Reference - Showdown on RH law | Inquirer News
I am prepared to be excommunicated. -
Newly elected CBCP president Archbishop Socrates Villegas describes the role of his leadership, in relation to the Government, as that of a "critical collaborator" and a "conscience troublemaker", particularly with specific reference to the RH Law, which he and his CBCP colleagues want the Supreme Court to nullify for being "unconstitutional".
Villegas may be a charming CBCP leader but, with all due respect to him, I urge him to open up his closed canonical mind, read the signs of the times, listen to the people and the well-meaning scientists, academicians and technocrats, and realize that the RH Law is not an evil and unconstitutional pro-abortion law, or an anti-family law, or an anti-Church law, as the misguided CBCP propaganda core maliciously claims.
If Archbishop Villegas thinks he can ignore the basic constitutional doctrine of SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE by using the subtle threats and pretexts of "critical collaboration" and "conscience troublemaking", without any opposition from the enlightened and independent-minded Filipinos, especially the vigilant Bar and the intelligent Academe, he is gravely mistaken.
I pray for the spiritual and intellectual enlightenment of the entire Filipino clergy and their ignorant lay leaders.
May God stop the bishops and priests from using the people's "fear of hell" as the sword of Damocles to perpetuate their exploitative, abusive and misleading actions to insure the primacy of the Church over the State even on non-religious and morality-neutral issues, public welfare programs, and social legislation.
I pray that the Filipino people would have the courage to remember that we, as a nation, had kicked out the abusive clergy (moonlighting as silent politicians, business cronies, and philanderers, if not plunderers) 115 years ago during the Philippine Revolution against Spain, and that as early as the 1899 Malolos Constitution, we had firmly established in our land the basic constitutional doctrine of "separation of Church and State".
I am prepared to be excommunicated by the Catholic Church for my foregoing position and statement.
Atty. Manuel J. Laserna Jr.
