EDITORIAL — Priests should stay out of politics

A priest is running for governor of Pampanga in clear violation of Church tenets. But the Church is turning the other cheek, justifying the violation by saying it is the lesser of three evils, the other candidates allegedly being a " quarrying king " and a " jueteng queen. "

The trouble with justifications is that anyone can always justify anything. A thief who steals can always try to justify the crime by saying he has a family to feed. A man who kills somebody can always claim he had to shoot first or be killed himself.

This ability of anybody to justify anything is the reason why society invented institutions in order to establish laws and norms of conduct in order to instill order. Without order there is chaos.

Unfortunately, a growing number of Filipinos have developed a penchant for dismantling institutions. There is hardly any institution left in the Philippines that has not come under assault by those who seem to be possessed by the unbridled need to impose their will on others.

Soldiers claiming loftier goals no longer have any qualms mounting coups, ignoring the risks these actions have on the population and the economy. Lawmakers claiming nobler tasks pay no more heed to due process, never pausing even briefly to acknowledge the dignity of others.

This is the same with priests dipping their fingers into the prohibited pie of politics, claiming their right to hog the high moral ground justifies making a travesty of all that the faith has held sacred for centuries.

These acts of justifying the ill-disguised arrogation of collective interests can easily be mistaken as manifestations of enlightenment that the unenlightened must swallow under pain of isolation.

Institutions must be protected at all costs from the increasing assaults of those who proclaim themselves to be the new messiahs. The world may be changing fast. But the underlying stability of the world still rests on the bedrock of unassailable institutional wisdoms.