EDITORIAL – Some are using visits to Vidal as PR props

In case you have not noticed, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal appears to have become the go-to guy for people who, in one way or another, have become involved in some major national controversy.

The latest to visit Vidal was Fortunato Abat, a former military general and secretary of national defense. Details of that visit, like those of similar earlier visits by equally or more controversial personages, were not disclosed beyond a few teasing snippets.

During the visit of Abat, for instance, the only information leaked out was that he assured Vidal that the revolutionary government he announced the week before would not resort to any acts of violence.

If the only purpose of Abat was to assure Vidal that he was not going to create violence, then the visit was a waste of time for everybody. Abat did not have to assure anyone. Nobody is afraid of a whack from the cane of an octogenarian.

Clearly then, Abat had a different purpose in visiting Vidal, the same purpose that each and everyone of those controversial personages to come visit the country's only living cardinal had in mind when they made their calls.

All of these controversial personages have done something wrong, or at least something that the general population did not approve of. To counter the perception of wrongdoing, they take great pains to be known to have visited God's shepherd in this part of the world.

To these controversial figures, getting acknowledged as having paid a visit to the cardinal by itself already serves to dent the bad publicity their misadventures and capers have generated.

In effect, they are using the cardinal as a further prop in their continuing schemes to sow trouble. The sad part is that the cardinal cannot refuse to receive sinners without violating the very nature of their calling as God's shepherd of lost sheep.

Since he cannot refuse to see them, perhaps Cardinal Vidal should open these visits to the public. Or if that is not possible, maybe his media office can release official transcripts of what transpired in these visits.

For we know the cardinal to be a good and discerning man and that, during visits by the great sinners in our midst, he will mince no words in telling them to their faces how wrong they are and that they should not proceed on their present path to perdition.