the way the heirarcy is setup is that it is not a centralized governing body where the Pope micromanages everything. with the Church being present in most countries in the world, it would be impossible to do so. the Church hierarchy would be more or less like the government of Canada (the US by comparisson is still more centralized than Canada). each province in Canada is independent of each other, each with its own laws, each with its own government. taxation and government services are handled by each province separately although some are handled on a national level, most still lies with each province.
now, with the Vatican, yes there is a central belief and the Vatican handles this. being One Church, all bishops must be in communion with the bishop of Rome, or more popularly known as the Pope. which means dogmatic teachings are uniform across the entire Church. but, each bishop has independent rule of their respective territories. meaning they can impose their own rules and regulations that are not covered by doctrines and are not in violation of any doctrines
for example, in Canada the only holidays of obligation besides sundays are Christmas and New Year. in the Philippines, it includes December 8 as a holiday of obligation
other varyinig practices are the use of altar girls (instead of exclusively boys) which again the local archbishop may decide for or against.
technically, each archbishop may enact a rule independent of another bishop. so some practices can be different in the Archiocese of Manila compared to Cubao. but most countries like the Philippines would have a national body of bishops such as the CBCP so as that policy can be uniform throught the country
the CBCP would not deviate from the doctrinal teachings of the Church. but they don't have to have the permission of the Vatican, or orders from the Vatican for them to act on something they feel they need to do. when Cardinal Sin decided to rally the people against Marcos, its his decision, not the Vaticans. i'm not sure but they may also be notifying the Vatican of such actions so that the Vatican can evaluate and see if they are violating any church doctrine. but in most cases they are independent in their decisions or actions
the bigger charities like Caritas would have, but the smaller ones may or may not. but you can count that its presence is wide reaching, as every locale that has a church would definitely have a local charity attached to it, and even in far flung areas you will see missionaries bringing food and medicine to people
with or without any hard data, its a fact that the number of charities is dominated by religious based charities, and the biggest of these religions is the Catholic Church
It’s a setup in paper … but we have the history in our text books which RC tried to eliminate … not because it is untrue … but because it is a bad image for them. What further substantiation do you need? I will not debate about these facts – it will always be played down by those who looked the other way!
Clearly the bible says … you will know them (the agents of good and the agents of evil) … by their fruits and their roots!
Lest I be misinterpreted, not all RC (and its institution) followed their roots!
As to the separation of church & state, I think this is just human machination to avoid connivance between church & state – that is the church using the state to further its agenda, or the state using the church in furthering its agenda.
Religion should be considered personal in nature, while state affairs are collective efforts for the good of the majority without imposing on ones religious persuasion. Church is the group of individuals with the same religious persuasion.
Is it bad for the church to be involved in business? Of course not. The bible do not prohibit this.
The church commercial dealings is commercial, and not religious in nature. As such, it should be taxed (give to Caesar what belongs to him). RC has their own bank in the past – Monte de Piedad. If it is not subject to tax, it is not because of the separation of church & state – it could be an accommodation of the state to the church. Of course, this is also some of the roots of corruption in commercial dealings using church as its shield – invoking separation of church & state!
Is it bad for the church to get involve in state affairs? Depends! If the state is not imposing on personal matters relating to ones religious persuasion, then the church should not meddle. If it does impose on our personal religious persuasion, the church should get involve (this is biblical – read RUTH). Some of our good democratic laws were derived with the indulgence of godly people.
So is CBCP justified in meddling in our past political upheavel? Why not! It is supposedly intended to support good governance (so we thought in will result to good governance). But note that this meddling was not force to each individual. It is up to the individual to act according to his own reason or personal persuasion.
So is CBCP justified in meddling with this new health bill? I THINK NOT! The state is passing a law to control our population growth the way it knows how – but reading the law does not encroach on ones personal action. CBCP is only crying foul because it is counter to their doctrine. But RC is such an inconsistent organization – minoring the major and majoring the minor. Instead of CBCP giving its much efforts in media rhetorics against the initiative of the state that does not impose on ones decision to act, why don’t they instead push their own program to counter the same problem (educate if its to educate). If they do not want to control population, how can they help the state in controlling the problems that emanates from poor family planning. PRAY? Eat DOCTRINES?
Bottomline, people should have freedom to ones exercise of religion. Church is just the group of individuals with the same religious persuasion. Our political life will always be influenced by our religious leaning but not to the point that it will effectively trample other people’s religious leaning (think about Jihad). So there is not much separation here!
However, state affairs should not encroach/impose on our religious leaning if our religious leaning do not trample on the right of others to exercise theirs. (This is the issue of ARMM muslim ways of managing ARMM areas whose residents are predominantly Christians – the rebels seemed to be bent in governing using Islamic persuasion – or so I think)
