By Anthony Perez, Pro-Life Philippines
American conservatives were up in arms against the HHS mandate (Health and Human Services Mandate) of President Barack Obama, a mandate which will force every employer, including Catholics, to provide contraception and abortifacient pills to their employees. This is, of course, a slap against religious freedom,and the resulting backlash has seen not only Catholics but other denominations as well condemning thismandate. To ask Catholics to go against what their faith teaches is a clear violation of the often-misunderstood separation of Church and State. The US government has no right to prevent Catholics from living their faith nor does it have any right to implement a law or a provision that would go against their religion. All over the country, protests sparked out in defiance of the HHS mandate. Men, women, the young, the old, clergy, and laity, Catholics and even those who aren’t Catholic went out, joined the protests, and spoke their minds about thewhole issue of their religious freedom which is at stake.
The same thing should be happening to our country. Like the Americans, we have a president who thinks he can have his way against the religious, faithful CatholIc, and a pending bill that is set to trample the religious freedom of millions of Catholics around the country. The RH Bill (Reproductive Health Bill) , currently HB 4244 in Congress, has provisions that go against many of the precepts of the Catholic Church, and this makes Herthe bill’s number one enemy.
Central to the HHS mandate and the RH Bill are the distribution of contraception. The Catholic Church has been consistent in its denunciation of contraception, which it considers as intrinsically evil. She teaches thatthe sexual act, aside from the fact that it is reserved for those who are bound in the sacrament of marriage, has two aspects – the unitive and procreative – and these two aspects must always be present. The denial of theprocreative side of the sexual act, which happens whenever the couple uses contraceptives, means that sex is debased and is made into just an activity for pleasure. It could also mean that the woman is objectified as a thing meant for achieving a sexual high.
In the United States, the mass distribution of contraceptives by the government happened a mere few years before Roe V Wade, which gives you an idea of how things spiral downwards so quickly with a country that adopts a contraceptive mentality. And we all know what Roe V Wade did to American Society: 54 million deaths and counting. To think it all began with a rather innocent but entirely wrong notion of sex: “Look dear, we can now do it without you getting pregnant!”
If everything were a game of chess, then President Obama is now executing his endgame moves, with theHHS mandate and the end of religious freedom as his idea of a checkmate and victory. Game over. Destroy theremaining resistance – the Catholic Church – by forcing them to adopt this lifestyle that the liberals have been living, not to say that many Catholics have been using contraceptives anyway. It was a dangerous gambit, bythe way, and the backlash against Obama’s obvious trampling of religious freedom has been overwhelming. Everything is still hanging in the balance.
Today, the RH Bill, and consequently our country’s future, hang in the balance as well. With everything still to play for, both sides are deadlocked in a slug fest and no one is giving up the fight yet. For us in the pro-life side, we only have to look at the United States in order to be reminded of what we do not want to become: a society filled with modernism and emptiness, a society that for the most part does not respect life, and it all began with the simple use of contraceptives. Pope Paul VI prophesied correctly when he said that the mass distribution of contraceptives will result in a lot of evil, namely: the loss of respect for women, women claiming that their bodies are theirs alone, rise in infidelity and a general decline on morality, and governments’ abuse of power especially in matters where they shouldn’t even be delving into (such as population and family matters). This has been happening on a large scale in countries that disregarded Humanae Vitae; fortunately for us, our bishops decided to be faithful to Pope Paul VI and on the teachings of the Church. This might be the reason why our country holds fast to its Catholic and Filipino values. Nevertheless, like the Americans, who zealously stand guard over their freedoms, we should be eternally vigilant in order to ensure that the RH Bill does not pass.
Because we all know what happens next if the RH Bill passes.
Posted April 24,2012
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