UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
* Pope Francis must now in Manila endorse a contraception family planning option for parents of street children in the Philippines and for similarly situated couples worldwide. Pope Francis preaches piously before cameras that his top priority is a “preferential option for the poor”. Yet behind closed doors, his subordinate bishops in the Philippines still push to deny couples a family planning option that could really help poor families there. This contradiction in practice has been vividly brought to the forefront by the this recent article [Daily Mail] about Manila’s street children and their prophetic advocate and Nobel Prize nominated Irish missionary priest, Fr. Shay Cullen. Many of these children have been locked up in poor conditions for at least the duration of the pope’s visit.
* Pope Francis’ contradictory, if not hypocritical, statements relating to family planning has surprisingly been well highlighted recently by an informative article in papal supporter, Rupert Murdoch’s influenced Wall Street Journal (WSJ) here
* In the WSJ article, it has been suggested that some Filipino Catholics just dismiss the Catholic Church’s teachings on sex and birth control as unscientific and outdated for couples living in modern societies.
* The WSJ article indicates that outside the birth control clinic in Tondo, a slum area in Manila, children combed through stinking piles of trash, and ran through heavy traffic to clamber onto the backs of moving garbage trucks. For a 2008 video showing some of the harsh conditions in the Tondo/Manila slum, please see:
* [YouTube]
* The Philippine birthrate is quite high by regional standards. In deprived areas like Tondo/Manila, women still typically have six or seven children, according to the NGO. According to the WSJ report, the NGO regularly welcomes 13-year-old mothers, or 16-year-olds with two or three babies, health workers said.
* Pope Francis must stop preaching and act. He must promptly demand (1) that officials release these children from detention immediately, (2) that Manila’s showpiece Cardinal Tagle try to make sure that Manila street children are not abused by officials and others this way again, (3) that Church, government and business leaders help these children more and soon, and (4) that his bishops stop pumping the high Filipino birthrate by opposing access to affordable and effective contraception options from poor couples that seek it.
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