A Religious/Political Manifesto

A Religious/Political Manifesto

“Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend the truth is to suppress it.” –Pope Sr. Felix III

Fueled by these words I’ve (at last) found my courtroom voice.  For the record, (not just for the sake of argument), here’s my political manifesto based on my religious beliefs.

1.  I oppose abortion. Innocent babies being killed in their mother’s womb is inhuman, similar to the Holocaust.  Life begins at conception not at “post viability” of 20 weeks as the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade decreed. Pregnancies are a gift from God, no matter the circumstances of their origin.  Babies have a right to life as much as any of us and the right to life outweighs any woman’s choice. (Is it just me or is it objectively ridiculous that the right to "privacy" has stretched to cover abortion?) A law or Court that justifies any form of murder, especially the most helpless, weak and vulnerable of human beings is unjust. 

Two weeks after conception, I heard my baby's heart beat.

2.   I oppose homosexual marriages.  Marriage is a sacred union between man and woman.  This is Catholic Church teaching based on the natural law that man is fundamentally different from woman. Case in point: two women cannot biologically create offspring together and two men cannot replace the love of a mother.  A married man and woman with irrevocable vows is the foundation of a family, which is the basic unit of society.  Homosexual unions are intrinsically disordered and are not in the child's best interest. Even if such unions favored by human law and human votes,  they are not sanctioned by God’s law and cannot supersede natural law.

3.  I oppose sterilization and contraception.  And paying for it under guise of a so-called “tax.”   The marital act has two purposes: 1. Unitive—the couple becomes one flesh and 2. Procreative—the marital act creates the possibility of conception.  These two functions cannot be separated, and thus each act of sexual intercourse must be open to the possibility of new life. God, not scalpels/condoms/pills (or petri dishes and scientists), decides whether conception takes place or not. 

Public funds have no business interfering with private sexual matters, particularly when its purpose of preventing pregnancy can be achieved by self-control and abstinence. Additionally, preventive pregnancy is not a disease.  Health diseases require medical treatment or procedure.   Federal government classifying sterilization and contraception as “health issues” at the expense of taxpayers is a misuse of its powers. I concur with the dissenting opinion of the HHS case, that Congress has the power to regulate commerce, not create commerce.  How is it logical exactly that "regulating children" falls under the "regulating commerce" powers of Congress?

4.   I oppose euthanasia.   There is no such thing as a “right to die” or right to terminate life.  Life and death belong to God. Even if a life is wrought with pain and suffering, it is every human being’s duty to preserve life.  The value of suffering, while not patently clear to many in this earthly life, will make sense with Christian faith, in eternal life.   When the government protects anyone who actively assists in causing the death of another, it aids and abets the crime of murder.   And I truly wonder: if I cast a vote for euthanasia,  does that make me an accomplice in the eyes of Divine Justice? 

5.  I oppose the death penalty.   No man can judge ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt about a fellow human being’s sin and deprive another of life as a consequence. That matter is left solely for God’s justice. Each person is made in the image and likeness of God, deserves the worth and dignity of a child of God and the chance to live out the term of his life.  Every person is entitled to the opportunity to repent of his sins, giving society the divine opportunity to forgive as Christ did.

6.  I oppose the persecution of religious freedom.  The State is not superior to the Church.  The US Constitution has never deemed it so.  A government that dictates its citizens to violate their conscience is a communist or fascist state.  The establishment of a dictatorship was not the intention of the founding fathers of the United States of America.  If America does not return to its Christian history, its future will follow the crisis of secular Europe and communist Russia and China.   (Perhaps I should interview some of my former clients who fled Russia, China and Cuba to seek asylum from the US because of cruel political persecutions and publish it to get a convincing picture.)

Similarly, the Philippine Constitution was written to prevent the arbitrary and oppressive government of dictatorship.  The country’s freedom was granted through a miraculous intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after she was publicly invoked by the Church and the people during the political revolution of 1986.  If the Philippines turns its back on its Catholic roots, an undermined Church will not be able to summon the people to oust another corrupt, tyrannical or secular form of government and leave Filipinos in the hands of a godless regime.  (Perhaps we should read the martial law cases filed against former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to remember the horror.)

7.  I oppose uncurbed free speech that promotes immodesty, profanity and obscenity.  I reject the entire pop culture that profanes the sacred name of “Jesus Christ” as a curse word and manipulates a gullible audience into accepting sins of immodesty and impurity as norm.  The deceptive glare of television and movies has dimmed the light of right and wrong in many souls. Free speech has never been unrestrained in judicial history. Though the contemporary standards of “obscenity” has nose-dived in recent years, God’s laws on purity and virtue have remain unchanged.   That is only the standard to uphold.

That said, I do not condemn people who commit sin (I am a sinner myself); I do not hate people who believe otherwise; and I can love errant politicians and opposing voters alike.  But I will pray for their conversion and if they are Catholic, I will pray even more fervently that they understand why politics and religion cannot be separate.  We have only one soul and our Catholic faith, as entrusted to the Catholic Church, ought to shape it for eternity.  Naturally, politics (and everything else in our lives) follows our beliefs.

Archbishop Chaput made so much sense when he said: “The right to pursue happiness does not include a right to excuse or ignore evil in ourselves or anyone else. When we divorce our politics from a grounding in virtue and truth, we transform our country from a living moral organism into a kind of golem of legal machinery without a soul.”

         I oppose all these grave errors because absolute freedom without moral limitation makes every form of evil a free-for-all. 

*If you agree and need a voice, please feel free to repost or circulate.

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