EDITORIAL - Losing touch with goodness

The proliferation of cyberporn dens, including some run by people who have no qualms in allowing the participation of their own children in sexually explicit acts, is almost always blamed on poverty and the need to earn money by whatever means.

That attribution is by no means wrong. It is true that poverty often drives people into desperate measures just to put food on the table. But poverty is by no means the only reason either. In fact it is just the most convenient excuse.

Unless people have completely lost their sense of dignity, no amount of deprivation and want can drive those who still value self-respect into selling their bodies. And unless people have completely abandoned God, nothing can make God-fearing individuals into displeasing Him.

Indeed, it is the latter that makes it so difficult to address the phenomenon. Poverty has its solutions, no matter how hopelessly slow and inadequate. It is when people lose touch with God that sends human life inexorably downhill.

Poverty is easier to address because there is a ready scapegoat to blame - government, even if it is unfair to blame government all the time. What may be harder to put a finger on is man's detachment from God.

And here the blame is far stronger and more deserved on the shepherds of morality in the various religious denominations, especially the biggest which is the Roman Catholic Church. Any slide toward sin and immorality cannot but reflect a failure on the part of the shepherds.

The Roman Catholic Church, which makes up more than 80 percent of the Philippine population, stands out like a sore thumb when it comes to taking into account the failure to rein in the people from sliding into hell.

When parents sell their children online, it cannot be helped that, beyond poverty, there has to be a failure somewhere to make these parents value their own creation. The question cannot but be asked as to whether the Church mantra of being pro-life stops at preserving embryos.

As shepherds of God's goodness, has the Church been consistent in looking after the flock beyond mere delivery of homilies and presiding over baptisms, weddings and funerals? Or has the Church busied itself with other concerns, such as engaging government in politics?