CBCP: OK to tackle socio-political matters in homilies

CBCP | PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

MANILA, Philippines — The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said that discussing socio-political issues in homilies is fine as there is a need to put morality in these concerns.

CBCP public affairs committee executive secretary Fr. Jerome Secillano said Wednesday that religious leaders are speaking the church’s policy when doing their homilies.

“We speak of the policy of the universal Catholic Church,” he said on ABS-CBN News Channel’s Headstart.

“While there may be people, there may be priests who would actually tackle socio-political issues in their homilies, it’s just fine because we need to put morality in these issues,” he went on.

Earlier, the CBCP said that a good Christian will vote for a leader who will uphold the true spirit of the People Power Revolution which restored the country’s democracy.

CBCP said that their statement is not being partisan.

“That’s not being partisan because… we need to put morality in context. We need to put morality in our society. We need to put morality even in politics. If I may call it, it’s all about evangelization of politics,” said Secillano.

The priest said that it is necessary to remind people of the atrocities of martial law to avoid going back to a time when rights and freedom are suppressed.

“We have to look at it from the point of view of restoring democracy and not only restoring democracy but also from the point of view of a dictatorship that actually suppressed all our rights and freedoms and we don’t want to go back to such kind of situation,” Secillano said.

“So, I think it’s merited that we remind people of these things because I guess if we’re not going to remind people of all these things, we’re just going to go back to where we were before,” he added.

JPV