Post Marcos, the Catholic Church, especially with His Immensity the late firebrand Cardinal Sin, was always eloquent on social issues.

The "Social Doctrine of the Church" has always been prophetic as to what Filipinos can become from they are today. She had always been consistent on the role of the Laity for social transformation and the family as the center of evangelization.

The Catholic Church, fortunately, dwells not in an Ivory Tower insulated from the day to day Calvary of Her constituency. Time and again, She had issued pastoral letters on politics, economics, culture and spirituality - and had therefore been accused by the myopic as meddling in State affairs.

And consistent has the Philippine Catholic Church been in asserting that to love God, who we cannot see, we must first love men who we can see. To churchmen, socio-political involvement is not secularization of the Gospel but its fulfillment.

Thus the voice of the Church (through the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines - CBCP) after 89 Bishops convened at the Pope Pius Religious Center in Manila over the weekend was one of resounding rejection of Her critics and affirmation of the Church "preferential treatment of the poor" which constitutes the larger majority of the Filipino populace.

The voice is loud and unequivocal. Any attempt to place the words in a state of relativism is to confuse the faithful. What did the Church say?

One, the Church is aghast at the materialistic, secular approach of modern men to control population, defile the sanctity of marriage, twist the rationale for sex and in general protests against this collective siege against the family by some government policy directions and pending bills.

Two, the Church protests implicitly the lack of transparency, the narrow form of discussion of an issue as fundamental as changing the laws of the land through Charter Change. Power emanates from the people, the Church therefore concludes that elections must be held in 2007 and the Charter Change must be effected through a Constitutional Convention of popularly elected participants. The Church is against the apparent Government railroading of the Cha-Cha whether through People's Initiative, Constituent Assembly and the like. They are meant to put one over the people in the guise of imperative changes.

Three, the Church continues to assert that the legitimacy issue of President GMA did not end with her "I am Sorry" TV appearance or the denial in public of the infamous Comelec chair Mr. Garci of electoral fraud. The Church continues to encourage the "search for the truth" but no longer has any belief in the credibility of the "legal" impeachment process. Because such process depends on the preponderance of partisan numbers, rather than an objective strike at the core of the truth, the Church rightly feels this will only be unproductive and even deepen the division and dissension among people and distrust of politicians.

In a dramatic move, the CBCP instead endorsed groups like Kapatiran and "One Voice" to pursue truth as long as they do not become partisan.

Four, the Church unabashedly slammed the COMELEC by urging erring officials there to resign or that they be prosecuted. As we all know some "commissioners" there had been implicated in the anomalous, though aborted billion-peso computerization project and the 2004 presidential elections. The principle espoused by the Church here is very clear. It is the continued belief that our electoral system must ensure that laws are made and implemented by men we freely elected into office. A dirty COMELEC makes a mockery of so-called elections or plebiscite. That much is clear.

Five, the Church minced no words in condemning the extra-judicial killings of journalists, social activists and suspected Reds by what it termed "ultra rightists" even as it also condemned the forceful taxation of the rebels.

The Church also made a commentary in defense of the environment, apparently referring to the Lafayette controversy on the Rapu Rapu mining incident in Albay.

Finally, the Church placed Her firm imprimatur in "people empowerment" which loosely means people, not structures and an elite power group, must determine the destiny of nations.

Very clearly and in terms that are going to send chills through the spine of some government officials, the Church has taken an official, activist stance on secular matters affecting her flock in those five issues above.

Though the Church can never replace the State, the CBCP took comfort in part of the "Deus es Caritas" encyclical of the new Pope:" The Church cannot and must not remain in the sidelights in the fight for justice. She has to play Her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken her spiritual energy, without which justice which will always demand for sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper."

The Catholic Church has spoken. All parishes and every faithful must try to understand the implications of the Pastoral Letter.

One must never practice the "supermarket mentality" in viewing these thoughts spoken ex cathedra. Like only choosing those that please us and rejecting those that do not. It is making of our faith an exercise in relativism - so seductive in this permissive society today.