Emil Jurado: Overpopulation is a fallacy

In the mainstream media, more voices supporting the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill are arguing the case by pounding biased criticism and rhetoric against the Church leaders instead of educating their readers concerning the proposed bill in Congress. A reader can easily identify the anti-Church sentiment of these writers. They usually asked the Church leaders as moral guardians to self-examine their ad intra problems like how they dealt with the cases on child molestation by homosexual priests and the covered-up of these cases by the bishops worldwide.  If ever they presented the side of the Church, they tend to distort the message of the Church and attack her for being unmindful of the sad flight of the poor, as if the bulk of the problem of the historical poverty of the Third World countries, like the Philippines, is caused by the moral teaching of the Church on contraceptives. 

The Poor Vote as Thinking Vote? A Persistent Problem in Our Political System

[Note: This is a reply to carpediem123 in Conrado de Quiros’s article “Grand restoration” in the PDI-Disqus (7/2/2012). He described the masses as "the majority of about 70% seething non-income tax paying, corruptible, feeling entitled, mal-educated, gullible, economically challenged, proverty-stricken, one kahig-isang tuka, squatting, mendicants, illegal vending, no values, questionable morality, star-struck, tele-novela watching, tabloid reading, game show addicts, your kasambahays, drivers, security guards, house boys, gardeners, cooks, waiters, bakers, laborers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, jeepney and tricycle drivers, pedicab drivers, junk pickers, fishermen, miners, loggers, forest dwellers, etc., etc.= MASSES." For him, the vote of the masses are "really responsible for putting all these maggots, vermin, school drop-outs, two bit actors, dynasties, families whose business is to raid the government coffers, good for nothing politicians into positions of power.” Read the rest of his comment below which I reproduce for easier reference. Thank you. – jsalvador.]

--oOo--

I would rather worship the moon which provides light during the night than the far away beauty of Venus.

Well, this is not actually a reply against your [moonworshipper] position but a rejoinder to carpediem123's comment.

I would not be so quick to judge the intelligence, or lack of it, of the masses. In 2004, the study conducted by the Institute of Philippine Culture of theAteneo de Manila University revealed that the poor vote is a thinking vote.

Story makers: Intellectuals in society

[Note: This is a response to Patricia Evangelista's article "Once upon a time" in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (6/2/2012), which I wrote as a rejoinder to the comment of my friend, tgm_erick, to Ms. Patricia. This is raw and I will edit and/or enhance it later on. Thanks. --jsalvador]

Jose Rizal

My friend, I always read Patricia's column but I seldom comment on her articles.

She wrote: "[The young people] are storytellers, all of them, and most of them still believe that a story can change the world. I don’t, but I believe maybe, if we’re lucky, we can change a life."

I agree with her. Our world is not shaped by storytellers but by story makers (idea workers) who can motivate people to act.

Social Justice for the Hacienda Luisita Farmers

The fight for social justice of the Hacienda Luisita farmerworkers beneficiaries (FWB) is far from over.

In the news, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and 200 farmers held a vigil at the Mendiola Bridge near Malacañang last Thursday to express their fear that the “verification process being carried out by the DAR was an attempt by the Cojuangco owners to evade the distribution of their 4,300-hectare sugarcane estate under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).” They “demanded that the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) release the original list of farmer-beneficiaries of the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.”

Where are the poor in the RH Debate?

The most radical in this new way of being Church, as Church of the Poor, is how the Church, the hierarchy and the laity, looks at the poor as evangelized and evangelizers. The Church will not only evangelize the poor but the poor in the Church will themselves become evangelizers. Pastors and leaders will learn to be with, work with, and learn from the poor.

How can the poor evangelize the Church? The most radical and effective way for the poor to evangelize the Church is through the misery and poverty of their lives. Their life-situation, as a glaring reality of sin, of dehumanization and injustice, of anti-life, of anti-Kingdom, invites the Church to witness the Gospel. The Church cannot be indifferent in the face of this dehumanizing misery and poverty. The Church must do something to help the poor to liberate themselves from this dehumanizing condition.

Church and Power

The hierarchy and power 

The Church is hierarchically structured society in which the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme, and universal power. The power structure of the Church is centralized in the authority of the Pope in the global church and the bishops in the local churches. It is also known as the perfect society of the saved. Vatican II in Lumen Gentium looks at the Church as a society, an ecclesiology almost exactly the same as formulated in the Council of Trent and Vatican I, stated: "The Church is not part nor member of any other society. It is so perfect in itself that it is distinct from all human societies and stands far above them." It further said, "the Church of Christ is not a community of equals in which all the faithful have the same rights. It is a society of unequals... whereby to some it is given to sanctify, teach, and govern, and to others, not." The conservative group maneuvered to incorporate it in the Vatican II's vision of the Church. And the Church today is moving towards that direction; it is asserting its old prestige and power as Mother and Teacher of the world.

Church of the Poor and RH Bill: Some Thoughts

The RH Bill protects life. It promotes quality life of the poorest of the poor, particularly the women and the children. Thus, I am a pro-RH Bill.

Let me share with you my reflection on the Church and the poor. If the Church is serious about its vision of the Church of the Poor, then its moral reflection on artificial birth control and the use of contraceptives as defined by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae must be viewed from the perspective of the poor women and children deprived from safe and affordable reproductive health care and family life education program for responsible parenthood.

A note to Humanae Vitae

Pope Paul VI, if you recall, rejected the majority report of the papal commission (special commission to study birth control and population by Pope John XXIII) which proposed a radical stand by allowing the use of the contraceptives among Catholic couples. In so doing, Pope Paul VI adopted the minority report and upheld the old teaching prohibiting the use of contraceptives. This act of the Pope was controversial and many theologians around the world criticized the traditional teaching of the Humanae Vitae. For them, the teaching of Humanae Vitae is not infallible and can be changed to address the alarming global social problems like women's reproductive health, AIDS and others.