archives

The Gospel reading for the 21^st is taken from Matthew 16:13-23. The first part of the selection -- Mt. 16:13-19 -- is about the Confession of Peter. The theme of the 21st Sunday is about the keys of the kingdom of David that Jesus gives to Peter, the chancellor of the Kingdom. In what follows, we have two Fathers of the Church meditating on this authority given to Peter. The first is on the service of unity that the Petrine office renders. The second is on the apostolic tradition that is guaranteed by the apostolic succession. This second is specially interesting because of the background: the gnostics were boasting that they have a secret knowledge passed on to them that is more efficacious than that of the Catholic Church. Irenaeus' argument is simple: if the Lord would have given a secret knowledge, he would have given it to the apostles and the apostles in turn would have given it to their successors, the ones who will later on take care of the Lord's flock in their absence. Irenaeus then how the knowledge of the apostles is handed down in a faithful traditioning that is guaranteed by the succession of bishops. The selection is also interesting because it provides us the list of the successors of Peter in Rome until the time of Irenaeus who lived between 115 and 202.

It was I think in the year 1985 when I first heard about “Humanae Vitae”.  I was in first year theology then taking up Moral Theology.  In one lesson under the section Family and Marriage, the professor, a Spanish Dominican discussing the Church’s teaching on contraception mentioned Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae” as a controversial document of the Church.  When he discussed the contents of the document, I remember wondering to myself how it was that Humanae Vitae became controversial.  Now in its fortieth year, and after I have seen how the teachings in “Humanae Vitae” have been continuously reaffirmed by the Church here in the Philippines in the face of Congress and by Catholics directly involved in two UN Population Congresses (1994 and 1996), I no longer wonder why.  The population issue is an issue linked to the world’s natural resources, and when a group decides to have all those resources for themselves, the rest of humanity will have to stop — or be made to stop — from being “fruitful and multiply.”