Manila bishop lays down battle lines on birth control

While the Church is open to critical collaboration on the matter, it is wary of participating in government-backed birth control programs. Manila auxiliary bishop Teodoro Bacani Jr also said the Church will not budge on at least three “non-negotiable" points in addressing the country’s worsening population program. “It will be more difficult to effect collaboration if the Church should be asked to take part in government programs of birth control. Bishops have some reservations about being co-opted and being made a part of a government population control program with morally objectionable components from their point of view," Bacani said. On the other hand, Bacani said the Church will stand by its non-negotiable stand that the Church teaches that direct abortion, direct sterilization and direct contraception are wrong. “Hence, there is no way that it will say yes to the promotion of these immoral practices," he said. Another non-negotiable point is that the Church believes that the decision regarding the number of children the couple should have lies with husband and wife themselves. “Hence, the Church will object to any coercive type of birth control," he said. The third is that the Church considers truthfulness a basic moral consideration in any activity. Hence, the Church cannot accept and propagate deceptive information and will demand that full and truthful information be given regarding birth control methods. On the other hand, he said a good Catholic may hold the position that there is a mismatch between our population growth rate and our resources to meet the needs of our growing population. A good Catholic may hold that we should slow down our population growth rate to a manageable level. Earlier, Bacani said government can take the first step towards getting the Church’s cooperation in addressing the problem by offering to subsidize natural family planning programs. He said the Church and the government can still collaborate toward improving the people’s economic and social condition and agree on promoting responsible parenthood. If all couples get this message and put it into practice, “we will arrive at the optimal population growth rate," said Bacani, a spiritual adviser of the “El Shaddai" religious movement. “The government can offer to subsidize (without strings attached) the natural family planning program of the Church. Again, there are no insurmountable obstacles for the Church to receive such assistance for a thoroughly moral natural family planning program," he said. “With such beginnings, the Church and government may later on develop other forms of collaboration beneficial to our people," he added. He noted that the government and the Church have had conflicting positions on how to address the problem. The prelate lamented that for all the talk in the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines about “critical collaboration," the population question is one area where the CBCP has not been able to collaborate critically with government. Bacani said the CBCP and the government have long had an adversarial relationship, dating back to the Marcos times. “I am one of those who believe that there can be some kind of collaboration between the CBCP and the government in this matter," he said. - GMANews.TV