If the controversial Lady Gaga concerts were filled to the brim on Monday and Tuesday, she only has the Catholic Church and self-appointed moral guardians and other publicity hounds to thank for.
All that shouting, stomping and hair-pulling to show their disapproval of the international pop star just created the reverse effect.
More people, even those who didn’t know Lady Gaga, were attracted by the noise and came to her concert.
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Leading the dog pack in trying to tear the American recording artist into shreds was Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles.
Lady Gaga’s fans, said the would-be prince of the Catholic Church, “are in danger of falling into the clutches of Satan unless they are already there.”
Arguelles warned that going to her concert was like “joining devil worship.”
But were the faithful scared by the archbishop’s threat of being doomed to oceans of hellfire?
No! Arguelles has even become a laughingstock.
You see, many Catholics now believe that Satan is a nonexistent entity, a bogeyman.
Satan is like the rice field scarecrow; instead of scaring the birds, it ends up serving as a perch for them.
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Religious leaders who scare the hell out of their followers over the nonexistent Devil will one day find themselves preaching to an empty gallery.
If the unspeakable fear of Satan or Lucifer—or whatever you call the personification of evil—continues to be instilled in the minds of the faithful, it will reach a point when the fear will be gone.
There’s Filipino maxim: “Don’t try to scare a person who’s long been scared.”
Even craven cowards reach a saturation point and become brave.
And so religious leaders who threaten their followers eternal damnation for their “sins” lose credibility when the followers find out eventually that the Devil is just a bogeyman.
Pope John Paul II, the most beloved of all popes, said that hell as a place does not exist.
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World religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam should stop teaching their followers about a vindictive and jealous God.
They’re portraying God as a petty entity, capable of human errors.
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These religions teach us that God is perfect.
If God is perfect, which He really is, then He is incapable of human error such as jealousy and vindictiveness.
Think about it.
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One hour before Chief Justice Renato Corona walked out of the Senate session hall which has been converted into an impeachment court, my friend said she could sense that the chief magistrate was going to have a heart attack.
She told me she could “see” Corona having a heart attack while he was reading his prepared speech before the senator-judges as part of his defense.
And when Corona stood up and walked out of the hall without being given the permission of the court, my hairs stood on end.
Okay, she was a little off-tangent in her prediction because Corona’s blood sugar count went down radically; still, it was life-threatening.
How did she predict that Corona would have a life-threatening emotional upheaval?