Press meets pastor

Friday Sept. 7 was a special day for Cebu media practitioners as  Archbishop Jose Palma hosted a half day recollection for us at his residence along D. Jakosalem Street.

The recollection was his  way of reaching out as a pastor to mass communicators in lieu of leading the Mass to launch the 18th Cebu Press Freedom Week on Sept. 16, when he will preside over the fiesta Mass in Danao City.

The recollection included an introduction by the archbishop, a spiritual talk by Msgr. Joseph Tan and time for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

I arrived (after Ador Vincent Mayol and with Peter Romanillos, both colleagues at Cebu Daily News), in time for the brief pre-Mass forum in the Saint Joseph chapel during which the shepherd of our archdiocese entertained his guests’ questions and suggestions related to faith and social communications.

Eileen Mangubat, our publisher and acting editor-in-chief sought Archbishop Palma’s insight about the difficulty that many media practitioners have attending Sunday Mass. This is a reality in an  era of 24/7 news.

The archbishop acknowledged our troubles but also recounted a situation in which Catholics were constrained to offer Mass in secret and in a quick four minutes for fear of exposure to Communist persecutors.

Wherever Christians are persecuted, Archbishop Palma gently pointed out, Sunday Mass is held very precious. In contrast, it tends to be taken for granted in the Philippines where one can attend  Sunday Mass in any Catholic Church at the time one prefers.

I agree with His Grace and believe that the Sunday Mass conundrum is one from which not only media practitioners but also Catholics of every other occupation need to untangle themselves.

In Cebu, Sunday Masses are offered as early as 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays and as late as 8:30 p.m. on Sundays. If a writer can reserve energy for pages-long investigative reports; a videographer take time to shoot different angles of a scene; a commentator pore over volumes to craft fresh insights, surely one can offer one Sunday hour to the One who gave the writer her talent, the videographer his vision and the commentator his voice.

Meditation on our Lord’s word can shore up our enthusiasm for Sundays with him. Amid his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he noticed his three disciples sleeping, he said to Peter, “Had you not the strength to stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing enough, but human nature is weak.” (Mark 14:37-38)

If there is more to our acedia in fulfilling our Sunday obligation than time mismanagement, we can ponder part of what  Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the encyclical, “God is love.”

“Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed,” the pope said.

“People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone.

“Piety does not undermine the struggle against the poverty of our neighbours, however extreme. In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbor but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service,” Pope Benedict said.

The pontiff’s teaching can only mean that the Mass is neither bane nor fluff to media practice but in fact gives it pith. The pursuit of the common good which is the goal of mass communication cannot but benefit from persons who are blessed at Mass by the Master who is the very Truth who sets people free. (cf. John 8:32 and 14:6)

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Archbishop Palma also tackled a question from lawyer Ruphil Bañoc of dyHP and TV5 about the Reproductive Health (RH) bill as seen through the eyes of Jesuit Fr. Joaquin Bernas, lawyer and columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Fr. Bernas’ thoughts have been used by many Catholics to justify their dissent from the Magisterium, that is, the Holy Father and all the bishops in communion with him on the issue of contraception.

The priest has written, “I adhere to the teaching of the Church on artificial contraception”—a statement curiously wrapped up thus: “even if I am aware that teaching on the subject is not considered infallible doctrine by those who know more theology than I do.”

Fr. Bernas believes that leaders of the Catholic hierarchy are “burning down the house to roast a pig” in calling for the junking of the RH bill since to him it has many beneficial points that ought not to be ignored.

Archbishop Palma chose to use the image of the Trojan horse in describing the RH bill. Its authors say it is a gift to the people but it actually contains pernicious stuff.

Again, I agree with the archbishop.  The bill supposedly promotes reproductive health, but how come it will actually fund methods of fiddling with the marital act to stifle the creation of new human beings? It supposedly promotes responsible parenthood, but at the end of the day the legislation will lead to the prevalence of fake lovemaking—one in which partners eschew lifetime commitment and genuine union with each other, and keep at bay the responsibility that comes with becoming parents. Not to mention other consequences on the lives of sexual partners, mothers and the unborn that I already enumerated in previous editions of this space.

The archbishop steadfastly refused to put any sound bite-friendly label on Fr. Bernas but also clearly said that one cannot present as authentically Catholic any teaching on faith and morals that differs from what the Magisterium teaches.

As far as I am concerned—and every Catholic should know this—theologians do not have authority from Jesus Christ to determine what is fallible and infallible. They are duty bound to submit on matters of faith and morals to the judgment of the Holy Father and the bishops in communion with him. To the pope and bishops is reserved the charism, the gift of preserving and handing down the Faith—perhaps elucidated for differing contexts—but neither blown up nor watered down by theologians.

Sacred Scripture does not equivocate: God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) King David sang, “Lord… You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13) A man and woman are mere co-workers to a God who is sovereign in forming a new human life. It is no surprise that Blessed John Paul II said:

“When, therefore, through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God: the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification of not being cooperators in God’s creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life. In this perspective, contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.” (L’Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1983)

Now that rings infallible.