Prudence of CBCP?

Amidst the “loud and repeated lamentations from many sectors of Philippine society” and a “deep dissatisfaction and frustration among a good number of people of goodwill, about the recent CBCP Pastoral Letter entiled ‘Spherding and Prophesying in Hope’, dated 9 July 2006: a bishop blogged that the over-all guiding principle that ruled it was prudence.

I really pray it is not false prudence. What is false prudence? I quote from Chiara Lubich a lay catholic considered also to be a theologian:

“What ruins some souls is a false ‘prudence.’ They call it prudence, but it’s a human prudence, and it springs up every time the divine surfaces. It has the appearance of virtue but is more aggravating than vice. It does not want to shake anyone up. It lets the rich go to hell (“you already have your reward,” cf. Lk 6:24) by not enlightening them. Who knows what might hap­pen? It lets the neighbors beat each other up, and even kill, because someone might accuse you of meddling in other people’s affairs. You could even end up as a witness in a trial. Why bother to get involved? It advises moderation to the saints, lest something happen to them.

It isolates us. This prudence cuts us off, clamp­ing us in like a vice, because it’s born of fear.

It’s especially scared of God. If he were to become too active in the world, through his faithful children, God could incite revolution; and those children’s lives could be ruined, like Christ’s; they could end up hated by the world, as he was.

It’s a counterfeit virtue. I think it’s planted or fertilized by the devil. He can do a lot of business in that climate. There once lived a man who had none of it. That was Christ Jesus. When he went out to preach, at the first lesson they wanted to kill him, there and then. “But he went straight through their midst and walked away” (Lk 4:30).

Look at his life with the eyes of this sort of prudent person and you would call the whole thing an imprudence. Not just that: If these prudent persons were logical in their reasoning, they would draw the conclusion that his death, his crucifixion ,.. he asked for it … with his imprudence.

I don’t believe there’s a word spoken by Jesus that does not jar against these people. That is because God and the world are a complete an­tithesis. Only those who are able to emerge from the world to follow in the footsteps of Christ can make humanity hope for anything.”

Chiara Lubich

Affirming culture of life in Palawan

I join the Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Princesa condemning “in the strongest possible terms the heinous murder of Dong” and appreciate the church’s courage to do it openly. I want to be included in the “demand for justice for him and for all martyrs in the media. Such dastardly act is shameless cowardice. Only weaklings and cowards resort in defense of their selfish interests and greed.”

Weakling because one degrades himself/herself of the strength that comes from the truth and justice. Cowards since one hides in the force of the gun the “selfesh interest and dark greed” afraid to come to the light of a just, transparent and moral lifestyle.

Truly “when you kill your neighbor, you kill your own humanity” We share in the same humanity, one family, Killing the other is tantamount to self-mutilation. Murder makes one less human, and more beast!

“When you snuff out the light of truth, you become children of darkness. You cannot escape” from your own prison of your guilt.

But perhaps there is no need to evoke fires and brimstones which is already existing in the heart of the murderer! In one way or another “God will catch up with you!”

I cannot but join the “peace loving Palaweños to be critically aware of issues affecting their lives, to be vigilant and be involved”. . .As the good bishop said: “Let us keep our hearts and pursue with our actions his legacy of courage, honesty, service and crusade against corruption. Let his death not be in vain.”

TY CBCP

The CBCP has made its voice! Let it be heard. We are grateful to Archbishop Lagdameo for one of his initial statements regarding the present state of affairs in this present government and exposing its untransparent initiative! Thank you for the enlightening and balanced assessment.

We join hands in expressing our uneasenes about the process by which people’s initiative is carried out. In our judgment and I think to any reasonable the Filipino this people’s initiative could very well be self-seeking . . . wanting to entrench those who intiate it in power. Together with the CBCP, “we might further ask the question of the source of funding for this entire operation.”

Let us continue to discern appropriate actions, decide and do it.
What seems to be tragically lacking in this government is “charitas” for its own people. It does not love its own constituents. What Benedict XVI wrote proves even forcefully more true in our time: “Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such.” (Deus charitas est, n. 28)
“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy . . . . We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.”

We cannot now afford to leave our ears deaf to this urgent call!

More power to our Filipino people and let us be creative in not allowing those who are in power to continue to exploit our poor people by these dubious socalled “people’s initiative.”