Between disbelief and suspended belief

THOUGHTS are running wild inside me about the conviction of Carlos Celdran, the theater artist cum innovative tour operator, who chided the Padre Damasos of the Catholic Church when the Padre Damasos were taking the tack of vilifying, with mouths frothing, those who are pushing for the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill.

Too many thoughts jam-packed in one resentful mind, all that comes out are garbled sounds. Let my silence then not be taken as agreement but more like gagged resentment. Gagged not by the Church; rather, gagged and gagging on a mix of disbelief and indignation.

You’ve been there before, especially as a child. When you just want to argue back but you have ran out of words to express it, and so you go, “bleh-bleh-beeeeh!” while sticking out your tongue.

As you grew older, you stuck out the finger; both intended to hit back and throw anger into the air.

I wasn’t gifted with “malakandila” fingers, thus sticking out my middle finger felt like showing off my stumps; I never learned to stick out my finger even in a fit of rage as a result.

I just keep quiet; the silence transposed into a million thoughts among those who think the same.

It was with sadness when I saw an email from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines the other day, a pastoral statement on present issues, among them divorce.

Sadness because there was no longer that excitement to know what the bishops are saying like there was in the golden days of the Church. In the days when Jaime Cardinal Sin chose to fight the dictator, each pastoral letter was looked up to as the word from the guiding light. In those days of uncertainty, the voice of the bishops brought light to the soul.

Not anymore, even though times are even darker now because we are not just against a dictator but against the wrath of nature.

The words no longer soothe the soul and fan hope, rather they screech like the pronunciations of a self-righteous and self-proclaimed leader instead of a servant of the savior of souls.

I’m lucky I’m not a performing artist like Celdran. I’m just glad I don’t like acting and the stage. Otherwise, I would have landed in jail the first moment a parish priest told his congregation that couples who do not beget children are living in sin as if after following the Church’s preaching of not having pre-marital sex, they knew they can’t beget children.

The sadder part of this is that, deep in my heart, I know I am not alone.

The saddest being that the bishops continue with how they vilify even after Celdran walked down that church aisle in a black coat and hat. saestremera@yahoo.com