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RODOLFO Lozada Jr. should heed the Pope.
I believe he told the truth about the ugly
things surrounding the ZTE NBN deal. I believe that Lozada was
kidnapped at the airport on his arrival from Hong Kong.
I also believe then NEDA chief Secretary Romy
Neri was telling the moral truth in his presentation to Sen. Panfilo
Lacson, Sen. Jamby Madrigal, former Secretary Lito Banayo and
others.
But I resent Lozada’s attacks on bishops and
the CBCP. All Filipino Catholics should heed the CBCP’s
exhortations and take to heart its round condemnation of the culture
of corruption that drowns our society.
Yes, members of the Church—including those who
are unfaithful to her—suffer from the squalor of corruption in our
country. But Lozada and companions should not tempt the bishops into
violating the limits defined for them by the Code of Canon Law and
the teaching of the Church.
The CBCP’s analysis is quite correct. All of
us contribute to the moral decay. Of course, powerholders should
be among the prime suspects. But the CBCP cannot speak uncharitably.
It is not its job to broadcast the names of guilty parties—who, I
think, the bishops do not really know.
Do we really know for sure—do the bishops
know—who, justly and honestly, should be physically and morally
guillotined?
We cannot be as mindless and evil as the worst
in the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror were. This is not at
all a preposterous thought—if you have heard the recent speeches
of Lozada and his companions.
There’s a horrible lack of Christian charity
in them. In the activist’s quest for justice. In the bitterness of
anti-Arroyo people—including nuns—who would squash President
Arroyo like an insect. In the words of Jun Lozada who dares say he
would renounce his Catholic faith if the bishops continue being, in
his view, as wrong-headed as they are for not calling for Mrs.
Arroyo’s resignation or ouster.
I saw an inspiring figure when Lozada decided to
risk his life to save his soul. The Jun Lozada I see now is
one who is doing his campaign for truth and Mrs. Arroyo’s
resignation a great disservice.
He—and similarly hearted anti-Arroyo
activists—should pay attention to the Pope.
Interior purification
“Don’t allow the soul to be poisoned by
rancor,” Benedict XVI urged the faithful at the Mass of the
Lord’s Supper last Thursday in the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
The Pope, as Zenit reports it, reflected on the need for interior
purification as a condition for human beings to live in communion
with God and with each other.
He said, “This is what Holy Thursday
exhorts—do not let rancor toward others become poison for the
soul. It exhorts us to continually purify our memory, forgiving each
other from the heart, washing one another’s feet, so as to be able
to go all together toward the banquet of God.”
“Day after day we are covered by numerous
forms of filth, of empty words, prejudices, reduced and altered
wisdom; a multiplicity of falsities filter in continuously to our
most intimate being.
“All this obscures and contaminates our soul,
it threatens us with being incompetent with regard to the truth or
the good.”
That is happening to Jun Lozada, it saddens me
to see. He started out as a kind of prophet for our people and
our nation.
New incompetence
Those in the service of President Arroyo who
conduct their political work totally ignoring the Ten Commandments
have thrown dirt at Lozada. But Lozada’s unclean past makes him an
even more believable witness. Past mistresses and corrupt practices
are not his undoing.
Lozada is wrecking himself because he has
acquired incompetence in serving God—the Truth and the Good. He
has become too proud, uncharitable and even unfaithful to the
Church.
Jun Lozada and his constant companions must
drain themselves of their poisonous rancor. This does not mean
they should stop exposing what they know about corruption in the
Arroyo regime.
But they should—as Pope Benedict urges all of
us to do—“take the words of Jesus with an attentive heart, [so
that] they become true cleansers, purifiers of the soul, of the
interior of man.”
That way Lozada and his companions would more
effectively project their hatred for corruption while also blessing
the sinners. That way they would stop spreading the spirit of rancor
and begin radiating hope and Easter joy.
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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