MANILA -- Catholic Church officials renewed Monday appeals to Malacañang to withdraw support for the Reproductive Health (RH) bill just as its author supposed that the Church opposition to the measure may be based on outdated doctrine.
Fr. Melvin Castro, an official of the influential Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), remained hopeful that President Benigno Aquino III will soon be "enlightened" regarding his position on the issue of RH bill.
"(We) Pray for his enlightenment and fortitude," said Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, citing the President Aquino's mother, late President Corazon C. Aquino.
The late president was a pro-life and pro-family advocate while his son is a staunch advocate of the bill that will allow universal access to methods and information about birth control even before he became President.
The CBCP has strongly opposed the bill it has dubbed as anti-life since it promotes the use of artificial contraceptives.
On Monday, the Senate opened its own plenary debates on the RH bill, which is a consolidated version of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago's Senate Bill (SB) 2378, Senator Panfilo Lacson's SB 2738, and Senator Pia Cayetano's Resolution 238.
Speaking as author and co-sponsor of the Senate version of the RH bill, Senator Santiago said the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), which convened from 1962 to 1965, has changed Church doctrines.
"With Vatican II, the seeds of a democratic revolution were sown. In the past, Catholics simply obeyed the bishops. But now, many Catholics are no longer willing to give blind obedience to the Church," she said.
The senator said Humanae Vitae, the encyclical on which the Church bases its opposition to contraception, was based on the minority report. The majority report recognized that "in some cases, intercourse can be required as a manifestation of self-giving love" and not just for procreation.
She said the adoption of the minority report was opposed by some Catholic theologians. Santiago also cited a survey that found that 80 percent of Catholics in the United States do not follow Humanae Vitae.
"The teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception is one of the important reasons why the absolute authority of the Church has grown weaker over the years," Santiago added.
Santiago, who has a master's degree from the Maryhill School of Theology, said Humanae Vitae contradicts Vatican II, "which allowed for a wider basis for evaluating the morality of (sex)."
Santiago said contraception falls under liberation theology, which sees the Catholic Church as "an earthly community of human beings who have a mission that includes the struggle on behalf of justice, peace, and human rights."
"I humbly submit that the struggle for an RH bill to protect the health and quality of life of the mother and child in the context of unspeakable poverty is part of liberation theology," she said.
Santiago added that Vatican II taught the "primacy of conscience."
"Conscience is inviolable, and the individual Catholic has a right to follow her own conscience, even when it is erroneous,” she said.
She said that other Christian churches and congregations have put their support behind the RH bill, including the Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Iglesia ni Cristo, and the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches.
She said the Assembly of Darul-Iftah of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the highest authoritative body of Muslim clerics in the Philippines, gave Muslims the choice on what forms of contraception to use as early as 2003.
"In our country, the Catholic church is the only major religion that opposes the RH bill," she said. (AMN/Sunnex)
