Sign the Petition!

To the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI: Petition to Celebrate a Public Mass According with the 1962 Missal.

Sign here!

And do not forget to sign the petition to Stop Communion in the Hand!

Sign the online petition to STOP the RH Bill

To the members of the 15th Congress of the Philippines

We strongly oppose the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill (HB 4244) for the following reasons:

1. The Reproductive Health Bill undermines the human rights it seeks to advance.

The government cannot, on the one hand, guarantee the "universal basic human right to reproductive health" with its concomitant "right to make free and informed decisions," and on the other hand advocate a policy that tells parents - especially women - what their choices should be. Such an approach would be an unjustifiable affront to the dignity and capacity of the poor.

The bill also claims to give equal importance to natural and artificial methods of family planning. This claim does not hold. While mention is given to natural family planning, no funding is provided for the promotion of these methods in the budgetary provisions of the bill. Natural methods rely on investment in education of women and increased knowledge in order to enable women to manage their health and make informed decisions. Budgetary allocations must be inserted to the bill to provide funding for the training of knowledge-based reproductive health care providers, and the promotion of necessary information to women in order to enable informed choice.

2. Maternal health requires access to health care facilities and reproductive health education, not contraceptives.

Improved access to basic health care, nutrition, medicines, and technology are the additional means by which maternal mortality and morbidity can be reduced and eliminated.

The mandate of the RH bill to increase obstetric care and skilled birth attendants is not emphasized in this bill. The causes of maternal mortality and morbidity are limited: hemmorhage, infection, obstructed labor, and hypertensive disorders. These causes can be significantly addressed through investment in skilled birth attendants and provision of health education for women and families.

There is probably no more important step the Philippines could take toward improving reproductive health. The UNFPA states that three-fourths () of all maternal deaths could be averted by the presence of skilled birth attendants. By contrast, family planning is likely to reduce maternal deaths only by one-third. The RH bills current provisions for maternal care are important, but underdeveloped in comparison with other parts of the bill.

3. It does not protect the rights of conscience of those that will be responsible for implementing new measure.

All reproductive health care workers should provide information and educate and render medical services consistent with the new provisions in this bill. This bill does not include measures that protect conscientious objections for healthcare workers or institutions that refuse to provide services due to religious or cultural beliefs and practices. In addition, through state-imposed reproductive health curriculum in schools, this undermines the rights of parents to be the primary educators of their children. Likewise, denying couples the right to marry without first receiving adequate instruction on family planning and responsible parenthood violates their individual freedom of conscience and discriminates against those who would refuse such training in cultural or religious grounds.

4. It violates freedom of expression.

The bills criminalization of speech that maliciously engages in disinformation (an undefined category) about the substance or even potential motives behind the RH bill violates the constitutional right to free speech and expression. The provision should be eliminated in its entirety.

5. Increase in contraceptive use leads to higher abortion rate.

Dr. Malcolm Potts, abortion and contraceptive advocate and past medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, said that As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.1 Dr. Judith Bury of the Brook Advisory Center chimed in a few years later that There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate.

The reason for this is twofold: First, contraceptives fail a certain percentage of the time. A 5\% failure rate means that 5\% of the couples using a certain method will be pregnant at the end of the year. Second, the use of contraceptives gives a false sense of security that leads to risky sexual behavior. The result is more unplanned pregnancies and hence more abortions. (Source: http://www.pop.org/content/presidents-page-contraception-reduces-1874)

6. It fails to reaffirm the Philippines' protection of the unborn.

Filipino law has long defended the right to life of all persons, whether born or unborn. The reproductive health bill makes only an ambiguous statement of principle (While nothing in this Act changes the law against abortion...) as part of a care provision for post-abortion complications. Additionally, the bills guarantee of reproductive health care services, as opposed to the defined term reproductive health care, as well as a universal basic human right to reproductive health according to international legal custom, could eventually open the door to undermining Philippines national law protecting unborn persons.

7. Recent reports emphasize the problems with widely used family planning programs that fail to meet the needs of the poorest populations.

Strategies that seek to increase contraceptive use rapidly by improving services and access in convenient or well-resourced areas are likely to increase observed inequities in contraceptive use. Maternal mortality and general reproductive health problems also remain high because the unique issues facing poor populations are not addressed. (Nuriye Ortayli and Shawn Malarcher, Equity Analysis: Identifying Who Benefits from Family Planning Programs.) In this way family planning programs, by focusing on contraceptive use rather than an integrated, comprehensive approach to population development, fail to address the needs of the poor.

