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Bacolod City, Philippines Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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TIGHT ROPE
WITH MODESTO P. SA-ONOY

First things first

TIGHT ROPE
WITH MODESTO P. SA-ONOY

The title comes from the opening statement of New York’s Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dohan during last week’s opening of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops fall meeting. The USCCB is the equivalent of our Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Cardinal Dohan is its president.

There were many bishops and Catholics who were disappointed that the Cardinal did not take up the burning issues that flared during the US election but there are also many who think that the Cardinal was bringing the nation’s Catholics back into the fundamentals of their faith. 

What did the Cardinal propose? He said that Catholics, particularly the clergy, should go to confession (Sacrament of Reconciliation) as often as they can, and that the Americans must return to the Friday abstinence.

Catholics under Church law must go to confession and receive communion at least once a year during Easter time. There was time prior to Vatican II when Catholics refrained or abstained from eating meat on Fridays.

If one looks closely at these proposals, there is the undertone that Catholics should go back to the days of religious church discipline. These practices of old are actually a system of discipline not just of faith but also of the behavior of Catholics.

We can see the results of this loosening of church discipline. We have women going to Mass in shorts as if they are going to the beach, or as we can readily notice, as if they are going to the nearby mall. Sadly, parents don’t bother to call the attention of their daughters.

How many brides and their entourage come in strapless dresses like they are going to a ball, and the officiating priest not minding at all, in effect, giving a signal that this is all right?

First thing first – a Mass is holy but who minds what attire people have? They have dress codes in school, dress code in a ball, dress code in the presence of the president, and yet, why is there no respect for the solemnity of the Mass?    

We can find men in shorts and in sandals ready to go to the beach or take a stroll. Would these same gentlemen attend to their important clients so attired?

These behaviors appear to be trivial but they do show the people’s attitude towards what is holy and solemn. They show to their kids that respect for the religious rites are not as important as going to their graduation ball or their friend’s debut party.

First thing first, the Cardinal of New York advised, because, indeed, as the gospel a few days back said, if one cannot be trusted with small things, how can they be trusted in bigger things?

The archbishop’s address caught many by surprise but I think he is chiding the bishops and the clergy for their inappropriate tolerance. To be blunt about it, their pastors are guilty of improper intolerance.

The loosening of discipline has already spread into the wider ocean of disobedience that had left the pastors unable to sway their congregations into obedience to Church teachings and discipline, starting with such simple acts as abstinence and confessions.

During the US elections, there were Catholics who ignored their pastors when they spoke of Church doctrine. We have the same situation here – Catholics who ignore and even defy the Church because they know that their own pastors are divided, some vocal in defending the faith, others reluctant, while others are deafeningly silent.

One of the findings during the election is that most of those who heard their pastors, bishops and priests, talked of such issues as gay marriage and abortion, voted against these propositions when they were included in the ballot and those who voted for them never heard their pastor – Catholics and non-Catholics, warn of them being intrinsic evil.

Silence is as much an ally of the devil as it is of dictators.

I remember a speaker from Cebu telling us about the case of Spain. Then Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal asked a Spanish cardinal why did Catholic Spain approve abortion? The Spanish cardinal reportedly said that they kept silent.

If the Filipinos kept silent, the RH bill would have been approved years ago, but many have spoken against it and the bill languishes in Congress despite the millions of dollars the Americans and United Nations Population Commission paid to local anti-life advocates. 

Of course, there are bishops and priests here who find it more convenient to keep quiet, but there are more who stood to defend the faith.

Church discipline, indeed, begins in small things. Cardinal Dohan could be speaking to us as much as he is speaking to American Catholics.

The speech should be good reading and reflection on where we have gone astray.*

           

 

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