"x x x.
“A choice for a candidate who takes positions that are not only politically precarious but worse, morally reprehensible, cannot and should not be made by the Catholic faithful and those who take their allegiance to Christ and his Kingship seriously,” the Archbishop said.
“One cannot proclaim Christ as King and at the same time accept the governance of one whose thoughts, speech and demeanor are diametrically opposed to the demands of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Archbishop Villegas noted in his address the “nationally telecast debates as well as the publicized utterances and actuations of our candidates, particularly those who vie for the high office of President of the Republic.”
Those pronouncements “have given us all a glimpse of who they are, what they represent and the causes they champion -- or reject,” he said.
“There is a fundamental difference between right and wrong, and not everything is fair game in politics.”
But the Archbishop also noted: “The desire for change is understandable. Our people have suffered from incompetence and indifference.”
“But this cannot take the form of supporting a candidate whose speech and actions, whose plans and projects show scant regard for the rights of all, who has openly declared indifference if not dislike and disregard for the Church specially her moral teachings.”
“We ask all who shall be sworn in to remember that when they take the oath that the law requires of them, they call on God as their witness -- and even if they may not expressly do so, they swear in the sight of God’s people.”
“Not whim then, nor arbitrariness, not vendetta nor revenge, but the rights of God’s people enshrined in the Constitution and their demand for justice, unity, progress and peace to which every law must respond!’
x x x.
Report by -- James Glenn M. Gomez
x x x."
