The Useless Church?!

Submitted by Scruples on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 12:02pm
The Useless Church?!

catolico cerrado

bahi's picture
Submitted by bahi on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 7:56pm.

how dare you steal the image(thumbnail) of our church in Pandan Saint Ignatius of Loyola and post it with a negative label. You have not only tear our religiosity but the very heart of our faith!

i hope you apologize.

catolico cerrado

Dave's picture
Submitted by Dave on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 11:05pm.

Sorry bahi... ako yo nag post ninyan. Inag butang ko para sa visual impact ninyo kiyang post.

I meant to pose a question in view of the valid observation of scruples. I simply used our church in Pandan as a visual impact too. No offense meant.

Manto si bahi... relax! Valid yan point baga! tawan ta man nin boses.

Dave

catolico cerrado

bahi's picture
Submitted by bahi on Sun, 06/29/2008 - 11:54pm.

i am sorry too. i dont know. but to say that the church is lethargic as what bishop cruz print in his blog is not true at all. in fact everytime i hear a mass we pray for our leaders and there is nothing more than prayer i was taught. But i really dont mean to say that they stop criticizing. in fact it is good. it creates balance. even if none is proven. ganun pa rin nagiging aware lahat. because SOP is as clear as day. we must be aware. now if corruption is one of the root cause of poverty then by all means let us support the ombudsman whom the constitution gave the power to prosecute. they are not beholden to anyone not even the president. If none is proven then let us move on and support each other. rainbow coalition, uno, black and white. ano pa bang mabubuong grupo.sawang sawa na ako sa kasusuporta. pero di ako magbabago nang suporta sa pinoy na gustong ayusin ang bayan natin. Basta di gumagamit ng baril ayos tayo dyan.

Pandananon and their church are not indifferent, in fact one Pandananon, his mother yata is from Pandan is the head ng baclaran church yung tumulong kay lozada. si Fr Josep Echano batid man magpandananon. We are glad na dito sa amin sa parañaque sya nagawi.

Catolico Cerrado

Dave's picture
Submitted by Dave on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 12:49am.

You have a valid point!

By the way, so Fr. Echano is now in Baclaran! I was a Redemptorist seminarian before I transferred to Diocesan Seminary. Msgr. Villegas was my classmate at San Carlos.

Anyway.

There are many valid ways at looking into Msgr. Cruz's (who was one of my Philosophy Professors) blog. One view is that the "decadence" of the church in the Philippines is due to the detachment of Filipino Catholics' "belief" and the practice of the same "belief". You will agree that the Filipinos are good at making poverty as an excuse in practicing their moral belief so vote buying is rampant. Look, it is one thing for vote buyer to exist and quite another issue for vote sellers to exist. And both sellers and peddlers are supposed to be members of the Church! Whatever church!

We all agree that the country's problem is corruption and it is easy to forget that it is the catholic population who installed them there. It is as well easy to point our fingers towards corrupt officials and yet it is very difficult to organize the catholics to unite and rally against them! We believe in something and do quite another thing. I think the tenet i outlined above is not difficult to see and yet it is difficult to accept Msgr. Cruz's blog!

If at all it is solely the Catholic voter's moral fault, then, at least as I have seen as seminarian, the Church has failed! The mark of a teacher is his effectivity in making a difference amongst the students and in the teacher's success in guiding the students towards the objective of the class he teaches... then we say he is a successful teacher! Can we, in front of rampant vote buying say that the church was effective in teaching morality, social or otherwise?

A pen should write. If it does not it is a useless pen. The church is the same! So the question mark is putting the benefit of the doubt... is the church really useless? I am not saying that our belief is useless.... I am pointing out that the ministry seem to be not working well and needs assessment an perhaps institute some changes in its approach to moral teachings. Belief in God is there, but being guided by that belief seems to be absent! This has long been a debate in the seminary, in my interactions with priests in Catanduanes, who are my esteemed friends. That subject was even a long beer session with Msgr. Fr. Ping when he was still alive...

So we say, the useless church! it does not leave up to its expectation. Useless pen, it does not write!

But beautiful faith and that is good. Let us hope and pray that that faith will grow, with the help of the church, to a level where we do what we believe. Then and only then can we say goodbye to corruption.

sigh! pina or ingles mo akong bahian ka! ibingan na bata to atang i habayan ako ning ingles!

One point! ha ha ha! 1,031 na baga yan akong points. Kun nai convert lamang to sa sintimos di ikan na ning pang tuba ni lungare buda pang pulutan! Na'niyang...

TAGAY Virac321, Fr. Rolvin and the rest of the Frs!

Dave

lagay

bahi's picture
Submitted by bahi on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 9:34pm.

corruption or lagay if sen mirriam santiago is to be believed originated in china. in order for the english to dock their ships they ask for lagay and the english in order to break in tolerated the incident. and when china came here the rest as they say is history.

I remember the time in Pandan where politicos "pinipilit pa" ( just ask mayor sayder icaranom) for them to file their candidacy. no vote buying then. but the marcos era really changed the way people think about politics. Vote buying i think starts in that era. As nick joaquin puts it. Marcos doing everything in order to remain in power changed the balance of the entire archipelago. Blaming the church for being ineffective in teaching the immorality of vote buying is akin to blaming a coach for losing a basketball match. While hes done everything from scouting to coaching it is the players who will fight their own demons and nervousness inside the court. The team who is confident and the one who is steadfast all throughout will win the game.

I believed the church that God entrusted to Peter will never fail. It does not even have to change to remain as the rock that will save humanity from its evildoings.

Let us help in our own little way as catholics to spread the good news. But let us not forget to denounce vote buying like- for so long a time all of us not only bishop cruz - we denounced the way of the thieves.