“Leaders even take pride in the perceived ‘persecution’ of the Church.”

Tomorrow, July 16, the Feast of Mt. Carmel begins the three-day fasting and prayer as decreed by the recent pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

To quote: “On July 16, 2018 on the feast of the Blessed Mother of Mt. Carmel, the mountain associated with the bold challenge of the prophet Elijah, let us spend a day of prayer and penance, invoking God’s mercy and justice on those who have blasphemed God’s Holy Name, those who slander and bear false witness and those who commit murder or justify murder as a means for fighting criminality in our country. We invite you to join us, your bishops, in three days of fasting, prayer and almsgiving from July 17 to 19, 2018.”

Of course, this is short of saying, “Let us just pray and fast for President Duterte.”

Earlier, however, the pastoral letter mentions about priests who are found in error, “We bow in shame when we hear of abuses being committed by some of our fellow Church leaders — especially those ordained to “act in the person of Christ.” We hold ourselves accountable for their actions and accept our duty to correct them — as duly mandated by our own higher authorities in the universal Church. We humbly admit that we have many weaknesses and shortcomings, human as we are.”

Great! Yet, they were not included in the list of the prayer and fasting intentions of the 3-day declaration!

Although it appears to be textually negligible, still it echoes loudly the hypocritical disposition within the Church which many people, including many faithful themselves and President Duterte hates to the max.

Most often, this is clouded by clerical arrogance.

“Clerical arrogance” can be sourced from different roots. For instance, close to the divine rights theory of the royalty in the Middle Ages, the religious leaders have basked on that divine prerogative through priestly ordination and that they are directly God’s descendants!

Or perhaps, they take a power armor and shield from the statistical fact that the Catholic Church is the largest single religious denomination in the world and the 82 percent majority here in the Philippines.

Or even experientially, when the Catholic Church was at the forefront of the two Edsa “revolutions” that ousted former Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada which the legality or even constitutionality of the act remains a puzzle today.

Yet, the question remains among the people whether such Church-sponsored drastic removal of the two leaders brought any “salvific” change in this country, or that we only grew worse with the two lady presidents (Aquino and Arroyo) who took over the reins respectively.

Consequently, with the two political victories the pulpit metamorphosed into chopping boards where the priests and preachers, a.k.a. prophets would subject political leaders to critical dissection.

This is a reason why PRRD strongly requests the Church leaders to refrain from using the pulpit in hitting him publicly.

And quite clearly in the pastoral letter, the Church, especially the leaders’ even take pride in the perceived “persecution” of the Church in view of the spate of priests’ murders and verbal lambasting from the leader of the nation as being a privilege of being Christ-like, with its concomitant holiness incensed among them. There is pride even amid the sufferings.

Instead of reading between the lines of the verbal thrusts of the PRRD and honestly admitting that somehow there are valid points in the president’s tirades, the Church leaders took the defensive position shielding itself from the truth and the pain that goes along with it.

That could be the reason why the clerics and their “mea culpas” are not included in the intentions of the 3-day of prayer and fasting!