RH law fo the faithful Catholic
For the Catholic faithful who have come to share their bishops’ conclusions about the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, the approval of the measure in the Senate and the Lower House was huge blow to traditional Christian culture.
In the history of religion, the Catholic Church stands as the last Christian denomination that holds fast to the teaching that artificial contraception is resistance to divine law that is manifested in natural law.
In practical terms, once the RH bill becomes law, the faithful Catholic will find himself co-opted into doing something that ordinarily he would not do: Fund, through his taxes, the supply of artificial means of family planning to multitudes of Filipinos, many of them Catholics like himself.
In other words, the faithful Catholic will feel the pain of having worked for the glory of his God only to see part of the fruits of his labor earmarked for what he finds sinful and for creating for his neighbor what theology calls “a near occasion of sin.”
For a near-occasion of sin is what free contraceptives are for Filipino Catholics, especially poor ones who would like to stay faithful to Church teaching except that their resolve to do so is eroded by the heightened accessibility of the accessories of contraception.
There are Catholics who call themselves progressive and support the RH bill. They are cheering its impending enactment into law.
Traditional Catholics, however, will question the presentation of their own version of what constitutes the common good as an alternative magisterium.
The former will highlight the latter’s breast thumping (“I am Catholic and I support the RH bill”) as a textboox example of defiance of shepherds; in short, disobedience.
This is where the leading voices of the hierarchy have disproven the view of Church critics who say that ecclessiastical opposition to the RH bill is a show of naked power and vengefulness by bishops.
In the face of the division of the flock and the clear snub from the laity on an essential issue, Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle of Manila said, “This vote leads us to further commit the Church… to the service of the poor, of the family, of women, of infants and children.
“This vote leads us to further commit the Church… to the service of the poor, of the family, of women, of infants and children,”
The vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, did not mince words in calling the impending law “a moral time bomb.”
Yet he said, “We might not see eye to eye but we can work hand in hand for the real progress that our people so richly deserve… a progress with God, in God and through God.”
