Senior Roman Catholic prelates have added their weight to a Church campaign to block congressional passage of a Magna Carta for Women which, the bishops claim, goes against women's "natural calling for marriage and motherhood" and opens the door to legalizing prostitution and abortion. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal warned lawmakers against the supposedly "unconstitutional" provisions of the Senate and House versions of the measure.
"The inclusion of anti-life and anti-family provisions in the bill threatens to make the otherwise commendable piece of legislation unduly controversial and unacceptable on ethical and constitutional grounds," said a statement sent to legislators by the country’s three most prestigious Catholic Church leaders.
"These provisions must be expunged if the Magna Carta of Women is truly to advance the dignity and well-being of Filipino women," they said.
The proposed Magna Carta has entered the final stage of the legislative process. Next week, a bicameral conference committee is expected to finish the job of reconciling the Senate and House versions.
After the Senate and the House approves the final version, it will be submitted to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for signing into law.
Last month, Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto and Lucena Bishop Emilio Marquez assailed the proposed measure as "inconsistent with moral law and the Constitution."
Aniceto chairs the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Family and Life while Marquez chairs the CBCP Commission on Women.
In a joint statement titled "The Dignity of Women is Divinely Ordained," the two bishops criticized legislators for anchoring the bill on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979.
They said the Vatican has expressed reservations about certain provisions of CEDAW.
"[The CEDAW committee] has, in many cases, successfully pressured various other governments to abolish Mother’s Day celebrations, decriminalize prostitution, legalize abortion where it remains illegal, and improve access to abortion where it has been legalized," the bishops said.
They said that a Magna Carta for Women "must first of all protect and uphold her natural calling to marriage, family life and motherhood".
"The law would be a sham if one of its purposes is to discredit the work of women in the home as if the time spent in bringing up children and attending to the family's basic human needs were time unjustly taken away from the work women should be doing in some office, some factories or elsewhere," they said.
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(Source: GRCN)