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Thursday, July 17, 2008
Vidal won’t ban ‘anti-life’ solons
CEBU CITY -- Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal urged Wednesday legislators who support the “Deaths” bills to search their conscience and decide whether or not to receive communion.
“If they think they have not sinned, it is up to them. I cannot judge their conscience, it is only God who can judge their conscience. I just tell them there is no such a thing as a lesser evil,” said the archbishop.
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
He acknowledged that a House bill that defines a national policy on “reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development” does not support abortion.
But he added: “The means could lead to (abortion) and it will later on lead to euthanasia.”
The cardinal’s statement, made at least twice Wednesday, came a day after Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, backed action to deny communion to any politician who supports legalizing abortion.
No major Catholic politicians back abortion, but several support moves to promote family planning methods that would include contraceptives, which are forbidden by the church.
During the weekend, an official of Human Life International described as “anti-life and anti-God” two Cebuano lawmakers who confirmed support for House Bill 4110.
Human Life coined the term “deaths” to describe bills that, according to the group, will enable divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total population control, homosexual union and sex education.
Cardinal Vidal clarified he is not banning legislators from partaking of the Eucharist.
Reminder
“On the controversial move to deny Holy Communion to those legislators who actively push into law the proposal to legalize abortion, I would like to clarify that the call is actually a reminder to the consciences of all that abortion is a grave moral evil and therefore, anyone who effectively allows or intends it commission is a cooperator in the murder of an innocent human life,” Cardinal Vidal said.
He issued the statement after giving his Bisaya homily for the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmelite at the Carmelite Monastery in Barangay Mabolo yesterday morning.
“I do not have illusions that his brief explanation will put to rest this lively debate. I hope, though, that I have contributed something to the clarification of the issues,” the prelate also said.
Earlier, Cebu Archdiocesan media liaison officer Msgr. Achilles Dakay and Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus Dosado urged legislators supporting the reproductive health bills to
listen to their conscience and refrain from receiving communion.
Cardinal Vidal added yesterday that legislators should take a clear stand in the population debate.
“You cannot go to the table of the Lord and to the table of the demon at the same time,” said Vidal.
‘Subservience’
In his homily Wednesday afternoon during the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the Guadalupe parish, Cardinal Vidal questioned the argument that the reproductive health bills, if they become law, would help the poor.
“That’s the problem with them (legislators), they talk about legality and we are talking about morality,” said Vidal.
Former president Fidel Ramos, a Protestant, chided President Arroyo last week for not having a comprehensive family planning policy due to “unwarranted subservience” to the Catholic church.
The country has about 473,000 abortions yearly, accounting for one-third of the estimated unplanned pregnancies, while two out of five women who want contraceptives don’t have access to them, the United Nations Population Fund has said.
The country’s population has been growing by two percent per year and is projected to reach 90 million this year.
In Metro Manila, a city councilor said that priests have threatened to deny him communion for writing an ordinance promoting birth control among young people.
Embarrassment
Joseph Juico, a Quezon City councilor, said he has avoided communion while attending Sunday Mass and has planned his wedding next month in another town to avoid any embarrassment.
He said the threat was made during a meeting with a group of priests who tried to persuade him not to push the measure last August. It was passed in February.
Juico clarified reports that priests threatened to deny him a church wedding, saying that wasn’t true.
“But if there’s one thing they told me, it is that they will deny me communion,” he said. “I was really caught off-guard.”
Fr. Aris Sison, who was at the meeting, denied the priests had threatened Juico. “He was not told, ‘If you continue this, we will ban you,’” he said.
Sison said that during a “light moment” in their meeting, the priests discussed reports of American Catholic bishops denying communion for the same reasons.
“It came out in the discussion ... as a question which was not answered,” he said. (EPB/CYR of Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Dumaguete. (July 17, 2008 issue)
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