EDITORIAL - Priests and politics

A priest is now turning heads after something he said was construed by some as partisan politics.

"Pila kabuok ron ang wa pa makit-i nga taga dinhi sa atong parokya? Pila kabuok ron ang mohilak pa, kung maghisgot lang ka'g baha mohilak na kay ang iyang anak nawagtang gikan sa iyang kamot paghasmag sa baha? Unya padayunon ta 'ning maong administrasyon?! Dili na uy! Hunongon ta na ni, ilisan nato!" he allegedly said.

The first part of his message refers to those missing because of Typhoon Tino, but then he seems to segue into calling for action against the current administration. 

According to sources, the priest is known to support the former president, now jailed in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s not wrong for priests to have a political opinion. It also isn’t wrong for them to express their political opinions outside of public and within a trusted circle of associates who will not spread his word.

But for a priest to call for action based on his personal political beliefs and in his capacity as a man of the cloth isn’t right. To do so would be engaging in partisan politics. To do so would be to imply that one side is good and the other side is evil, and we all know the world isn’t just black and white.

For those who point to the example of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin as the one who called for the EDSA Revolution that toppled the Marcos Sr. regime, we would like to remind them that the call was only for people to converge on an avenue to prevent bloodshed from happening between two military camps.

That gathering eventually snowballed into what we now call the revolution, but Sin didn’t call for people to actively replace or overthrow the administration; it was a call to prevent people from killing and getting killed.

There is separation between Church and State and priests are forbidden from engaging in politics for many good reasons. One of these is because when religious leaders get involved or dabble in politics, they often choose sides based on their beliefs, biases, background, opinions, or even emotions. And not all of us --not even those belonging to the same faith-- have the same beliefs, biases, backgrounds, opinions, and emotions.