Anna Gan
Posted on 16. Nov, 2009 by Pepe in Oplan Pepe
Anna Gan — Cafeteria Christian
I was baptized a Catholic, received my first Communion as a Catholic and even went through Confirmation as one -not because my parents were fervent believers, but because it was a requirement for the school they wanted to enroll me in. While I value and treasure the education given to me (and have a belief in a Supreme Being) , I do question why the Church has chosen to repress others of different faiths and chosen to push its own self serving agenda through the ages.
In an age where women have been acknowledged as equals and have become pastors to their community, the Catholic church still only admits men into the priesthood. Women who wish to serve God become nuns. That is sexism hiding behind a “holy” cloak, and if the Church bewails the shortage of men who want to become priests, they shouldn’t be surprised.
After many were persecuted and some made martyrs during the Roman era, Catholics went on to torture others in the Inquisition, trying to weed out witches and those who did not subscribe to their faith (a practice which predated the Jewish Holocaust). They persecuted fellow Christians (Protestants) during the time of Mary Tudor -and the conflict strangely continues in Ireland (a country with pagan roots before the arrival of Christianity). The Church also tried taking the Holy City (as if the Israelites and Palestinians needed more trouble) during the Crusades. How does one reconcile being part of that faith, when we’ve been told “thou shall not kill” and “thou shall not covet” -then turn a blind eye as people invent loopholes to justify their actions in the name of God?
Then you wonder about the donations you make when they pass that bag or basket during Mass. Does it help feed or clothe the poor? Educate novices on the path to serving God? Or feed the great coffers of the Vatican, whose treasures rival any kingdom’s? This Church whose influence and power has grown through the millennia, and strangely does not protect its churchgoers, but instead protects the false servants — those who have families on the side, the ones who rob from the coffers, or even the ones who molest their own church followers.
And now, when we are being told to avoid mass consumerism, to become less materialistic and more spiritual -the Church still says birth control is bad? Worse, it meddles with the affairs of a nation that also has people of other faiths that have lived here for centuries -and deems “bad” a law allowing better access to reproductive health materials. Uncontrolled population growth, especially among the poor who have the least access to information/resources has led to crimes, mendicancy, malnourished/illiterate children and malnourished/illiterate women dying from pregnancy/childbirth complications.
As blind as the Church is, its own members do fall from grace, and without birth control, may resort to the extreme measure of abortion -a form of murder. Or if they go through with the pregnancy, abandon the child (there have been cases of newborns left in the worst situations: trashbins, restrooms, places where no straight-thinking mother should leave a defenseless child) and in some cases repeat the cycle of pregnancy and abandonment. A morbid joke says that if men could become pregnant, abortion wouldn’t just be legalized but actually become a sacrament –ironic, when you consider that those in power are men. It’s actually amazing that castration/sterilization didn’t become a prerequisite for the priesthood, perhaps to acknowledge that one may be a servant of God, but still a whole human being.
In a country that also has other faiths, which has decreed in its revised Constitution the separation of church and state, politicians still allow themselves to be bullied by the clergy -thanks to 300 years of Spanish rule (mostly by the cassocked set). To preserve the sanctity of a family or the appearance of one, our convoluted laws do not allow divorce but offer as an alternative separation or annulment -probably one of the last dinosaur-minded nations to do so. With the recent party-list status of LGBT group Ang Ladlad denied by the Comelec for “immoral grounds,” one realizes that separation may have been declared on paper, but has yet to take effect in reality. Take note that for years, the Comelec has held office in Intramuros, also the homebase of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
The hypocrisy of being Catholic revealed itself when I enrolled for one year for college in a convent school. There, young ladies could smoke (in a designated area), could whisper about the boys they were going to meet (and the things they were going to do) – and students mysteriously vanished mid-semester for, ahem, health reasons. But other students who were not Catholics were prevented from practicing their faith. Despite being fellow Christians, they could not openly pray, and were told not to evangelize or proclaim within school grounds. There, a student with extremely short hair had to report to the dean of discipline and was given a choice between wearing dangling earrings and red lipstick -or not attend school at all (interestingly enough, there was a faculty member or lecturer who seemed to have trans-sexual leanings and was allowed to wear what s/he pleased as long as it was “decent”). The same student who was the target of ethnic ridicule, for some strange reason, by a religion teacher who declared that she looked like a drug addict (one supposes that prior to her becoming a respected member of the faculty, this educator had first-hand experience in the appearance and demeanor of substance abusers). Despite having above-decent grades, I chose to remove myself from this environment -for I had no wish to be molded by the half-informed or hypocritical set that proclaimed themselves enlightened.
Religion isn’t really an opiate of the masses, it’s the people who abuse it and make it a tool for propaganda who make it so.
Anna, part of a new generation of freethinkers, banding together to fight for a secular Philippines.
Anna, isa sa mga bagong Pepe na nagsalita na sapagka’t pagod na sya maging pipi.
[Anna, one of the new Pepe's who has finally spoken up because she's tired of being silenced].