Reproductive health is a scourge

I REMEMBER a few weeks ago, a friend sent me a joke on my mobile phone. "Virtues are being distorted these days," it said. "Charity means sweepstakes. Hope is a cigarette, and Trust is now a condom."

It made me smile for a while, but I immediately deleted it, not only from my cellular phone but also from my memory. I refused to be tricked into passing it on to others and wasting my load. The world is full of tricks, you know.

But it sprang back to mind again the other day. In a long provincial bus ride, I saw on TV a discussion about the so-called reproductive heath. I thought I saw and heard subtle lies and clever manipulations and tricks being played out.

There were some congresswomen and a few other women who said that the reproductive health bill recently approved by Congress is actually pro-life, pro-family, and is very much in keeping with responsible parenthood.

That's a distortion, I immediately reacted. A rip-off, a devious, sinister one, all the more so considering the way it is made to appear like the truth and the position of the people claiming it.

Oh, how they looked and talked! You'd think they were the very paragon of saintliness and heroism, and the aging Pope who keeps on talking against contraception and sterilization as the personification of Satan!

That's the usual trick. Falsehood is dressed as truth, immorality is made to appear as something natural, practical, commonsensical. One is supposed to look ridiculous if he dares to oppose the claims of population-control people.

In fact, one trick used is to sweeten the stigma of inhuman population control by calling it now as reproductive health. But it is the same banana, I tell you, now exploiting women's legitimate concern to push the same immoral birth control methods and a rotten ideology that debunks Christian morality.

The people behind are not saying the whole truth, they are not presenting the whole picture. The objective requirements of morality are set aside as they project themselves as truly altruistic and concerned with the suffering of the masses.

Just because the reproductive health bill does not include abortion, as of yet at least, does not mean that the program is pro-life. A lot more, you know, is involved in being pro-life than just avoiding abortion, dude.

Just because with that program a couple can have the freedom to limit their family size does not mean it is already pro-family. Where, I appeal, do they get that logic?

Just because the couple has the right to choose any birth control method, like contraception and sterilization, does not mean it is fostering responsible parenthood. What are they talking about? What's so responsible about teaching complacency instead of self-dominion?

There were other lies and fallacies cleverly sown in that TV discussion. Like that the reproductive health bill respects people's culture and religion. Really? Tell me more about it.

When they just indiscriminately import a rotten ideology from abroad and throw to the winds official moral teachings of the Catholic Church, to which a great majority of the Filipinos belong, they have the nerve to talk about respect for people's culture and religion.

They also said that the reproductive health bill is a result of a very democratic way of promoting what is truly good for the people. It was arrived at through popular consensus, no coercion was employed, it respects opinion, etc.

Thing is when something is in the first place immoral, no amount of popular consensus can make it right and truly good for the people. Until they resolve that issue, any attempt to look as a hero before the people will just be some poisonous delight.

They seem still entangled with the false beauty of democracy. It's the best system we have so far, all right, but if it is not infused with proper values, it will just end up distorting and abusing freedom, and truth and common good would not really be pursued. Look at the mess some so-called democratic societies have made.

At the moment, these reproductive health people are bullying the Department of Health officials for neglecting the artificial contraception while pouring all the money only to natural family planning methods.

They bristle with indignant righteousness, self-righteousness I would say, as they threaten the DOJ to make amends or else!

As I've said before, if they really want to be practical and effective, why don't they just kill the poor, the handicapped, the old, the sickly, or those who stand in their way, to get what they want.

For Pete's sake, let's start thinking properly. We have a big mess, a real challenge of inculcating genuine responsible parenthood to people, many of whom in the grip of poverty and ignorance, ahead of us.

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The Pope can resign

YES, I stand corrected. The Pope can resign!

One of the things that can happen in life, one that we, in fact, should expect -- otherwise we would be foolishly deluding ourselves -- is that we can commit mistakes anytime.

My prayer is that we develop a culture in which owning up a mistake would be considered a healthy practice. At the moment, sad to say, such actuation seems to be taboo.

No matter how smart and clever one may be, the possibility of erring is always there. A host of causes and factors can easily explain that -- personal limitations and defects, the tricks of passion, temptations and near occasions of sin, disordered ambition, sheer malice, etc.

We can even commit mistakes with the best of intentions, and yet such fervor and ardor cannot erase the fact that we have committed a mistake.

As I said, there can be many reasons for this. But whatever they may be, a mistake need not be a purely negative event. It can be a golden occasion to grow in that basic virtue of humility, and to gain a more incisive knowledge of the human condition.

In short, mistakes can make us a better person, rather than a scarred or destroyed individual. It can serve as purification, it can occasion a timely rectification, it can strengthen our convictions.

When one is humble enough to accept his mistakes, is sorry for them and willing to make up for whatever damage that may have been done, then a lot of good can be derived from a mistake.

This is where some kind of death turns into life. As our Lord says, "Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." (Jn 12,24-25)

As Saint Paul has reassured us, "where sin abounded, grace did more abound." (Rom 5,20) And in the words of that beautiful Easter hymn, "O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer," we are told that even sin can bring out good things.

We therefore should not get entangled with the purely negative aspects of a mistake, but should rather concentrate on the positive possibilities that errors can offer.

After all, as they say, behind the dark clouds the beautiful sun shines. Let's not forget that. Again as Saint Paul said, "To them that love God all things work together unto good." (Rom 8,28) Everything, including mistakes, can be take advantage of.

In this life, it would be crazy if one plays the part of an oversensitive person who prefers to stick to a very confined vision of things when reason and faith offer a much richer reality.

One has to learn to be humble to escape the clutches of hurt pride that can aggravate rather than improve the situation. One has to learn to be sporty and flexible, whose experiences of failures and errors can only strengthen his will to do things right and better. There is really no point to just brood and feel bitter because of a mistake.

I say all these things because I committed a blunder when I wrote a few weeks ago about the papal office.

In that essay which I wrote, I must confess, in a fit of passion, I contended that the Pope could not resign. I even wove what I thought was a forceful argument to support my claim, only to realize much later that I made absolute something that in itself can only have a relative value.

Yes, it was the intoxicating play of the passions that must have muddled my thinking and affected my sense of balance.

As I reviewed my canon law recently, I bumped into a provision that jolted me back to reality. Canon 332,2 says sit quite clearly:

"Should it happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns form his office, it is required for validity that the resignation be freely made and properly manifested, but it is not necessary that it be accepted by anyone."

Of course, who can prevent the Pope from resigning if he wants to? Even if no one can accept nor approve his resignation, that cannot be prevent him from resigning if for reason he wants to resign.

It is good that mistakes sometimes happen. It is in this way that better things can come our way.