“My
sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10: 27)
Pastoral
Letter explaining the decision of CBCP
to withdraw from talks With
Malacañang on HB 4244
My
dear people of God,
As we celebrate this Sunday the Feast
of the Good Shepherd, allow me once more to fulfill my obligation as your
shepherd in the archdiocese. There remains to be one Good Shepherd, Our Lord
Jesus, who urges each of us to conform ourselves with Him, to imitate Him and
to follow Him. As your archbishop, it is my duty to help you, in the best of my
ability, to make the voice of our Lord clearer and understandable. Only when we
are able to listen and follow His voice can we call ourselves His
sheep. The Gospel of John echoes perfectly this invitation in the
words of Jesus: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they
follow me” (Jn 10: 14).
The much debated issue on RH Bill and
its new version, House Bill 4244 known as Responsible Parenthood bill
continues to scatter the flock, pushing fellow Filipinos to make a stand based
on what they hear and watch from the news and what they can gather from highly
opinionated information. What confuses people all the more is how our political
leaders engage in double talk on what the House Bill 4244 really is intended
for and how they would like the people to see it. Recently, we
learned that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP) withdrew from the talks arranged by President Aquino.
In this context allow me to explain the reasons why the CBCP considered the
talk destined to failure. Along the course of identifying the reasons, may we
clarify what really the Church stands for; what it sincerely believes and
therefore will fight for.
1. The HB 4244 has good
provisions (building hospitals, maternal and children’s health care, rights of
the poor, education, etc.); however these are interwoven—packaged with—bad
provisions. By the term bad provisions is meant, first, those
portions of the bill which will promote and legalize contraceptives as means
for population control (contraceptive pills and gadgets which have
abortifacient effects, sterilization procedures, etc.); these are widely
acknowledged as having serious adverse consequences on human lives, especially
those of the mothers, mothers-to-be and of the new human lives that are formed
at fertilization. Second, deemed bad provisions also are those that
seek to establish a mindset and a value-system that are secularist,
materialistic, individualistic and hedonistic, in the guise of development and
modernity, but which in effect are hostile to human life, the family and
religion. The bill abuses the meanings of “rights”, “choice”, “freedom” and
“responsible parenthood” even as these trample on the religious and moral
exercise of conscience. Since bad provisions are present in HB 4244, the
Bishops reject the bill in its entirety.
2. The Philippines
does not need this bill. All the good provisions it contains are already
mandated in the Constitution and are already programs of the government
agencies concerned. These simply need to be implemented through aggressive and
sincere policy enforcement.
3. Since public funds
will be used to promote HB 4244’s contraceptive agenda (hidden behind the
funding for construction of hospitals, maternal health programs, and the like),
the Bishops object to the passage of the bill.
4. The Philippines is
a sovereign state. Government should not yield to pressures coming from the
treaty monitoring bodies of the UN such as ICPD and the CEDAW to legislate
certain rights that have not been contemplated nor intended in various
international instruments. It should not be pressured to comply with the MDG
agenda, which uses a disturbing “reproductive rights” approach in fostering its
8 goals. Moreover, it is only a declaration.
5. In as much as
President Benigno Simeon Aquino has already publicly declared his intention to
implement his own 5-point agenda on responsible parenthood (RP), the Bishops do
not see any reason to further undertake a serious study/dialogue on HB 4244
with the administration as was proposed by Pres. Aquino himself. HB 4244 and
Pres. Aquino’s 5-point RP agenda are deemed to be basically the same.
The Church continues to be consistent
in its call to stand up for life, for truth and for what it is right. We are
called to pray harder than before. We cannot see yet whether this bill will be
approved in the Congress, in the Senate and how it will be implemented. But
certainly, the words of the Lord continue to be our hope and guide in these
trying times. Those who belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd listen to
His voice and follow Him. Win or lose, what clearly matters for us, is how we
stood our ground and remained faithful to Our Lord who has assured us: “I came
so that they might have life and have it more abundantly”(Jn 10: 10).
Given from the Office of
the Archbishop this 11th day of May, 2011, in the year of our
Lord.
+LEONARDO
Z. LEGASPI, O.P., D.D.
Archbishop
of Caceres
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