EDITORIAL — Deaf ears

There is no doubt that virtually all exhortations issued by the Roman Catholic Church for the benefit of its followers carry with them the good intentions of a discerning spiritual and moral authority.

For instance, who can question a recent exhortation by the Cebu Archdiocese, published in the latest issue of its newsletter " Ang Lungsuranon, " for people to resist corruption and to pay and use taxes promptly and properly.

Such an exhortation hits true and hard at the sensibilities of those who care enough about Christian communities and how the moral fabric of these communities are being seriously eroded by corruption.

There are those, however, who believe, and not without enough basis, that exhortations on their own no longer work against practices that have become entrenched in a society that grows more decadent by the day.

Add to this the growing erosion of the authority of the Church itself to speak about moral issues as a result of the increasing incidences of involvement by Church personnel themselves in immoral acts.

The argument that Church personnel are themselves only human and therefore are also prone to commit mistakes would have held water had the Church itself acted with more transparency and resolve in dealing with these mistakes.

But as everybody in and out of Roman Catholicism knows, the Roman Catholic Church has greatly mishandled the issues involving its personnel, giving the impression that it does not practice what it preaches.

And so we have the situation in Cebu that while the Cebu Archdiocese has issued yet another thought-provoking exhortation to promote goodness, coming as it does on the heels of its limp-wristed handling of the Fr. Ejares case ensures the exhortation will fall on deaf ears.