Sugbuak and the Church

Some politicians associated with Sugbuak initiative have criticized Cebu archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal for opposing their attempt to tear apart the province of Cebu. The Cardinal has labeled their move an "evil" thing, obviously sensing the ill-conceived motives of its proponents and the possible damage the plan could bring about upon the socio-economic life of this centuries old province.

Stung by the Church's contrary stand, these politicians have chided the local Catholic hierarchy for what they call its interference in a purely secular affair. Separation of church and state! They blew their tops. But their plaint, probably for its yawning inanity, has fallen on deaf ears.

It is true that the Church being a religious institution is mainly concerned with the spiritual upbringing of every human being. But since man is rooted in the real world where he makes his livelihood and interacts with people and events in various shades of circumstances, the Church is also interested in his temporal affairs because these impinge directly or indirectly upon his supernatural aspirations. It is concerned with St. Thomas Aquinas' statement that a modicum of material comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue.

Man is a composite of body and soul. His very nature is a holism of the natural and the supernatural. Hence one cannot treat him purely in the realm of the physical to the neglect of the spiritual or vice-versa. That is why the Church whose obsession is other-worldly in dimension cannot afford to stand idly by while negative socio-political forces work against the attainment of what it believes to be man's ultimate goal. In his Evangeli Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI has this to say on this matter: "For the Church it is a question not only of preaching the Gospel… but also of affecting and as it were, challenging through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of salvation".

Why is the church obliged to influence man's way of judging what is right from what is wrong, what values to subscribe to, what viewpoint to follow, in short, what kind of activities a person should indulge in? The answer is that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and its members share in the same life of holiness of the Head who is Jesus Christ. Holiness. This is the prime and fundamental state every Christian should aspire to attain. And the Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the instrument for its attainment.

Holiness as the fruit of the Holy Spirit inspires every baptized person to imitate Christ. It draws him to listen to the words of the Son of Man and to behave in accordance with such words. In addition, it makes him participate in liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. More than these, holiness is made manifest in the thirst for justice and in the practice of the commandment of love.

The dogma of holiness explains why the Church is sensitive to any situation which promotes injustice or demeans the dignity of man. That is why the Church is interested in politics, not in the sense of identifying itself with any party group, but as an arbiter of how politics is practiced, a guide to the motivation and direction of political affairs. Moreover, the Church believes that the spirit of service should be the underlying motive of those who exercise political powers. Also, they must have, to quote John Paul II, "a determination to overcome every temptation, such as the recourse to disloyalty and to falsehood, the waste of public funds for the advantage of a few… and the use of ambiguous and illicit means for acquiring, maintaining and increasing power at all cost".

The use of illicit means for acquiring or maintaining power… is this not the possible motivation of the Sugbuak champions? Despite a DILG study showing that breaking a political unit into smaller units is not economically viable, despite the possibility that creating smaller provinces out of a large one could negatively affect a people's unity and cohesiveness, and despite the overwhelming rejection of their plan by Cebuanos, these divide-and-control artists have remained intransigent in their designs.

But we should not condemn these misguided leaders. We should pray for them instead. Surely, the Holy Spirit can light up some dark corners in their mind and hearts.