The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI gave our President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a copy of his Encyclical “Deus Caritas Est”—the same which he gave to all Bishops much earlier this year.
The Pope writes in that encyclical “The just ordering of society and the state is a central responsibility of politics. As St. Augustine once said, a state which is not governed according to justice would be just a bunch of thieves.” (No. 28a) It is a strong statement worth remembering. This is what Bishop Deogracias Iniguez has quoted in presenting his personal position of siding with the Kapisanan ng Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME). He clearly states that he is not bringing the CBCP in this personal option regarding the issue of impeachment.
Therefore, the CBCP respects Bishop Iñiguez personal option and will not go with the suggestion of Malacañang to sanction him because he also agrees with CBCP statements on Politics and Moral Values.
The pertinent statement of Pope Benedict XVI worth quoting is the following: “The Church’s social teaching argues on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church’s responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which will always demand sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet promotion of justice through the efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.” (Deus Caritas Est, No. 28)
Too often the “Separation of the Church and the State” is invoked. This separation should not be used as an argument against the participation and involvement of the Church in shaping the politics of our country. Concretely this means that the Bishops, Clergy and Laity must be involved on the area of politics when moral and Gospel values are at stake (cf. PCP II 344). The Pope says “the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “It is part of the Church’s mission to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it” (#2246).
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo
Archbishop of Jaro
President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
June 30, 2006
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3 comments:
Thank you very much for this statement, Bishop. This is the kind of moral leadership I'm looking for.
I'm literally fed up with CBCP's neither here nor there stance in dealing with this sickening political crisis. If they are really God's shepherds as they profess to be, then they should at least have a clear political stand on the issues hounding Mrs. Arroyo, most notably on the question of legitimacy. I cannot understand why they still continue to search for the truth when the truth is right before their very eyes! If ordinary people (whose only knowledge about God is how to pray the Hail Mary) can easily discern that cheating is immoral per se, I cannot understand why they cannot, even from a moral standpoint, categorically declare that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cheated in the last elections. While it was so easy for the Catholic heirarchy to condemn Joseph Estrada back then, it is very difficult for them to do the same thing to GMA now.
In relation to the Pastoral Statement above, the Bishops seemed to have developed amnesia in a relatively short span of time. Whereas before, they said that the filing of an impeachment complaint is not against the Gospel, that a just political order is best promoted by a preference for constitutional processes and that resolving the crisis has to be within the framework of the Constitution and the laws of the land so as to avoid social chaos, they now abhor the impeachment process as if it is contaminated with an evil disease. In the first place, impeachment under the Constitution was never intended as a venue for arriving at the truth as some would like to project. It is, first and foremost, a political mechanism for removing a President who is no longer fit to continue serving the mandate given him by the electorate. In the course of such proceedings, the truth may or may not come out. The exercise merely involves the question of whether or not a President still deserves the trust of two-thirds of all the members of the Senate. Besides, why would you entrust the quest for truth on 24 Senators who may have already pre-judged the case? Not even the Bishops can claim to know the absolute and unadulterated truth!
What the CBCP does not realize is that impeachment may be the only constitutional remedy left for removing an allegedly disgraced Presidency. Worse, they failed to recognize that it was Mrs. Arroyo herself who contributed much to the erosion of Congress' credibility in its handling of last year's impeachment. One doesn't have to be a Bishop to know the real score.
What's your alternative then, my dear Bishops, if you say that impeaching Mrs. Arroyo will only be an unproductive political exercise?
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