Faith as secular morality

(Based on the commencement address given on April 16, 2011 for Kalayaan College, Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman, Quezon City)

(Second of three parts)

It is possible that the lack of integration of faith into secular life — or religious faith not driving secular behavior — has been encouraged, wittingly or unwittingly, by the emphasis given by our church leaders on rituals rather than on secular morality. Such emphasis appears to start already in grade school catechism. An unintended consequence of what may be called “ritualistic religiosity” detached from secular morality is hypocrisy that appears so common among our leaders, prominent citizens and others, who are supposed to be the role models in society.

On this score, we shouldn’t exclude ourselves. Often, we are quite faithful in terms of the external signs or rituals of our religion but not in its application to practice. In academic parlance, we are often good in theory but not in practice — a comment that is not very flattering to professors — and graduates, if I may add!

The irony is that this faith-practice disconnect persists despite — but probably more because of — the real lack of separation between Church and State in our country — a separation that is clearly provided for in our Constitution. Unlike in other countries, including Catholic countries in other parts of the world, where such separation is strictly observed, the Catholic Church in the Philippines seems to intervene not infrequently in secular concerns and responsibilities of the State, with the latter often relenting. I have earlier referred to this situation as the “hard Church and soft State.” This apparent anomaly bears emphasis as, arguably, it has been at the root of our economic backwardness as a nation.

A case in point is the long-running controversy on the issue of population policy, of which a principal instrument is the reproductive health (RH) or responsible parenthood (RP) bill, or simply family planning (FP) program that has been on the drawing board and languishing in Congress for over 10 years now. The major stumbling block has been the opposition of the Catholic Church hierarchy despite the fact that the predominant majority of Filipinos (in fact, slightly more Catholics than non-Catholics) have favored such a policy, as consistently borne out by reputable surveys (by SWS and Pulse Asia) over the years.

This majority view is logical and makes a lot of sense since population policy is directed at economic development and poverty reduction which are secular concerns and responsibilities of the State. The experience from across Asia — as well as Catholic Latin America — shows that population policy, articulated by government-funded family planning programs, is a critical component of economic development strategy. Our own research — which is consistent with the development literature — shows that the Philippines’ persisting high poverty incidence can be largely explained by bad governance, weak economic growth, wealth and income inequality, and rapid population growth.

The Catholic Church hierarchy and other conservative groups oppose population policy calling the RH bill as “pro-abortion,” “anti-life,” and “immoral.” However, a serious reading of the bill will show that such characterizations are utterly unfair and a distortion of the bill’s true meaning and intent, which is contraception, i.e., ex ante — not ex post — fertilization. Modern contraceptives (pill, condom, and IUD), as you know, prevent ovulation and/or the meeting of the ovum and the sperm. In fact, the scientific opinion of WHO — which is the internationally accepted one — is that a fertilized ovum becomes viable after — not before — implantation in the uterus. In the context of the pro and contra RH debate, it is well to recall what Albert Einstein once remarked: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

So much on the RH controversy, which could easily be the subject of another talk. The reason I thought of digressing on to it is that it seems like a good example of where the position of the Catholic Church hierarchy is off the mark and insistence of its authority is misplaced. Yet, while the State recognizes the constraints on development posed by rapid population growth, particularly among the poorest Filipinos, it has been immobilized from acting on the problem by the Catholic hierarchy’s adamant position, “as well as the tendency of some politicians to cater to the demands of well-organized and impassioned single-issue groups for the sake of expediency” (Pernia, et al., UPSE 2011). Paradoxically, these groups include some of the more affluent Catholics who have fewer children than the poor precisely because can practice at will modern and effective family planning.

(To be concluded)

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Ernesto M. Pernia, Ph.D., recently retired as professor of economics of the University of the Philippines. He is currently professorial lecturer at the UP School of Economics. He is a director on the current board of the Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering. He is a former Lead Economist at the Asian Development Bank.

E-mail at [email protected].