E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Of gambling lords, etcetera
Sunday, 01 09, 2005
The public disclosure that the Catholic Church does not pass judgment on anyone who donates to its coffers, even if it knows full well that the money was the result of an enterprise that thrives on vice, has spawned a flurry of indignant condemnation in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, it may have struck an exultant note in the hearts of drug lords and the nationwide operators of jueteng, masiao, and other illegal games, knowing that the Church won’t mind as long as the money keeps pouring in. Not to forget, of course, the donations from government-sanctioned gambling and lottery games conducted by the Philippine Amusement and Gambling and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
In not so many words, the message seems to be this:
The color of money is the same; it doesn’t much matter if it comes from the collection plate during Mass or from the cash box of gambling operators. As a ranking member of the Church was quoted to have said, “When a person gives a gift, we should respect his intention of sharing. If we say that accepting [the gift] is not good because it came from a gambler, we are judging the donor.”
So far, so good. But how do we judge the donee?
There are those who say that that statement made before a House of Representatives hearing on the legalization of jueteng is not the official stand of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), coming from “a lay employee” of the organization, not “adept at Catholic dogma or doctrine” and therefore “deniable” and “could even be fired for having said the wrong things.”
Let us forget for a while that the statement was made in behalf of the CBCP, although one is hard pressed for an explanation for what the representative was doing in that committee hearing if not to represent or speak for the CBCP. Let us even grant that the representative is a long way off from being adept at Catholic dogma or doctrine; after all, what she spent those grueling years in college for was in the study of the civil and criminal laws of the land, not the canons of the Church. But let us not deny that she, at the risk of perjuring herself, testified that the church leaders have been regularly receiving dirty money from known gambling lords and other Mafioso types. It might have been the “wrong” thing to say, but it strongly confirmed what we have always known without the benefit of documentation from hidden cameras and reams of sworn statements: that the Church could keep silent and turn a blind eye on moral issues when its interests require it to do so.
Isn’t that hypocrisy? Does that mean that purveyors of vice, as well as thieves and crooks, can now buy their way into Heaven? According to the CBCP representative, every person has his reasons for giving to the Church and the Cardinal respects those reasons. Jesus saves, and the Church invests on the souls it wishes to save.
I once had an interesting conversation with Dan Pinto, a friend whom I have often used as a sounding board at times when I am not dead sure about my expository syntax. He once wanted to get into the priesthood, but his grandfather dissuaded him from pursuing the idea. (Today he is not sure about what his profession—or vocation—really is, but he generally manages to do well in whatever he is doing. He is also not sure whether he considers himself a lapsed Catholic or simply a believer, a Christian.) The subject of our conversation then was the Ten Commandments, which started off in a somewhat facetious manner. After a few bottles, he turned serious and startled me by shooting off into a religious streak.
He said, “Gambling and religion have strange interconnections. The numbers in the roulette wheel add up to 666, which, as every moviegoer who has seen those dreary Exorcist movies, is the number of the beast in Revelation 13:18, that is, six hundred and threescore and six. Among the ten laws inscribed by Moses on tablets of stone, there is no Commandment prohibiting gambling. And there is no passage in the Bible that has the words gamble, bet, wager, and luck.” And draining his beer glass, he said with a devilish wink, “The Roman soldiers, however, ‘cast lots’ for the possession of Jesus’s coat. I suppose that tells us something about gamblers, don’t you think so?”
And before I could tell him what I thought, he launched into a steady recitation of what I was later to learn from someone else as the Seven Woes for the Pharisees, a section in chapter 23 of Matthew. Dan said that Jesus was both an outraged human being and an angry Divinity when He lashed out against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees—in those days considered as the super-religious, super-pious God adherents—as “serpents, race of vipers” and like “whitewashed tombs beautiful in appearance, but inside there are only dead bones and uncleanness.” “Jesus,” Dan said between sips, “was warning his followers—and all those who cared to listen—to be wary of the Pharisees. The metaphor about serpents was clear enough, but the simile about whitewashed tombs should tell us—you and me and all those who care to believe in Jesus— that hypocrites, like tombs given a coat of whitewash, look good and are immaculate on the outside, but are filled with dead men’s bones, worms feeding on putrid flesh. To use a more current expression: rotten to the core. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against religion; some of the most intelligent people I have had the opportunity to share drinks with are priests. But like the human being that I could be if I follow Jesus, I dislike the modern-day Pharisees in our midst.”
––––––––– • –––––––––
Two very dear friends of mine, who are totally unlike Dan, are celebrating today their togetherness in a union solemnized by the Church 27 years ago. Vic Borra and Jean Pelayo have made it through, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. It seems like only yesterday, as Boy Lenardo reminisces, that those better moments were spent by Vic and Jean together in sweet communion under the shade of the huge acacia trees of UP Diliman campus, and those worse times were spent mainly by Jean, worrying herself sick with the thought of Vic’s juvenile passion for the exuberant intramurals that fraternity men like him undergo. Today the couple operate JS Contractors, Inc., a placement company of Filipinos abroad, which, if one comes to think of it, helps a great number of people earn a gainful living and keeps them away from betting on jueteng to only enrich those gambling lords so that the latter could give donations of blood money to the Church. Malu and I wish you well, Vic and Jean, and your children Miko and Inah.
