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.
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| 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.
*If you agree and need a voice, please feel free to repost or circulate.
*If you oppose my views, you may (or may not) be heard
–depending on whether you follow the rules for commenting or not. Civilized debates can be done here. But if you copy anything from this blog post for
the purpose of critiquing, rebutting or opposing it, you should know: It’s protected
by US copyright laws, not permitted by the writer, not qualified as fair use
and would be illegal.