8. There has never been a direct link connecting high population with high poverty rates.


Correlation is not causation. It is short-sighted to think of declining population growth as a goal in of itself. Population control, as an economic policy, has proven to be unsustainable. Across Europe and Asia, countries that saw steep declines in fertility in the past generation are now bracing themselves for the future consequences of an aging population, when a large number of elderly can no longer be supported by the smaller and younger working class. During the 1970s and 1980s, Singapore instituted an aggressive two-child policy, which led to a situation of labor shortages and the difficulty of supporting an aging population. In an effort to recover, Singapore now pursues a pro-fertility policy.

In Hong Kong, the government was able to overcome dismal conditions and a dense population (five times more than the government declared to be its carrying capacity) and it has experienced a great economic boom and high levels of economic prosperity due to a sound banking system, no public debt, a strong legal system, and a rigorously enforced anti-corruption regime. These cases provide clear examples that economic development is not synonymous with small population, and that a large population is not only sustainable but an asset to development.

Thus, we urge the members of the 15th Congress of the Philippines to scrap the RH bill in its entirety and, instead, provide real solutions to real problems.

***

Sign the petition by CLICKING HERE

Sign the Petition and Pray for Life!

Sign the St. Michael Prayer for the Conversion of Abortionist.  Include those who are pushing the RH Bill including our president!

The petition calls for those who pledge to pray the St. Michael prayer after every mass for the defense of life.

You can also download the prayer by clicking here. It is also available in other languages including in the original Latin.

I personally believe in the power of this prayer and am hoping that this prayer be made said mandatorily every Mass.

Here is the prayer in jpeg format.

After the liturgical revolution of Vatican II, this prayer was omitted from the Mass, for whatever reason I could imagine, I still do not know!
Sign the petition here and pray for the conversion of those who are promoting the culture of death.

And yes, definitely, our prayers include Carlos Celdran!

SIGN THE PETITION

We believe that the newly approved English translation of the 2002 Missale Romanum needs to be implemented as soon as possible.


We believe that the Church in English-speaking nations has waited far too long for an accurate, faithful translation of the original Latin.


We believe that the current translation currently in use in English-speaking nations is overdue to be replaced, as it was developed using the method of dynamic translation, a method rejected by the Vatican in the document Liturgiam Authenticam.


We stand united with the English-speaking bishops' conferences in their approval of the new translation.

We oppose any efforts to continue to delay this new translation.


***

Need I say more?

To sign the petition, click here.

Online petition to save Catholic Churches in the Philippines

I saw this online petition asking the CBCP to stop parish priests from doing a Rembert Weakland on churches around the country. It is entitled "A Petition to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines: Please Stop the Further Defacing of Philippine Heritage Churches"

The Philippines was under Spanish rule for 333 years before it declared its independence in 1898. The influence of Catholicism in the country is so deep that some Catholic churches in the country have been declared world heritage sites because of their artistic and cultural value. One of these is San Agustin Church, which is located within the ancient city of Manila known as Intramuros. This is the only church building that miraculously was not destroyed during the bombings of American and Filipino forces during the Liberation of Manila against the Japanese in World War 2.

Now a fellow Pinoy Catholic has setup an online petition to protect such churches from being "modernized according to the reforms of Vatican II", as I would have put it or "parish priests trying to leave their marks in the church" kinda thing.

Here's an excerpt of the petition:

It must have come to your knowledge that several parish priests have taken it upon themselves to modernize and renovate heritage churches under their care without proper consultation with conservationists or representatives of agencies mandated to protect cultural and historical heritage. In their desire to "leave their mark" on the churches, parish priests have caused irreversible damage to our old churches during their short stints in their parishes.
Sadly, there have been instances where parish priests sold off priceless antiques and other church property to unscrupulous antique dealers and collectors to fund these renovations, with the treasures of the Church ending up in homes and other private collections.
In many occasions, the renovations are costly and unnecessary, and at times ostentatious. Priests and parish pastoral councils have undertaken and continue to undertake large-scale fundraising campaigns for these renovations when such funds could be put to better use, especially in a Third-world country such as the Philippines.



To all my fellow Pinoy Catholics around the world please spread the word! Save our churches from useless "wreck-novations"!

Click here to sign the petition. I hope and pray that the CBCP notices the petition.