THERE seems to emerge in places like the US a certain strain of religious freedom thatś highly controversial, to say the least.
Instead of promoting religion—any kind as long as the minimum requirements for peaceful common living are met—they are banning any mention and references to God and his images in public places, because according to them, these already go against the rights and freedom of some people. As if there can ever be a totally religion-free society!
I know that we have different, and even conflicting ideas and views, but I could not figure out how praying in public schools, putting religious images in office buildings, making the sign of the cross, etc., especially if a good number of the parties involved so desire it, could already be held as an infraction of freedom.
In Europe, for example, they are now prohibiting the display of crucifixes in public places.
If some people do not like these, they can always ignore them and do something else, just as those who believe in some religion have to respect the ways of those of who do not believe in any. But what we cannot do is to prevent people from expressing their beliefs in public. That in itself is already against freedom.
This new unfortunate development is putting God in the same category as smoking in confined public places and some forms of public display of affection if not of indecency in public places. God has become a strictly private and personal affair should not be given public expression.
I also learned the other day that in Australia recently, they held a festival of dangerous ideas, and together with the different ideologies, the Catholic faith was also included, represented by a Cardinal who tried to defend the Church.
Things are now getting exciting in the world! We have to know how to handle these problems and challenges well. We have to continue to clarify and engage different parties in a dialogue that hopefully will always be conducted in charity and understanding and with eagerness to know the truth.
I don´t think it would do us well if we choose to disregard this question.
At the moment, what seems relevant is to define religious freedom. What does it really mean? What does it entail?
To me, religious freedom is the most basic of our freedoms. I would even dare to say itś the mother freedom. All other aspects of freedom flow from it.
Itś where the fundamental exercise of our conscience is made, the one that tries to give us an over-all picture of who we are, where we come from and where we are supposed to head. In short, it gives us our origin and end, defines us and gives meaning to all the happen in our life.
Different people, of course, have varying understanding of this religious freedom. Even the professed atheist has, in a way, his own idea of religious freedom, since regardless of his allergy to anything religious, he maintains some core beliefs and convictions that comprise his religion.
Thus, we have to distinguish between the subjective religious freedom and the objective religious freedom that can only come about after so much study, insights, experience, etc., among ourselves. We should do nothing to hamper this process.
Our whole life here on earth, in a way, can be described as an effort to discover the authentic religious freedom meant for all. Its ultimate purpose, seen from a different angle, can be that. This religious freedom is like a hunt for the true God, whatever and whoever he may be.
Already in history and in the different cultures, several religions have arisen with their own systems of beliefs and doctrine. Let there be a way to coexist among themselves and to engage in a healthy exchange that would help all to be enlightened without compromising oneś freedom.
Thus, we need to be respectful of one another and be endlessly patient. But the dialogue has to continue, and ought not to be stopped by some arbitrary rules. Making those laws forbidding the harmless public expression of religion should be avoided.
Obviously, proselytism and apostolate cannot be avoided, since it is in the very nature of oneś religion, whatever it may be, to share what one has. But all this should follow certain basic rules to keep peace and harmony in our dynamic and fast-changing world.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Holy shrewdness
IN many parts of the Gospel, we are encouraged to develop a certain kind of cleverness and shrewdness that can only be qualified as holy.
For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we hear our Lord say: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (10,16)
Then in the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear our Lord tell a parable about a dishonest steward who was praised not for his dishonesty, but for his astuteness, his being creatively enterprising.
The story ended with these words: “The owner gave his devious employee credit for being clever! Why? Because the worldly take more initiative than the otherworldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind.” (16,7-8)
We should take note in this particular passage of our Lord’s swipe at those who follow him—the otherworldly—who are quite naïve and simplistic in their ways, and do not know how to handle tricky earthly affairs like our business and politics, and now our emerging culture and faith war.
Holy shrewdness is an urgent necessity these days precisely because our environment is fast becoming inhabited by human wolves and hissing snakes full of tricks and deceit and ready to strike and to turn our country into a Godless one.
And they can do that even by shamelessly using the name of God and morality. Sometimes they can occupy high position not so much in civil society as in the Church itself.
Relevant to this, St. Paul already issued the appropriate warning still effective now: “For such false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11-13-14)
It’s with this backdrop that we have to consider the Reproductive Health Bill, a highly divisive and invasive issue, now pending approval in our Congress. I’ve read it many times, and I have no doubt that it is a summary of all deceits that we and the devil can play on ourselves.
Its proponents say abortion is not included there, but contraception is, as if contraception is already morally ok. This is not to mention that in all countries where contraception is legalized and promoted, abortion unavoidably comes as a consequence.
They say that contraception is a matter of choice, but they are silent about its morality. And if they are not, they say that to allow and even to impose contraception on people and companies is part of our human freedom and is, ergo, moral. Sorry, but this sounds like the devil reasoning out.
They say that a vast majority of the people, even Catholics, are for contraception or at least are open to it or are somehow pressured to use it. They cite various survey results to prove their point. Thus, it should be legalized and promoted.
