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Monday, January 16, 2006
Gulle: Bishop lawmakers?
By Inocentes A. Gulle
Your business is our business
DAVAO Archbishop Fernando Capalla, former head of the Catholic Bishops Conference, has reportedly come out openly suggesting that the Catholic Bishops be allowed more active role in lawmaking.
Capalla allegedly explained that congressmen need the bishops guidance in determining right from wrong, especially on issues that have something to do with morality and human values.
It's simply saying that men of the cloth are better equipped "in the discernment of what is right and wrong." That way we can ensure that Congress pass only laws that are more just and equitable laws.
In short, he is saying our present crop of congressmen could not determine right from wrong, moral from immoral. That is probably the reason we are considered by a recent survey as the third most corrupt nation in the world.
What the Bishop Capalla allegedly suggested amounts to saying our laws today are flawed because they were enacted by legislators, who are ill-equipped in moral values and who could not distinguish between right and wrong. It is practically an indictment of the existing institutions, especially the educational system, the family and the community, and the Church.
What about the bishops, are they the only ones who are morally upright in this benighted country? What about the product of the institutions they run, the brilliant graduates of such prestigious and famous exclusive schools like Ateneo, LaSalle, and other Catholic-ran university systems all over the country, are they morally ill-equipped too?
Most of our leaders -- in the legislative, executive and the judiciary -- come from these institutions. Is Bishop Capalla now admitting that these Catholic institutions have failed? Now, if the religious institutions have failed to produce morally upright up-right people, how can we expect the secular institutions to fare better? No wonder our country is going to the dogs!
But if we come right down to it, it's not the Philippines alone that have gone to the dogs. As a matter of fact, the whole world is plunging headlong into perdition. All one has to do is to look around him and he cannot miss the increasing evil that abound. And they are even daily growing in magnitude and frequency. Unless man will turn from his continued violation of the Eternal Law there is no way we can reverse this headlong plunge into the worst catastrophe this world will ever experience.
Just observe the trend in the Middle East. Listen to the poisonous statements of anti-Israel, anti-West pronouncements like Iran President Ahmadinejad who unabashedly declares that his paramount objective is to wipe out Israel from the face of the earth. Watch the increasing terrorism the world over that could soon become nuclear thanks to Iran's inspiration. Even the mightiest nations on earth are now proven short in their war on terror brought about by jihad covertly supported by Iranian extremist Islam. In our country terror does not only come from the radical Islam but from the leftists as well and in some more subtle form, from the evils of now systemic corruption in all levels of our society which could explode in our faces anytime.
Unless the world repents and turns to the only source of life then there's no way the trend would reverse. God help us.
(January 16, 2006 issue)
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