Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. Photo from cbcponline.net
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal remained hopeful on Sunday, that the reproductive health bill would fail in the third reading vote in the House of Representatives on Monday.
“We are praying but anything can happen,” Vidal said in an interview.
Earlier, in a homily he delivered in a Mass that marked the first of the nine-day novena tradition for Christmas, Vidal cited the importance of seeing God’s will in the drafting of laws governing humans.
The cardinal did not directly mention the reproductive health (RH) bill in his homily at a Mass held at the compound of Cebu Catholic Television Network (CCTN).
But in an interview, Vidal explained that any law coming from the government would be based on human will.
He explained that if a law did not respect the will of God, it might lead to dictatorship “because it is not God who will be with us, it’s only man.”
“You know, the tendency of man is to impose his own will to others. So, the consequence as we have learned from history — and the church has been living for more than 2000 years — we have experienced that when God is absent in making laws, tapos (everything ends),” the Cardinal said.