Penance for what?
| FRONTLINE |
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| Ninez Cacho-Olivares |
Doing penance, in the Catholic faith, is something for the sinner to do. So why should the bishops, or more specifically, Manila Archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, order a “day of penance” in churches for the claimed “sin of sacrilege and blasphemy” involving a recent controversial art exhibit known as Kulo at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)?
As far as the artist is concerned, he committed no sin — assuming he belongs to the Catholic faith — in either painting these and having his work exhibited at the CCP. As for many other Filipinos who don’t care one way or the other whether it is art or non-art, what do they care whether it was a sin or not? They didn’t paint the penis or Mickey Mouse or whatever else was painted over religious pictures and exhibited, and as they didn’t have a hand in these paintings, why ask them to pray to be forgiven on this “day of penance?”
The cardinal ordered that the “prayer of reparation” on the day of penance is to be recited in all Masses for a whole week, saying that “our laypeople have expressed their strong sentiments regarding this work was an affront to decent society, through protests and rallies, and even through the filing of a criminal suit. As Church, we will kneel before our loving God to pray and seek reparation for this public sin. We will do this along with this ‘prayer of reparation.’”.... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110817com2.html
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