Padre Damaso And The 'Condom Summit'

So the 'Philippine Condom Summit' has begun minus the acrimonious language from the embattled Catholic Church leaders who threatened to excommunicate the President and defy the legal program to give Filipinos freedom of choice in planning their family size.

The agreement forged at the condom summit's low profile start was for Church and State to keep communication lines open.

Their positions are not necessarily poles apart but with Philippine population ballooning, and Filipinos unwilling or unable to use the Church mandate for natural family planning (limiting sexual contact based on the female spouse's fertility cycle) the use of condoms by men and IUDs or birth control pils by women simply cannot be banned by the Church.

The Catholic Bishops Conference Of the Philippines that it cannot afford to be friar-like and intractable lest it become further alienated from the people.

The long sought Reproductive Health Bill is almost sure to be enacted in the 15th Congress and it will do good for the CBCP to actively participate in harmonizing the bill's five versions.

Many believe that even the passage of a divorce law will come sooner rather than later... and further into the future - legal abortion.

These weightier issues will surely be hard-fought and socially divisive.

For now, the Philuppine Catholic Church must regain the trust and confidence of its flock by actively helping fight poverty, and corruption.

This includes dipping into untaxed coffers to fund shelters for street children, broaden access to its exclusive schools and owning up to the immorality and other abuses of some of its own priests.

The stigma left by Padre Damaso must be erased for the Catholic Church to be embraced anew by its flock.

The Bishops Bite Their Tongue, For Now

There’s a truce in our local version of the global ‘condom wars’.

From the CBCP comes this story:

An official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said they are withdrawing from giving “unnecessary statements” until a formal dialogue is finally held.
“We respect the request of Malacañang for a ceasefire to calm everybody… and as we wait for a face-to-face dialogue with the bishops and the president,” said Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP’s Commission on Family and Life.
He said the “ceasefire” will be a good opportunity for both parties and the public as well to take time and carefully study the matter.
Castro said they are already preparing for a “bigger” dialogue between the prelates and the Aquino administration.
Castro also stressed that their silence does not mean that they are already foregoing their strong position on the RH bill.
“It does not mean that the Church is compromising (its position). It simply means that it is good there’s this lull moment to pause, to assess things and to pray and hope for a genuine dialogue,” he said. (CBCPNews).

It’s good that the Catholic prelates are tempering what Filipinos feel is their ‘friar-like’ hubris in asserting ‘moral’ control over the free choice of Filipino couple to use either the ‘rhythm method’ of limiting the number of their progeny and the use of condoms by virile men and intra-uterine-devices (IUDs) by women of child-bearing age.

The bishops must know all-too-well that opinion surveys are lopsidedly against their ‘in-the-box’ doctrine.

The negative public sentiment has been stoked even further by the clumsy if not irresponsible use of the E-threat (excommunication) against a hugely popular president who understands that poverty, which he aims to cut by 50-percent by 2015 (as committed by RP in the UN Millennium Development Goals , is aggravated by our ballooning population (project to reach 120-M in two decades if not earlier).

The CBCP cannot credibly assert that its faithful are obey the edict “pigilin ang panggigigil’ (control the sex urge) nor does it have a responsive program to ease poverty given its rich coffers that swell from tax-free donations and business earnings.

Let the Condom Summit preparations move forward in earnest!