school students.

Juico’s conflict with his diocese became the subject of a press conference Wednesday on the conflict between pro-choice legislators and the Catholic Church.

A few days ago, Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus Dosado issued a pastoral letter ordering priests in his archdiocese to refuse communion to pro-abortion politicians. The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo is supporting Dosado’s move.

Last week, members of the CBCP met with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to voice their opposition to reproductive health bills in Congress which they claimed promote abortion.

The President has decided to maintain her stand against the use of contraceptives.

‘Hard to go against Church’

Speaking at the forum, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said the councilor’s experience illustrated the pressure she and other pro-choice advocates were getting from the Church.

“It’s very hard—I can’t even find the right words for it—for a politician to go against the Church,” said the lawmaker, a key proponent of a population management bill in the House of Representatives.

Twin Hearts

In August 2007 when the ordinance was still “raw,” Juico said he mentioned to a priest from the Cubao diocese his intention to marry his fiancée Trisha Chua. He said the venue was either Twin Hearts church in West Triangle in Quezon City or Santuario de San Antonio in Makati City.

“They said they had the option to deny me communion,” the councilor claimed, referring to the supposed position given by a priest assigned at the office of Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco.

Juico said he and his fiancée eventually chose a church in Talisay, Batangas, for their wedding on Aug. 2.

As a result of his advocacy, Juico claimed he had also been described in a pre-marriage seminar as “a violator of the Sixth Commandment [Thou shall not kill].”

“They said I was promoting abortion,” he said of his critics.

Tatad defends diocese

At the forum, former senator Francisco Tatad, a member of the Catholic group Opus Dei, defended the Cubao diocese’s position.

“You cannot cherry-pick as a Catholic and still be in good standing,” he said.

Tatad said members of the House violated their own rules when a joint committee consolidated four population management bills into one measure on May 21.

That hearing, which was supposedly attended by only 13 lawmakers, failed to consult pro-life groups present during the deliberation, as required by the Constitution, he said.

Common objective

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, principal author of the population management bill in the House, Wednesday sought to downplay the conflict between the Church and lawmakers.

In a statement, he said: “The State and the Catholic Church need not clash on family planning because both the natural methods endorsed by the Church and contraceptive use and other modern modes of family planning have a common objective, which is to prevent unplanned pregnancies.”

Lagman heads a five-person House panel formed to dialogue with the CBCP on the population management bill.

‘Medieval witch hunt’

Advocates of reproductive health bills in Congress said they were unfairly being cast as “agents of death” in the population debate.

Dr. Eden Divinagracia, executive director of the Philippine NGO Council for Population, Health and Environment, said the recent Church-led opposition to the bills’ passage was akin to “medieval witch hunting.”

“They call us ‘pro-abortion’ when we are against abortion. We are very careful and deliberate in saying in the bill that we are against abortion,” Divinagracia said Tuesday.

Black and white

“In fact, we are helping women in seeking other ways of helping themselves so that they would not resort to abortion,” she said.

A US-based social research institution, the Guttmacher Institute, estimated that almost half a million induced abortion occur in the Philippines every year, according to Divinagracia.

“They are trying to make it a black-and-white affair by calling themselves pro-life,” Divinagracia said.

“We are not only pro-life but pro-quality life,” she said. “You cannot just multiply without thinking of the quality of life your children will have.”

Not debatable

In Pangasinan, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz asked advocates of the reproductive health bills to also educate people about the harmful effects of artificial contraceptives.

“Those who advocate artificial contraception should admit that some contraceptives are also abortifacient. Are they willing to answer for the abortion of one human life after another?” Cruz said.

Church doctrines state that abortion is a serious sin that everyone who gets involved—the parents, health professionals and other people who perform abortion—are excommunicated or expelled from the Catholic Church, he said.

Cruz said the issue was not debatable. “All who are effectively responsible for abortion are excommunicated.”

He said a priest could give absolution to a person who killed 10 people, but would need permission from his bishop to give absolution to a person who committed an abortion.

“The cause of poverty and misery in the country is not [overpopulation] but corruption,” he said.

Atienza to the defense

As the public debate on the reproductive health bill in Congress rages, staunch pro-life advocate Environment Secretary Lito Atienza is supporting Ms Arroyo’s population policy.

Atienza said the government’s reproductive health program was a step in the “right path,” saying this was the right policy that would “provide a better future” for the young.

Atienza said that population or birth control being pushed by lawmakers and other advocates would not properly address economic problems like the rising cost of fuel.

“These are mere band-aid solutions that will surely destroy values of the young,” he said in a statement.

During his nine-year watch as Manila mayor, Atienza discouraged the distribution of contraceptives at city-run hospitals and health centers. With a report from TJ Burgonio