Breaking a deluding mantra

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
May 19, 2011

I’M referring to the often cited doctrine of the separation of Church and state that many people – politicians, mediamen, etc. – like to use when rationalizing their positions that clearly go against Christian faith and morals as taught authoritatively by the Church magisterium.

In their passion to justify their views, they repeat ad nauseam a mantra that indiscriminately stereotype and degrade Church official teaching, often confusing the Church official stand with the personal views of some Church faithful who also are citizens of the country like everybody else.

In the current RH Bill debate, for example, the official Church stand in a nutshell is that the RH Bill while having good intentions and good elements, is at its core morally dangerous. It’s like a sweet cake laced with poison.

And that’s because for all its affirmations about freedom of choice, women’s rights and fight against poverty, etc., it espouses contraception as one option and that is intrinsically evil. The Church cannot keep quiet when an immoral option would be promoted officially.

As to the civil disobedience proposed by some people, that is not anymore part of the Church official stand even if the majority of those who propose it may be Church faithful. But these Church members are doing it as citizens of their own country, like everybody else. Besides, many of those who also propose it are not Church faithful.

The Church has the right to make this kind of judgment on certain issues that are publicly discussed. She intervenes when she thinks some state affairs have crossed the boundary of what is basically moral. In short, she acts when the matter involved is not anymore purely political or social or technical, but fundamentally moral in character.

What kind of democratic state would we be if we silence the voice of – to make an understatement – a very significant sector of our society such as the Church? What kind of a rational debate would we have regarding public issues if the moral aspect of such issues as seen by the Church authorities would be systematically disregarded?

It’s amazing that for some supposedly smart and intelligent leaders in our society, the merit of these issues should depend only on their practicality or popularity or convenience. They think the morality angle, which is actually a universal concern and not just a concern of the majority, should be left to individual preferences.

This is tantamount to an imposition, to intolerance and bigotry. When inputs from faith, religion, morals are systematically ignored if not ridiculed, then we are left with a tyranny of relativism, of the majority, of the powerful. The common good is not served.

Faith and religion should permeate all aspects of our life. By their very nature, they are not meant to be confined to certain moments of our life alone. They have to be with us all the time, underlying our reason and emotions, our business and politics, etc.

If faith is excluded, then we would be left with reason and emotions alone. If faith is excluded, we would be left with our own devices, playing our own games. If faith is excluded, we would also auto-exclude ourselves in the dynamics of God’s providence over us. We would dance to a different tune, the one we make, not the one of God.

It would not speak well of our democratic culture if our public officials feel threatened or if they think the Church is already interfering in state affairs every time the Church authorities make some official judgment on certain issues.

When the Church authorities make a public statement on a certain issue, it is because the issue has already entered a critical point involving basic faith and morals. This issue is not anymore a matter of opinion and techniques in human, temporal affairs such as our business and politics.

This is a grave and irrenunciable duty of the Church authorities. And in carrying out this duty, the Church officials do not depend on whether their position is popular or practical. Theirs would be above the results of polls and surveys. That’s because they have to follow God’s law rather than man’s law, if the two would not be in harmony.

The bigger picture that we should remember is that our laws should reflect God’s law. They may reflect God’s law in varying degrees, including poorly, but they should not go against God’s laws.