He told CBCPNews that all he stated was, according to the teachings of the Church, a public sinner should not be given communion.

He had earlier wrote on his blog:

“This is why as a matter of doctrinal principle and moral norm, someone known to the public as reasonably perceived or actually known guilty not simply of one, neither only three nor merely five but more grave or mortal sins of such as gross stealing, flagrant graft and corrupt practices, and other glaring big moral misdeeds with extensive and intensive adverse effects to society, fits the reality of a public sinner. To conclude otherwise, i.e., that the person concerned is holy or saintly, is not only irrational but also futile. And to give the Most Sacred Body and Blood of Christ to the same, is not simply highly offensive to the sensitivity of the simple Christian faithful in general but also—and primarily so—means a big contempt of inherent divinity and intrinsic sanctity of Christ Himself. That is why giving Holy Communion in public to a public sinner is a public scandal.

Romulo Macalintal, Arroyo’s election lawyer, said the archbishop’s statement was judgmental. He said a lay minister does not have the right to refuse the Holy Communion to anyone.

“Walang karapatan ang lay minister na tanggihan ang pagbibigay ng Holy Communion sa taong ‘yan. Kahit sa paningin ng isang pari o lay minister na ‘yan ay makasalanan, hindi niya problema ‘yan.Problema na noong kumukuha ng komunyon at ng kanyang Diyos,” Macalintal said in a GMA-7 report.

But Archbishop Cruz, a canon lawyer and former president of the Catholic Bishops’ of the Philippines, also wrote:

It is the responsibility and accountability of the Minister of Holy Communion to decide whom to give Holy Communion due to presumption of the worthiness of the recipient, and whom to deny it on account of sound conviction of unworthiness by reason of publicly known serious objective moral offenses—particularly those with wide and intensive adverse social impacts.

I think a canon lawyer, more than an election lawyer, would know the rules governing an issue of faith.

Meanwhile, Fr. Bel San Luis, in his column for the administration-friendly Manila Bulletin, wrote: “In Jesus’ parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and publican (public sinner), Archbishop Cruz, by his judgmental stance, would be the epitome of the Pharisee who condemned the poor publican.”

“But the Lord said: It was the tax collector, the self-accused sinner who “went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Lk 18:14).”

Fr. San Luis missed something. The tax collector, as he wrote, was a “self-accused sinner.” That is the reason the Lord defended him. But the public sinner Archbishop Cruz was probably referring to would rather lie than admit her sins against the people.

San Luis further wrote:

Archbishop Cruz should be more careful in judging “known” sinners. In the first place, how can he be sure they are sinners? Does he have a third eye to discern what’s inside the heart of a person? What if a particular sinner is trying hard to make peace with the Lord unknown to the prelate and others?

Duh?! Where you live, Father? In Enchanted Kingdom?

His Excellency wrote that “a papal visit to the country might be neither wise nor prudent these times.”

“The country is anything but safe and crime free. The visit will give the government officials the salivating occasion to make money for themselves. Furthermore, a papal visit would dignify a national leadership that is suffering from dire lack of moral ascendancy not to mention its big socio-political liabilities,” Archbishop Cruz continued.

A TV Patrol World report said the Palace reacted to the archbishop’s blog entry by saying it should be the Catholic laymen who must have a say on whether the Pope should visit the country. Nice try–of course the members of the Catholic Church would be really excited to see the Supreme Pontiff.

But then, shouldn’t local Church leaders like Cruz be in a better position to assess the current situation with regard to this issue?

Ang Kapatiran or Alliance for Common Good, a lesser-known political party that promotes “politics of virtue” and “politics of duty”, appears to be popular in cyberspace. Its website was not functioning properly when I visited it yesterday. Today, it reports that it has “experienced a surge in members wanting to register, and have run into problems with our new website.”

“We were overwhelmed by the groundswell of support for our party and our candidates even here in cyberspace,” the party’s webteam said, explaining that they are moving to a new server.

Its index page links to an older version of the website.

Ang Kapatiran needs to translate this online popularity into votes in real life for it to send to the Senate its candidates led by Zosimo Paredes, who resigned from the VFA Commission after criticizing the Malacañang-backed “rescue” of convicted rapist Daniel Smith.

While the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines expressed its opposition to the increase in VAT (as well as Charter change), and members of other Christian denominations are protesting in the streets against the VAT bill, the Iglesia ni Manalo–errr, Iglesia ni Cristo (INC)– is reportedly supporting it.

INC is among the religious groups which include El Shaddai and a break-away group of the Philippine Independent Church that endorsed Arroyo last year. This time, INC is again one with Arroyo in pushing for a law that is widely viewed to cause added burden for the Filipino masses.

Sadly for members of the INC, they are not allowed to oppose their leaders. Their tenth commandment is this: “You should neither rebel nor contend with the church administration.”

Arroyo is indeed lucky to have such religious cults with a very strong sense of “unity and brotherhood”–whatever the fuck that means!

As part of “Piss-Off-Bush Monday”, here’s an interesting bit of satire from Mad magazine. (Historical sidenote– Mad was created by EC, a popular comic book company from the early days of the industry. During the ’50s, EC was destroyed by a government council researching the involvement of comics in contributing to juvenile deliquency.)