MikeLigalig.com

By Bohol Chronicle

The controversial proposed Reproductive Health bill will be one of the issues which will not miss the interest of Pope Benedict XVI when some 28 bishops from the Visayas will personally visit the Vatican this week.

Meanwhile, a strongly worded pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) will echo during today's Holy Masses in all Catholic churches of the Diocese of Tagbilran.

Bishop Leonardo Medroso together with 28 other bishops in the Visayas flew to Manila yesterday en route to Rome for a personal audience with the Pope at the Vatican.
       

MEDROSO

During an interview over dyRD shortly before his departure yesterday, Medroso said that the stand of the Catholic Church against the bill could be among the issues to be raised during their group and individual talk with the Pope.

Each of the bishops will be given at least 15 minutes for a one-on-one talk with the Pope during their ad limina visit.

Medroso said the visit is a chance for the prelates to report developments and concerns of their respec-tive dioceses and individually speak with Pope Benedict XVI.

Medroso will have the opportunity to report the pastoral, evangelization, administrative as well as the liturgical programs of the diocese under his stewardship.
         

Highlighting the bishop's "report" to the Pope will be the five-year pastoral program of the Diocese of Tagbilaran as the local church will mark its 75th year in 2016. This program now becomes a part of the 10-year preparation for the 500th year celebration of the Catholic church in the Philippines.

It maybe recalled that Christianity was planted in the country in 1521, that same year when Spaniard Magellan discovered the Philippines, significantly highlighted with the planting of the Magellan cross in Cebu City.

The bishops will stay at the Colegio Pilipino, a place where Filipino scholars stay when they will do further studies at the Vatican. Presently, Boholano priests, Fr. Harold Parilla and Fr. Cecil Lobregas are staying there.

Medroso and the other bishops will know the exact day of their scheduled one-on-one appointment with the Pope once they will arrive in Rome this week.

Aside from meeting with the Pope, the bishops are also scheduled to visit various offices of the Roman Curia, the Sacred Congregations and the Pontifical Councils in Rome, he added.

The Pope is also expected to give his address to the visiting bishops.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the visit ad limina means, technically, the obligation incumbent on certain members of the hierarchy of visiting, at stated times, the "thresholds of the Apostles", Saints Peter and Paul.

Bishops have to present themselves "before the Pope to give an account of the state of their dioceses," the encyclopedia says.

"The object of the visit is not merely to make a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles, but, above all, to show the proper reverence for the Successor of St. Peter (the Pope)." This meeting with the Pope is required of the bishops once every five years.

PASTORAL LETTER

The pastoral letter to be read today boldly informed the parishioners that the proposed bill which is now given the new name as "Responsible Parenthood" bill calls for a moral choice and that is to choose life or to choose death.

This pastoral letter came as an offshoot of a supposedly friendly discussion between the government and the Church where CBCP discovered that the respective positions are "far apart" thus it called a categorical stand in objecting the proposed bill.

The CBCP branded the RH bill as a "major attack on authentic human values and on Filipino values regarding human life that all of us have cherished since time immemorial."

The CBCP stated that the RH Bill "does not respect moral sense that is central to Filipino cultures while it branded the bill as a "product of the spirit of this world, materialistic spirit that considers morality as a set of teachings from which one can choose, according to the spirit of the age,"

The bill does not promote reproductive health as it does not protect the health of the sacred human life being formed. The very use of contraceptives already reveals the "anti-life nature"

The church refutes the claim that it reduces cases of abortion since the contraceptives provide false sense of security that takes away the inhibition to sexual activity. With many failures on the use of contraceptives, abortion is resorted to.

On prevention of AIDS, the bishops said this is a false propaganda since the use of condoms instead increased sexual activities, thereby increasing the incidence of HIV/AIDS.

The stand of advocates that RH bill empowers women with ownership of their own bodies is in line with the post-modern spirit misguided by the so-called "new truth".

On the issue of population and poverty, the bishops hit back at government stating that the real causes of poverty are misguided economic policies, corruption and greed.

They also hit government for social inequities like lack of access to education, poor economic/social services and poor infrastructures.

The estimate of world organizations that P400 billion is lost yearly to corruption is what is causing poverty and nothing much to do on population as government statistics office would conclude that there is no overpopulation in the country but only over-concentration of population in the urban centers.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=37840.0