Editorial

Last October 1, Intramuros tourist guide Carlos Celdran staged a shocking, stupid, and shameful stunt all in one when he disrupted Holy Mass at the Manila Cathedral, where Apostolic Nuncio Edward Joseph Adams and Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales were present. Styling himself as the “new” Jose Rizal and dresssed in the national hero’s characteristic European attire, he broke up the solemn Mass and carried around a placard with the inscription “Damaso,” a reference to the friar-character in Rizal’s novels, and shouted at the bishops and clery on the altar, “Stop involving yourselves in politics!” He was referring to the Church’s opposition to the Reproductive Health bill, several versions of which have been refiled in the new Congress, as well as criticism of President Aquino’s statements during his US trip that he’s in favor of “responsible parenthood,” or some form of birth control.

BY ISSUING a statement supporting the population-control bill, Reproductive Health (RH) Bill 5043, the 14 faculty members of the other Catholic university—Ateneo de Manila– betray the canker that may eat into any Catholic institution that, while inherently holy, has tendencies toward evil. Star Wars calls it the Dark Side, St. Thomas Aquinas calls it concupiscence. We simply call it intellectual dishonesty.

DURING the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle last November 30, the Vatican formally promulgated Pope Benedict XVI’s second encyclical, Spe Salvi. Although the official English title of the document is On Christian Hope, the original title is really a Latin expression meaning “saved by hope.” The encyclical takes its inspiration from the 24th verse of the eighth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “For in hope we were saved.”

The promulgation was obviously timed with the Christmas season, which is called Advent in the Catholic calendar, the season of hope. And that hope is impelled by the birth of Jesus Christ, the source and engine of human redemption.