The Trojan horse

My dictionary says that the expression’s origin refers to a wooden horse in which, according to legend, Greeks hid and gained entrance to Troy, later opening the gates to their army.

It’s now used to mean any subversive group or device placed within enemy ranks. It’s also now adopted in computer science to mean a virus, a set of instructions hidden inside a legitimate program, causing a computer to perform illegitimate functions.

I feel that we have a Trojan horse in the move, sometimes initiated by some Church leaders, of putting Church and government elements together to promote family planning.

The rationale often cited is that it’s good to end the hostility between the Church and government over the issue on family planning or birth and population control, now euphemistically billed as reproductive health.

That, of course, is a very good goal to achieve. No one, let alone, the Church, likes to be in conflict with anybody over a protracted period of time. But I’m afraid that while the intention is good, some requirements of prudence are neglected. The result is danger, trouble and disaster for us all.

First things first. The Church’s interest in the issue goes far higher and deeper than what the government’s interest in it covers.

The Church looks into the moral aspect involving the whole human dignity, while the government focuses more on the partial, practical aspect. Unless the respective fields of each party are duly recognized and respected, then we should hardly have any trouble.

The problem starts when one party improperly strays into the area of responsibility of the other. In this case, it is the government trying to undermine the moral aspect of the issue by redefining the concepts of freedom of choice, reproductive rights, responsible parenthood and morality itself.

As of now, for example, our local birth control/reproductive health proponents claim that they are against abortion, but they are openly promoting artificial contraception, considering it not immoral.

In fact, many of these government operatives whose views are widely echoed in the media, often ask what’s wrong with artificial contraception. Aren’t we free to choose any practical and convenient method we want?

Of course, everyone is free to do whatever he wants, including killing himself. But the Church has the duty to teach what is the morally right and wrong thing to do.

Even the government line that they respect the Church-approved natural family planning and can even promote it also is highly questionable, since it is motivated by the immoral attitude of birth control by all means. It is not motivated by the moral sense of responsible parenthood as defined in Humanae vitae.

Thus, for the Church, or better said, for some Church officials to join efforts with the government in the campaign for family planning/reproductive health, is to compromise the Church’s moral teachings on the matter from the start.

The government often flaunts the argument that what they try to do is to give the people an informed choice of possibilities, branding such move as an exercise of freedom. Nice try!

This is precisely where they are wrong and are very maliciously so. They are giving as choices certain methods that are immoral, ergo, unacceptable. It is never an exercise of authentic freedom to do what is morally wrong, though one may choose to do it just the same, for one false reason or another.

In short, Church officials will be welcoming a Trojan horse into the Church and into our society, if not acting the Trojan horse themselves, by cooperating with government in their drive for family planning and reproductive health, given the way these issues are understood by government now.

Despite the blatant incompatibility between the Church and government positions, this move would make the Church position as one more choice together with the government-sponsored immoral ones from which the people are free to choose.

The Church position is therefore unduly framed within an unacceptable context. Many of its crucial nuances would be missed out. This would be a very imprudent move, an unnecessary cooperation in evil.

Church officials should wake up and start a massive campaign to clarify the wisdom and beauty of the Church position, pointing out the hidden snares of the government agenda on this matter that usually are orchestrated by some heinous alien parties.