It was during one of those instant out-of-town trips that I made with friends working for a rich foreign donor agency delusional about having the sole authority of restoring the broken strings of peace in Mindanao (the agency, not my friends), that I learned about this.

The Catholic Church has lost its sanity. I am not going to apologize to the sarado katoliko out there because witnessing how the church now acts no less than like a rabid, mouth-foaming dog doesn’t warrant an act of contrition.

With all of its lapses and pretenses in the past, the Catholic Church now again swallows itself in self-preservation (read: selfishness) after it striken out from its system the teachings which gave credence to the voice of the people, and I mean the poor people who are more than willing to shell out few coins for a second collection, the theology of liberation.

I am no expert on Catholic teachings but it is not so difficult to understand that when the Second Vatican Council allowed theology of liberation, it was thinking of the thousands of poor, oppressed, and marginalized Catholic Church followers.

The emancipation of this sector was basically behind the inception of the theology of liberation.

The basic tenet of this teaching is anchored on the awareness of the problems that confronted the society that somehow shrouded the relevance of the traditional theology concerned only with religious dogmas and concepts.

It then gave birth to the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs). In the Bisayan-speaking regions, BECs are called Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban (GKK). These communities are, of course, small Christian communities seeking for social justice, equal rights and wealth, freedom from oppression, among others. Their issues include agrarian reform, human rights, feminism, children’s rights, environmental protection and many more.

Controversial as it is now, theology of liberation was rejected by the Vatican, the most prominent critics of them all now heads the entire Catholic Church—the Prada-adoring and Gucci-obsessed Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI opposed the theology of liberation because of the nature of the teaching: the concepts of Marxism. The Pope and his band regarded theology of liberation as “incitement to violence and hate and the exaltation of class struggle.”

This reminds me of our very own Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla who was approached by the coalition Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying (Maas) for support.

Without batting an eyelash, Cupalla, err…Capalla, whatever, declined to give his support for the banning of aerial spraying of chemicals in Davao City scared that he might offend Lapanday, a large banana plantation company here.

To paraphrase him, Cupalla, err…Capalla, whatever, said: “I cannot support you because, you know, Lapanday has just donated a two-hectare land for our parish in Mandug (name of a village).”

Wasn’t Cupalla, err…Capalla, whatever, who did practically nothing during the “Hello Garci” controversy while he was the head of what is supposed to be the powerful and influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)?

If ever I will get the chance to have an encounter with Cupalla, err…Capalla, whatever, I will not only kiss his ring…I will lick his ringed-finger and shove it in his ass.