For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Of gambling lords, etcetera
Sunday, 01 09, 2005
The public disclosure that the Catholic Church does not pass judgment on anyone who donates to its coffers, even if it knows full well that the money was the result of an enterprise that thrives on vice, has spawned a flurry of indignant condemnation in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, it may have struck an exultant note in the hearts of drug lords and the nationwide operators of jueteng, masiao, and other illegal games, knowing that the Church won’t mind as long as the money keeps pouring in. Not to forget, of course, the donations from government-sanctioned gambling and lottery games conducted by the Philippine Amusement and Gambling and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
In not so many words, the message seems to be this:
The color of money is the same; it doesn’t much matter if it comes from the collection plate during Mass or from the cash box of gambling operators. As a ranking member of the Church was quoted to have said, “When a person gives a gift, we should respect his intention of sharing. If we say that accepting [the gift] is not good because it came from a gambler, we are judging the donor.”
So far, so good. But how do we judge the donee?
There are those who say that that statement made before a House of Representatives hearing on the legalization of jueteng is not the official stand of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), coming from “a lay employee” of the organization, not “adept at Catholic dogma or doctrine” and therefore “deniable” and “could even be fired for having said the wrong things.”
Let us forget for a while that the statement was made in behalf of the CBCP, although one is hard pressed for an explanation for what the representative was doing in that committee hearing if not to represent or speak for the CBCP. Let us even grant that the representative is a long way off from being adept at Catholic dogma or doctrine; after all, what she spent those grueling years in college for was in the study of the civil and criminal laws of the land, not the canons of the Church. But let us not deny that she, at the risk of perjuring herself, testified that the church leaders have been regularly receiving dirty money from known gambling lords and other Mafioso types. It might have been the “wrong” thing to say, but it strongly confirmed what we have always known without the benefit of documentation from hidden cameras and reams of sworn statements: that the Church could keep silent and turn a blind eye on moral issues when its interests require it to do so.
Isn’t that hypocrisy? Does that mean that purveyors of vice, as well as thieves and crooks, can now buy their way into Heaven? According to the CBCP representative, every person has his reasons for giving to the Church and the Cardinal respects those reasons. Jesus saves, and the Church invests on the souls it wishes to save.
I once had an interesting conversation with Dan Pinto, a friend whom I have often used as a sounding board at times when I am not dead sure about my expository syntax. He once wanted to get into the priesthood, but his grandfather dissuaded him from pursuing the idea. (Today he is not sure about what his profession—or vocation—really is, but he generally manages to do well in whatever he is doing. He is also not sure whether he considers himself a lapsed Catholic or simply a believer, a Christian.) The subject of our conversation then was the Ten Commandments, which started off in a somewhat facetious manner. After a few bottles, he turned serious and startled me by shooting off into a religious streak.
He said, “Gambling and religion have strange interconnections. The numbers in the roulette wheel add up to 666, which, as every moviegoer who has seen those dreary Exorcist movies, is the number of the beast in Revelation 13:18, that is, six hundred and threescore and six. Among the ten laws inscribed by Moses on tablets of stone, there is no Commandment prohibiting gambling. And there is no passage in the Bible that has the words gamble, bet, wager, and luck.” And draining his beer glass, he said with a devilish wink, “The Roman soldiers, however, ‘cast lots’ for the possession of Jesus’s coat. I suppose that tells us something about gamblers, don’t you think so?”
And before I could tell him what I thought, he launched into a steady recitation of what I was later to learn from someone else as the Seven Woes for the Pharisees, a section in chapter 23 of Matthew. Dan said that Jesus was both an outraged human being and an angry Divinity when He lashed out against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees—in those days considered as the super-religious, super-pious God adherents—as “serpents, race of vipers” and like “whitewashed tombs beautiful in appearance, but inside there are only dead bones and uncleanness.” “Jesus,” Dan said between sips, “was warning his followers—and all those who cared to listen—to be wary of the Pharisees. The metaphor about serpents was clear enough, but the simile about whitewashed tombs should tell us—you and me and all those who care to believe in Jesus— that hypocrites, like tombs given a coat of whitewash, look good and are immaculate on the outside, but are filled with dead men’s bones, worms feeding on putrid flesh. To use a more current expression: rotten to the core. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against religion; some of the most intelligent people I have had the opportunity to share drinks with are priests. But like the human being that I could be if I follow Jesus, I dislike the modern-day Pharisees in our midst.”
––––––––– • –––––––––
Two very dear friends of mine, who are totally unlike Dan, are celebrating today their togetherness in a union solemnized by the Church 27 years ago. Vic Borra and Jean Pelayo have made it through, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. It seems like only yesterday, as Boy Lenardo reminisces, that those better moments were spent by Vic and Jean together in sweet communion under the shade of the huge acacia trees of UP Diliman campus, and those worse times were spent mainly by Jean, worrying herself sick with the thought of Vic’s juvenile passion for the exuberant intramurals that fraternity men like him undergo. Today the couple operate JS Contractors, Inc., a placement company of Filipinos abroad, which, if one comes to think of it, helps a great number of people earn a gainful living and keeps them away from betting on jueteng to only enrich those gambling lords so that the latter could give donations of blood money to the Church. Malu and I wish you well, Vic and Jean, and your children Miko and Inah.
For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
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