Monday, March 03, 2008 Speak Out: Church and state By Robert Andrew Soco
WHEN the ZTE-NBN scandal broke out, the masses acted immediately. People are not anymore like little children, who need someone to decide for them. They decide on what action they take; an action that aspires for democracy.
Still other people are waiting for a new Cardinal Sin to make a clarion call, beckoning the people to go to the streets. Politically, I think it is a defeat when religious leaders dictate government policy to those they help install to power.
If the government is ruining itself, people should act based on their conscience. Sadly, the masses have a wrong conception of conscience. The church could be a sector of logical expertise and moral conviction. However, conscience is not the monopoly of religious leaders. As our Holy Father Benedict XVI said, the role of members of the church hierarchy that includes bishops and also the clergies is to form and educate consciences. It is something else when they, the religious leaders, surrogate their conscience for that of the laity’s conscience.
It is not the moral and pastoral duty of the bishops to make clarion calls to the people to gather and to resonantly protest in the streets. The public should recognize and be caution enough to know the limits of the authority of religious leaders.
With another instance of corruption and abuse of power, this gives the masses an opportunity to show that the Philippines is a democratic country. People should fight against an abusive administration.
How do we assess the two People Power revolutions? Apparently, local politics and the people have yet to learn the lessons of both events. So we may get a new government, but it is the result of the childish attitude of the people. When the streets are cleared and the people go back living their daily lives, they will just revert to their old ways. It doesn’t help that the church doesn’t give the people a chance to think for themselves or free themselves.