These survey results are no surprise to anyone. They simply reflect that we are all sinners and commit all sorts of sexual sins and marital infidelities. This will always be our problem that we should try to fight and solve.
But committing sin, even in large scale, is one thing, and legalizing, promoting and institutionalizing it is a completely different banana. We can continue committing sins and let’s hope we also can find a way to say sorry. But we should try to avoid legalizing, promoting and making it part of our culture.
The first is personal and, while already an anomaly, still remains in the domain of the moral order. The second is already institutional and cultural, and is a clear attempt to get out of that moral order. Being institutional, it can affect the whole of society adversely.
The proponents of the RH Bill appear to be Christian believers, even Catholics, but are not consistent with their faith. Some of them have gone to the extent of saying that their Christianity is a matter of conscience rather than some official affiliation to a group.
Again this is a devilish logic. It’s as if now we just depend absolutely on our own conscience. Our conscience becomes our own God, the source and maker of good and evil.
We need to react to this kind of mentality, with a lot of prayers, sacrifice as well as action. We have to be ready to make a war of peace and love, to keep our country safe from the tricks of the devil who makes use of some of us to go against God.
For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we hear our Lord say: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (10,16)
Then in the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear our Lord tell a parable about a dishonest steward who was praised not for his dishonesty, but for his astuteness, his being creatively enterprising.
The story ended with these words: “The owner gave his devious employee credit for being clever! Why? Because the worldly take more initiative than the otherworldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind.” (16,7-8)
We should take note in this particular passage of our Lord’s swipe at those who follow him—the otherworldly—who are quite naïve and simplistic in their ways, and do not know how to handle tricky earthly affairs like our business and politics, and now our emerging culture and faith war.
Holy shrewdness is an urgent necessity these days precisely because our environment is fast becoming inhabited by human wolves and hissing snakes full of tricks and deceit and ready to strike and to turn our country into a Godless one.
And they can do that even by shamelessly using the name of God and morality. Sometimes they can occupy high position not so much in civil society as in the Church itself.
Relevant to this, St. Paul already issued the appropriate warning still effective now: “For such false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11-13-14)
It’s with this backdrop that we have to consider the Reproductive Health Bill, a highly divisive and invasive issue, now pending approval in our Congress. I’ve read it many times, and I have no doubt that it is a summary of all deceits that we and the devil can play on ourselves.
Its proponents say abortion is not included there, but contraception is, as if contraception is already morally ok. This is not to mention that in all countries where contraception is legalized and promoted, abortion unavoidably comes as a consequence.
They say that contraception is a matter of choice, but they are silent about its morality. And if they are not, they say that to allow and even to impose contraception on people and companies is part of our human freedom and is, ergo, moral. Sorry, but this sounds like the devil reasoning out.
They say that a vast majority of the people, even Catholics, are for contraception or at least are open to it or are somehow pressured to use it. They cite various survey results to prove their point. Thus, it should be legalized and promoted.
These survey results are no surprise to anyone. They simply reflect that we are all sinners and commit all sorts of sexual sins and marital infidelities. This will always be our problem that we should try to fight and solve.
But committing sin, even in large scale, is one thing, and legalizing, promoting and institutionalizing it is a completely different banana. We can continue committing sins and let’s hope we also can find a way to say sorry. But we should try to avoid legalizing, promoting and making it part of our culture.
The first is personal and, while already an anomaly, still remains in the domain of the moral order. The second is already institutional and cultural, and is a clear attempt to get out of that moral order. Being institutional, it can affect the whole of society adversely.
The proponents of the RH Bill appear to be Christian believers, even Catholics, but are not consistent with their faith. Some of them have gone to the extent of saying that their Christianity is a matter of conscience rather than some official affiliation to a group.
Again this is a devilish logic. It’s as if now we just depend absolutely on our own conscience. Our conscience becomes our own God, the source and maker of good and evil.
We need to react to this kind of mentality, with a lot of prayers, sacrifice as well as action. We have to be ready to make a war of peace and love, to keep our country safe from the tricks of the devil who makes use of some of us to go against God.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Person over ideas
IN our dealings with others, a daily, constant affair, we should pay a lot of attention to the concrete circumstances and conditions of the persons rather than just pursuing the abstract merits and demerits of our ideas, views and opinions.
We need to be personal rather than just go ideological, simply because in the end it’s not ideas we are actually interested in but rather the persons themselves. The ideas are hollow without the persons who are their subjects or targets, their sources and goals, their beginning and end.
Not that the ideas are unimportant. They are indispensable. But we need to hew them according to our actual grip of the who and how the persons we are dealing with are
We should not allow our ideas to have a life by themselves. They have to be made fit to all the persons involved—us, others and ultimately and constantly God. This is not just a theory. This is simply how things ought to be!
Without this conscious effort to adapt ideas to the circumstances of persons, they can go wild and extreme, absolutizing what is relative and vice-versa, and easily deteriorating into biases, rash judgments, and other forms of lack of charity.
