Senator Joker Arroyo has a valid point. Why, indeed, does the Philippines have only three cardinals (Ricardo Vidal in Cebu, Gaudencio Rosales in Manila, and Jose Sanchez at the Vatican) when in fact it is the second biggest Catholic country in the world, next only to Brazil?
With 73 million Catholics, we have 10 million more than the USA at third with 63 million. Even Italy (where the Vatican is located) is only fourth with 57M Catholics. France trails with 45M, followed by Spain, which introduced us to Catholicism, with 39M.
Yet all these other countries disproportionately have more cardinals – princes of the Catholic Church – than what the Vatican appears to have long decided we should have. Clearly, according to Senator Arroyo, there is a need to rectify this oversight, if it can be called that.
It is difficult to argue against a valid point, especially one raised by one of the few remaining erudite members of the Philippine Senate. Nevertheless, it has to be asked whether the senator has not overstepped his bounds by delving into matters beyond state affairs.
The question is asked because Senator Arroyo is himself among those who bristle over the meddling by a growing number of Philippine bishops into clearly state matters, in stark violation of the constitutional provisions of separation of powers.
At least, when highly-politicized bishops and priests meddle in the political affairs of the state, they have a ready alibi in their invocation of moral obligation to question that which is patently sinful, even if in reality we know they are lying through their teeth.
Politicians, on the other hand, do not have that ready alibi. When they begin questioning church prerogatives, they become sitting ducks to criticisms of meddling. They become protrusions in an open field, inviting a strike of lightning.
Perhaps it is best to just let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe the Vatican, in its superior wisdom over these things, knows something we do not know. Maybe, this is even Vatican’s way of preventing more Filipino prelates from sliding into politics at the expense of religion.