Porn, poverty, and prelates

Forgive me, Father, for I am confused.
 

Two Roman Catholic bishops recently made convoluted statements in rambling interviews that only highlight how disconnected they seem from reality, how unaware they are of the actual travails of their flock, and how difficult it is for them to make a logical point.

 

Take the issue of poverty. One bishop blames it for being the cause of the rise of cyberpornography, while the other says poverty is not a problem, but in fact brings people closer to God.

 

First, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo. In an article posted Jan. 19 on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines website, he blamed the “widespread patronage of pornography” in the Philippines on the Reproductive Health Law. Pabillo was said to have been interviewed on Radio Veritas where he “reiterated that the government cannot counter the rise of internet pornography until it teaches the sacredness of sex.” 

 

He also said that the government should expect a surge in the “culture of addiction” through the “government’s promotion of condoms, contraceptives, and its support for the Reproductive Health law opposed by the Church,” in effect “countering itself in its initiative to combat child pornography.” Pabillo reasoned that promoting a “culture of sex” through “pills and condoms” will encourage “relationships outside marriages and extra-marital affairs.”

 

That’s clear so far – he postulates that the popularity of porn is caused by the government’s promotion of a culture of promiscuity via the RH Bill.

 

However, the article went on to say “Pabillo reiterated that poverty. . .is the main reason for the spread of internet pornography,” and quotes the bishop as saying, “Poverty is the reason, it is because of poverty amongst our people that [they are pushed] to cyberpornography, and it should be addressed sincerely [by the administration].

 

“What is happening,” he added, is that most parents [are] unable to provide education for their siblings [sic] causing ignorance that eventually drives their children to cyberpornography to make a living.”

 

This argument shoots itself in the foot. First, Pabillo claims the RH Bill is to blame for the spread of pornography. Second, he says poverty is the main reason. So what is it – the RH bill or poverty? They can’t both be the main reason. The good bishop’s statement that the ignorance of “siblings” (we have to assume the bishop meant “children”, otherwise it makes even less sense) caused by their parents being unable to give them a good education pushes children to make a living through cyberporn is also befuddled.
 

One of the reasons many parents cannot afford to send their children to school is because they have too many children to begin with. Also, because they do not have access to effective reproductive health methods. It is one of the effects of the cycle of poverty that uneducated parents in turn have uneducated children. The RH bill will be instrumental in lifting many from this cycle.

 

The “natural” family planning advocated by the church has a high fail rate in general and especially among the masses because, among other things, it requires an education to understand and use (basal temperatures and all that). And it is not the children who make a living through cyberporn – it is the parents who do, by directly using them for cyberporn purposes or by giving them into the control of other people who use them in such.

 

As for the “culture of sex” that encourages “relationships outside marriages and extra-marital affairs,” it did not require the government to promote that. Infidelity and adultery have always existed in Philippine society, as manifested, for one example, in the querida system perpetuated not only by regular folk but by the high and mighty, an embarrassment to their exclusive and expensive Catholic school educations.

 

It is also NOT the government’s job to “teach the sacredness of sex,” because the government is, by virtue of the Constitution and the demands of logic and reason, a secular institution, and there should be  separation between church and state. “Should”, because the Catholic Church still exerts a strong influence over local politics, a “social cancer” that remains unhealed since Rizal wrote about in the 19th century.

 

Next up, Bishop Gilbert Gacera of the Diocese of Daet, Camarines Norte. 

 

Last month, he said that “the overpopulation that breeds poverty was not a problem because poverty itself was not a problem,” according to a news article. Poverty even brings people closer to God, he said, and that it is part of “God’s plan for Filipinos to take care of other nationalities by inducing migration and working abroad.”

He also said that the diaspora “was a way to spread the Christian faith,” that the country’s problem was “neither overpopulation nor poverty but corruption and the unequal distribution of wealth.” Further, he admitted “that not all provisions of the RH bill were bad,” but that some proponents and supports of the bills are “against human nature and against what God wants.” 

 

Clearly Gacera does not realize the social cost of “left-behind children,” as they are called in China, the children of OFW parents who struggle with lack of parental presence and guidance. Some of them are brought up by other relatives and not in their own homes, and as a consequence suffer a sense of displacement, of “not belonging,” and of material things substituting for love.

 

As for spreading the faith, in the narratives I’ve heard, more often it’s the opposite that happens. In order to marry a Muslim man in the Middle East, many Filipinas convert to Islam. “Pareho din naman si Allah at God, 'di ba?” several women have asked me. This also shows that many Catholics aren’t even sure of what their faith is comprised of. So much for the Philippines being a “Catholic country.”

 

Also, for Gacera to say that “not all provisions of the RH bill are bad” shows some of the clergy didn’t get the memo about that. Pope Francis himself is moving the Church away from “culture war issues” such as abortion, gay marriage, and contraception, toward showing love in practical ways, in “[healing] wounds and [warming] the hearts of the faithful.” 

 

Inconsistent views like those espoused by the aforementioned bishops raise questions: what part of what they say is church doctrine, and what part is personal opinion? Why does their perception of social reality seems oriented through a medieval time warp? When will they join the real world?

 

Deliver us, oh Lord. — KDM, GMA News

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