Who sets the country’s agenda?

President GMA may have been elated by the second CBCP statement because it did not call for people power to oust her. The group decided not to follow Cardinal Sin’s example given the failure of people power calls from Cory and Susan. It was wiser not to directly confront the Arroyo government. Instead it issued an ambivalent statement that although they would not call for President GMA’s ouster by ‘people power’ they ask the Opposition to continue "their search for truth". If politics is about taking sides, the CBCP statement brilliantly opted out.

It is a shrewd maneuver in this time of uncertainty and rapid changes. Better not to gamble its long term political interests which have been at work in this country since time immemorial. Former CBCP head, Bishop Capalla possibly had an inkling of this shifting mood on the political power of the church when he was asked if lawmakers were heeding the CBCP call. He said: "By their actuations, you would know that they were not following the principles." There you go.

The founding fathers of this nation had the same dilemma about these ‘principles.’ Moral principles are all very well. Indeed they ought to be encouraged. What is deplored is when these are used to advance the quasi- political role of the church. It may sound like an oxymoron but ‘morality’ can be used ‘amorally’ when it is a tool in its struggle for power against the state. Ironically it was also in Catholic Spain that our heroes came upon a different world. There they opened their minds to new ideas. Their writings reveal bitterness that whereas Spaniards, Catholics all, had the freedom to speak as they wish, Filipinos could not. Wanting the same freedom of thought was severely dealt with back home by a theocratic regime.

Rizal, in his novel Noli Me Tangere said as much. His criticisms he said ‘were aimed at the friars, but since the friars were using religion as a shield, but also as a weapon, protection, citadel, fortress, armor etc. . . "I felt obliged to attack their false and superstitious religion in order to battle with the enemy", he added. That lesson is still valid today. Understandably, church officials have to justify their incursions in the political field. What could be more palatable than ‘moral values.’ The trouble is the church presumes it is the supreme arbiter of those values. In a sense, citizenry must take some responsibility because it relies on the church to bring secular and political reforms.

Cardinal Sin took on causes that should have been the duty of state leadership. I am not surprised that it became a habit. From EDSA 1 came EDSA 2. Then in 1998 he presided over a huge rally against charter change. He summoned Catholics under pain of mortal sin because the obligatory mass was to be held, ironically, at Rizal Park Naturally, it was a blockbuster. Who wants to commit sin for charter change? As a charter reform advocate, it was painful to be called devils as the good cardinal described anyone who would propose amendments to the Constitution. At the time, I was perplexed at the vehemence of his objections. Now I understand. Charter change was a threat to its power as the purveyor of crowds for political ends. It is especially flagrant that it condemns politicians when it has not put its own moral house in order. Whatever happened to Bishop Bacani’s alleged sexual scandal that he should have the effrontery to sit in judgment against ‘immoral’ politicians?

The trouble is that our politicians are too afraid to confront the contradiction. This fear of the church was true when the friars held sway then as it is today. In 1954, several bishops handed down an edict forbidding Catholics from becoming Masons under pain of excommunication. They could not be witnesses in Catholic marriages because that would be scandal. Neither could they be buried in Catholic cemeteries.

No wonder politicians are afraid. Apart from the fear of excommunication they are also afraid of the power of the church to call in its ‘numbers’ of blind followers. The Catholic charismatic group – El Shaddai can be said to be its political arm. The INK is a private cult but it follows the same political formula. It will take a lot of courage to confront the issue especially because the church preaches the worthy aim of restoring trust by a plea for moral values in Philippine politics.

Today, the church may have become gentler and subtler. That is to be welcomed but it has its downside. That makes it even harder to confront. Yet there is no mistaking the church uses its religious influence among the masses to be on top of the country’s political agenda. (We hear of the church condemning politicians but not politicians harassed by bishops if they do not abide by its teachings on birth control and divorce). No wonder a CBCP statement is so feared. Moreover, although its political power is known and conceded, the separation of church and state is not debated openly. It is tacitly accepted as part of the political landscape.

CBCP has played its cards well to project itself as the savior of President GMA through their July 10 and September 13 statements. The council has 12 members, including incoming CBCP president Angel Lagdameo who supported the impeachment case against the President but later turned down by the ‘evil’ majority in the House. The CBCP said the bishops were not demanding Ms Arroyo’s to resign but "we recognize that nonviolent appeals for her resignation because that is not against the Gospel." The struggle between church and state goes back a long time and reached the Philippines through the Spanish friars. It was Pope Boniface VIII in his papal bull, "Unam Sanctam," in 1302 who declared the church was above the state. "We make simple confession that outside the Church there is no salvation or remission of sins.... We declare, affirm and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman pontiff." This papal bull reinforced the theory that a society is governed by two swords, spiritual and temporal. The two swords are not equal, the first is wielded solely by the church, and the second by civil government but only on behalf of the church.

This was followed by the ‘Syllabus of Errors’ in 1864 by Pope Pius IX. He attacked the very idea of separation of church and state. But his hard-line attitude was softened by the second Vatican Ecumenical Council under Pope John XXIII in 1962. In "Vatican II," the church endorsed religious liberty for everyone as a fundamental human right.

Here is a cause of division blamed on media by Cardinal Vidal. As in other countries these divisions come from the differences between traditionalists and Vatican II. Ultra-conservative Catholics have never been happy with Vatican II and they pine for the absolute authority of the church as it had been in the Middle Ages. This may be wishing for the moon. Nevertheless this column commends the church’s resolve for a more effective evangelization but may I add, this should begin in their own ranks rather than throw mud at ‘politicians’ who are their natural adversaries in the power struggle between church and state.

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