Real reason

By sheer timing, the recent survey conducted by the SWS on the dwindling number of Church goers among Catholics somehow shows that it is tied up with the latter’s unprecedented moves and active involvement in the coming election. Even if the SWS itself firmly avowed that it is not commissioned by anybody and that it has the sole authority to use the results and to decide if and when they should be published, it is still tacitly meant to show that there is no such thing as a “Catholic vote” which can greatly influence the outcome of the election.

Obviously, there is a misapprehension here on the concept of a “Catholic vote”. It has been conceived as akin to the practice of other religious sects which direct their members to vote for certain candidates who wooed and won their support. This is not what the Catholic vote is all about. The Catholic Church does not endorse specific candidates. It only guides the voters on how they should exercise their right to vote, or on how they should choose the candidates they should vote or should not vote for. The Catholic vote is best explained in the pastoral letters issued by the Archbishops of Nueva Caceres and of Lingayen-Dagupan.

According to Archbishop Rolando Tria Tirona of Nueva Caceres, a Catholic Vote is: a “free” vote or one that is “influenced solely by a desire to bring God to the world, not by the desires of human persons”; an informed vote or a vote that is “not swayed by the multi-million worth of strategies to paint a perfect picture over a rotten political leadership”; and an evangelized vote or a vote “based on the Gospel as moral standard and God’s love for all of his children as the moral compass”.  For this purpose, Archbishop Tirona launched a “Voters’ Education Program” in his archdiocese which will “bring Jesus to society and society to Jesus.”

Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan on the other hand also stressed that a Catholic Vote does not mean that the Church will endorse candidates in an election because “when the Church ENDORSES CANDIDATES in political elections she always ends up a LOSER. The endorsed candidate may win in the votes but the Church never wins with him. In endorsing candidates, the Church tarnishes her spiritual mission with the stain of the mundane. The endorsed candidate might win but religion has been reduced to a political party; religion has been used for political gain and our spiritual mission has been compromised. We will be lonesome widows after the elections for marrying partisan politics during the campaign.

The Church must refuse to play with the fire of political power or it risks burning herself. The Church does not win when her endorsed candidate wins. The Church should not be perceived as winning or losing an election. The Church must be beyond such. Paraphrasing the Lord in the Garden of Agony, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. RELIGIONS THAT WALTZ WITH POLITICS WILL DIE BY POLITICS.” 

The good Archbishop pointed out that “the Church WINS in the elections when elections are PEACEFUL and HONEST. When elections are morally credible and losers and winners stay civil and courteous, the Church wins in the elections. When every vote is cast from CONSCIENCE and not from convenience, the Church has truly become the formator of conscience and has shown herself as a mother and teacher faithful and obedient to her Master and Lord. Candidates and voters are children of the Church. Candidates against one another are brothers and sisters in God”. 

But whatever may be the purpose of this recent poll survey on the dwindling number of churchgoers, and whether or not the figures therein cited are accurate, it is still much better to give due regard to it instead of disputing or completely ignoring it. As Cardinal Tagle admonishes, we must also listen and admit our mistakes. There is indeed some reason to believe that the Church has not been as strong as she used to be and that the members of her flock are not as faithful as they were before.

One of the reasons cited which may have some basis is really the boring and over extended homilies of some priests. Complicated and elaborate rituals also sometimes turn off some parishioners. Then, there are also priests and members of the clergy who are out of touch with their parishioners and could not be reached most of the time.

Of course the Church has also been under constant attack from all sides apparently aimed at alienating her members just because of the scandalous acts and sexual misconducts allegedly committed by of some of its priests and members of the clergy. Indeed the press has been reporting these scandals even before they have been verified and properly investigated to put the Church in a bad light. This is quite unfair because the whole Church is being condemned for the sins of a few. Indeed the indiscretions and misconducts of the clergy should not be attributed to the Church itself.

These weaknesses and misconducts on the part of the priests and other members of the clergy are not however the main and real reason why the Church has become so vulnerable and has lost much of her influence among the faithful also in our country.

The main and the actual reason is the lack of unity among the clergy when it comes to  Church doctrines and teachings. As shown in the recent controversy regarding contraception, some priests and members of the clergy have been openly defying the teachings of the Church in this regard. They would rather believe some theologians than the Pope. This is  truly the kind of division that hurts the church so much.

And so during these difficult times we must continue to pray and pray harder.

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