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With 59 people shot dead, and over 526 injured during a music festival in Las Vegas last October, the gun control debate is once again reignited. Sectors of society are calling for stiffer legislation and yet Congress refuses to act. Powerful gun lobbies thwart any move at legislating gun control.
Corruption reigns when people in business, in politics, and in the judiciary defraud and steal, smuggle, peddle drugs and hide behind a mask of innocence. Sadly, the Philippines in 2016 ranked low, 101 out of 176 countries, on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.
The recent arrest of a Catholic clergy for allegedly trafficking a 13-year-old minor highlights the scandal of clerical child abuse that is shameful and sinful for the Church. Child victims need help, therapy or a chance for justice for having been raped and sexually molested and trafficked.
While in the U.S. Army, the author of this piece realized that he was training to kill people, something that could not match up with his nonviolent principles. He, then, decided to appeal to the military authorities for discharge as a conscientious objector. After a certain process, he was finally granted the conscientious objector status.
A priest was able to travel to North Korea recently, taking considerable risks. He could verify the truth of various reports and hear numerous witness stories from North Korean refugees. All forms of religions have been banned and Christians are singled out for the worst persecution.
Today, some estimate there are over 100 million Christians in China, many of whom are influencing areas of society from small villages to sprawling urban centers. Yet, despite this incredible development there remains much work to be done within the Chinese church.
The government should shift more into eliminating the drugs itself and concentrate more towards healing and rehabilitation rather than killing. In fact, eliminating the drug lords, drug pushers, without eliminating the essential which is the drug itself, gives rise to more drug leaders, more corrupt policemen, more violence.
Congressmen want to pass a law that lowers the age of criminal liability of Filipino children from 15 to nine years of age. But how can children under the age of 15, with little education and living a rough life, be made responsible for adult acts that are adult crimes?
The Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines issued a statement expressing their opposition to a bill that will re-impose capital punishment. Human life is sacred, “must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.”
The “just war” theory was developed to offer criteria, like protecting civilians from attack, that had to be met before war could be morally justified and continued. Most unfortunately, this led to the Catholic Church’s abandonment of total Christ-like nonviolence.
