Thou shalt no lie! One of the commandments you idiot! I hope you go to hell for lying to the Filipino people. STRAIGHT to hell!
Roman Catholic bishops in the Philippines, in an apparent attempt to escalate a row over the government’s promotion of condoms, on Tuesday called for the sacking of the secretary of the Department of Health. The sensitive birth-control issue in the country flared last week after Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral led a campaign to hand out free condoms on Valentine’s Day as part of the battle against HIV and AIDS.
“It’s so immoral for someone in the government to be pushing the use of condoms, which we all know is not deterrent to AIDS prevention,” Bishop Ramon Arguelles, of the Lipa City diocese in Batangas province, south of Manila, said in a church statement.
The Catholic Church forbids artificial birth control, including condoms.
The statement, signed by two other bishops, was posted on the website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, an organization grouping the Philippines’ church leaders.
It urged President Gloria Arroyo to dismiss Cabral, saying she should not be allowed to influence the nation’s young.
“It’s worrying because it is the morality in society, especially among the youth, that is at stake,” Arguelles said.
President Arroyo’s deputy spokesman Gary Olivar brushed off the bishops’ call.
“We should remember that public officials should be judged by standards of public policy interest as set forth in our laws and legal precedents, not by the morality of this or that institution,” Olivar told reporters.
About 75 million Filipinos, out of a national population of 93 million, are Catholics, a legacy of the country’s Spanish colonial past.
A Reproductive Health bill pending in Congress is criticized by the bishops for supposedly advocating artificial contraception.
Their view is unopposed, partly because 2010 is an election year, and candidates for public office in the May 10 polls would rather keep silent than openly contradict the country’s religious leaders. The bishops are perceived as politically influential and would not look too kindly at candidates who throw support behind the Reproductive Health bill.
AFP