That’s why our Christian faith always admonishes us to put charity and truth together, as well as mercy and justice. Truth and justice get spoiled once they get detached from charity and mercy. These latter virtues precisely lead us to treat others the way they should be treated—as persons and ultimately as children of God.
In Pope Benedicts’s third encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in the truth), the same point is reiterated when he said: “To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.” (1)
He also said that it’s when charity and truth are put together when meaningful and substantial dialogue among different and even conflicting parties as well as genuine integral human development can take place.
This, of course, will be a very dynamic affair, for which a lot of patience is needed, a lot of adjustments and adaptations made, an abiding monitoring of personal and other circumstances done.
Of course, this presumes the fundamental virtue of humility, since it’s only when one humbles himself—that self-denial that Christ told us—can we be patient and progress in our task of blending charity and truth together.
We need to develop the necessary attitudes and the appropriate skills to comply with this human requirement, because our tendency to go impersonal and to be led simply by ideas is strong and sadly quite inherent in us.
We need to go through a perpetual cycle of mutually relating theory and practice, doctrine and experience, ideas and persons, study and work, isolation for purposes of recollection and immersion through actual contact with people.
In our dealings with others, we have to know when to move fast and when to go slow, when to be demanding and when to be tolerant, when to be driven and when to waste time with them.
We have to wary to with our inclination to be indifferent to others, to consider only our own preferences and views, to control or herd others according to our schemes and plans.
We should find time to really get to know others thoroughly. Thus, we have to invest time and effort to improve our relationship with them, enhancing our friendship and fraternity with them.
And in this, we have to go all the way, down to the personal and even the intimate spiritual and moral levels. We have to learn how to listen, and simply to journey with them, but always trying to be a good friend, a help, a light.
We also have to be wary of the alienating elements that are sprouting thick and fast in our environment nowadays. These are the gadgets and other facilities that worsen our self-absorption by putting up invisible walls that separate us from others.
We need to continually examine ourselves just to be more discerning, since we are now living in a world where the line between good and evil is often blurred and where the new things can trigger dormant weaknesses that can lead us into a spiral of unhealthy obsessions.
Indeed, we need to constantly focus our mind and heart first of all on God, then on others before we think of ourselves and of our brilliant ideas.
We need to be personal rather than just go ideological, simply because in the end it’s not ideas we are actually interested in but rather the persons themselves. The ideas are hollow without the persons who are their subjects or targets, their sources and goals, their beginning and end.
Not that the ideas are unimportant. They are indispensable. But we need to hew them according to our actual grip of the who and how the persons we are dealing with are
We should not allow our ideas to have a life by themselves. They have to be made fit to all the persons involved—us, others and ultimately and constantly God. This is not just a theory. This is simply how things ought to be!
Without this conscious effort to adapt ideas to the circumstances of persons, they can go wild and extreme, absolutizing what is relative and vice-versa, and easily deteriorating into biases, rash judgments, and other forms of lack of charity.
That’s why our Christian faith always admonishes us to put charity and truth together, as well as mercy and justice. Truth and justice get spoiled once they get detached from charity and mercy. These latter virtues precisely lead us to treat others the way they should be treated—as persons and ultimately as children of God.
In Pope Benedicts’s third encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in the truth), the same point is reiterated when he said: “To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.” (1)
He also said that it’s when charity and truth are put together when meaningful and substantial dialogue among different and even conflicting parties as well as genuine integral human development can take place.
This, of course, will be a very dynamic affair, for which a lot of patience is needed, a lot of adjustments and adaptations made, an abiding monitoring of personal and other circumstances done.
Of course, this presumes the fundamental virtue of humility, since it’s only when one humbles himself—that self-denial that Christ told us—can we be patient and progress in our task of blending charity and truth together.
We need to develop the necessary attitudes and the appropriate skills to comply with this human requirement, because our tendency to go impersonal and to be led simply by ideas is strong and sadly quite inherent in us.
We need to go through a perpetual cycle of mutually relating theory and practice, doctrine and experience, ideas and persons, study and work, isolation for purposes of recollection and immersion through actual contact with people.
In our dealings with others, we have to know when to move fast and when to go slow, when to be demanding and when to be tolerant, when to be driven and when to waste time with them.
We have to wary to with our inclination to be indifferent to others, to consider only our own preferences and views, to control or herd others according to our schemes and plans.
We should find time to really get to know others thoroughly. Thus, we have to invest time and effort to improve our relationship with them, enhancing our friendship and fraternity with them.
And in this, we have to go all the way, down to the personal and even the intimate spiritual and moral levels. We have to learn how to listen, and simply to journey with them, but always trying to be a good friend, a help, a light.
We also have to be wary of the alienating elements that are sprouting thick and fast in our environment nowadays. These are the gadgets and other facilities that worsen our self-absorption by putting up invisible walls that separate us from others.
We need to continually examine ourselves just to be more discerning, since we are now living in a world where the line between good and evil is often blurred and where the new things can trigger dormant weaknesses that can lead us into a spiral of unhealthy obsessions.
Indeed, we need to constantly focus our mind and heart first of all on God, then on others before we think of ourselves and of our brilliant ideas.
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