The Church is now haunted by its many failings

DONE mocking his opponents in the presidential race, The Digong is now using almost every forum to vent his ire on the Church. He has accused the Church of basically two things, hypocrisy and irrelevance, and, the Church, shocked by the audacity of The Digong, has come out with nothing but guarded, timid responses. Never in the history of the Church, dating back to the early years of the Spanish reign, has the institution found itself bombarded and helpless.

The minor reason is this. For the first time in the country’s modern history, the elected President is not someone the Church and its hierarchy knows. The populist choice in 1998 was Erap Estrada. But despite Erap’s acting background and tough guy image, he was trained by the Jesuits, and the men he named to the Cabinet and important government posts were insiders webbed to the centers of political and economic power. And webbed to the power centers of the Church.