The people power of one woman

Thanks to the antics of mostly discredited and selfish politicians, many people now find any invocation of the People Power Revolt of February 1986, or what has come to be called Edsa I, as revolting.

Not even the seeming divinity attached to the phenomenon then, nor our hasty assignation of our own icon of the Virgin Mary to it, seems to succeed in continuing to lend an air of sacred feeling toward it.

But then, just when we thought all was lost, something refreshing happenened, something that is akin to a people power on a smaller scale occurred. Maybe people power has not been flushed too far down the drain to be successfully retrieved.

This smaller version of people power did not happen as a tumultuous uprising out there in the streets but in the sanctity of a church, at the St. Joseph Parish in Mabolo, Cebu City, where a noontime first Friday Mass was being said last March 3.

It appears that the Mass celebrant, like many other overly politicized priests and bishops nowadays, misappropriated the solemnity and sacredness of the gathering by launching into a political harangue against the government, particularly President Arroyo.

For quite some time during the homily, the priest went on with his political diatribe as his parishioners sat and listened in great discomfort. Eventually, some of those who could not take it anymore stood up and left.

This emboldened one lady, a certain Carmen Campbell, to do what has probably never happened before in any Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines in contemporary history. Campbell rose from her seat and went up to the altar to confront the priest.

Campbell, 70, a devout Catholic, stood a few feet before the priest and asked him to stop, telling him that the people were there in church to listen to the word of God and to pray and not to be lectured about what a bad person the president is.

Fr. Antonio Mansueto, the assistant parish priest, was stumped. After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to reply and tell Campbell that priests sometimes have to tell the people the truth.

This infuriated Campbell, who told the priest that while this may be so, what he was saying was not the truth. The priest was forced to drop the subject, and as Campbell returned to her seat, loud applause broke from the congregation.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, the media liaison officer of the Cebu Archdiocese, said Cebu archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal has already learned of the incident and will be getting the side of Fr. Mansueto before taking any action.

Actually, it is not necessary for Cardinal Vidal to take any action. It was enough that somebody like Campbell, who cannot take it anymore from priests who go out of line with their political views, to put such priests in their proper places.

Their is no disputing that priests have to tell the truth. But the only truth priests can be certain of is the word of God. Anything other than God's truth is not the truth but only debatable propositions.

Nowhere in God's word is there anything about specific contemporary political events. In such an absence, any priest who dares to speak on such a subject and passes it off as the truth is licentious and malicious.

But because no one had the guts that Campbell had, Filipino Catholics have had to endure these excesses by priests for decades, sitting timidly in their seats at every Mass and enduring whatever political views a priest may wish to dish out with impunity.

Well, the people power of one woman hopefully puts an end to such an abuse. Priests have heretofore been forewarned to stick to what the people go to church for. If priests want to talk politics, they better leave the priesthood and run for office. Mabuhay ka, Mrs. Campbell.