Jesuit priest: Team Patay list is silly and arrogant

Jesuit priest and Ateneo de Davao president Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J. was scathing in his assessment of a tactic employed by the Diocese of Bacolod to mobilize the so-called Catholic vote. Printed on a large tarpaulin and hung up at the Bacolod Cathedral for all to see was a list of supposed bishop-approved senatorial candidates, called Team Buhay, and a list of undesirable candidates, called Team Patay. "The insinuation in the Bacolod Tarp that should I vote for names in the black, it would not be a 'conscience vote' is silly in its arrogance. And harmful to the Church’s Gospel," Tabora wrote on his blog. As the names suggest, the list is based on a candidate's or party list group's stand regarding the RH Law. Under the Team Patay roster are those who supported the passage of the RH Law while Team Buhay is the list of candidates said to be pro-life and who voted against the bill. Tabora, in his blog post, considered the tactic ill-considered as it reduced the Catholic Church to a political party. “Putting posters up about conscience in the context of a particular vote for or against particular people squanders and trivializes the moral authority of the Church,” he argued.   Further, instead of calling the “Catholic vote” to action, the move would more likely do the Church injury by what he described as arrogance and silliness. Earlier denouncing the "theological bullying" of some of his priest-colleagues, Tabora has emerged as a leading critic of the bishops' strategy of demonizing suporters of the RH Law. The Jesuit cleric pointed out that a vote for the RH law was not a simple black and white choice. A pro-RH candidate is not necessarily an enemy of God, truth and, divinity. Tabora explained that support for the RH law can be as much a choice of conscience as a vote against it. If support for the law was motivated by a genuine concern for human dignity, the transmission of life that is responsible and dignified, concern for the poor, for the conditions of love between husband and wife, the health of mother and child during pregnancy and reducing abortions, then the action passes the Catholic criteria of looking beyond the self and seeking the well-being of others. In contrast, if a senatorial candidate had voted against the RH law because he was afraid of the Catholic vote, afraid of the wrath of the CBCP, afraid of pro-life groups and, “afraid to go to hell,” then even if the candidate makes it onto the Bacolod Cathedral's approved list, the vote was motivated by personal welfare and “not on Jesus present among his poor.” Rather than browbeating the faithful into submission by heavy-handed tactics like the Bacolod tarpaulin, Tabora would rather see the Church try to convince Catholics through reason and argument. “The Church can no longer impose its existence and message on the world,” he said. The well-being of everyone in a pluralistic society will now have to be achieved through a shared judgment between Church authorities and the laity, with the latter now playing a key role, guided by the principle of “Jesus, the Father turned towards us in Love.” — DVM/HS, GMA News