Married priests support RH bill

By Ephraim Aguilar
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 17:46:00 10/11/2008
INQUIRER.net

DARAGA, Albay -- Will the stand of the Catholic Church on the controversial reproductive health bill differ if priests, who are bound to a vow of celibacy, were allowed to marry and not denied of a sex life?

Rafael Triunfante was ordained priest in 1968 and had been active in the ministry for 11 years, but at 63, he has been happily married for 28 years with two children.

Triunfante admitted having used both natural and artificial means of family planning, the latter being the subject of discourse as the bill authored by Albay Representative Edcel Lagman still pending approval in the House of Representatives.

Also known as House Bill 5043, the measure requires government hospitals to include contraceptives in their supply purchases and would require mandatory reproductive health education in schools, which are both opposed by the Catholic Church.

The Church hierarchy has been dodging the passage of the bill, even by the use of the pulpit, saying the bill “promotes a culture of death and immorality.”

Triunfante said most people want to plan their families but they do not have the resources -- information, services and money -- which the bill seeks to address.

He said the lack of information available on family planning restricts people's choices.

He also lamented the lack of reproductive health services for the people which should ideally be made available both by the Church and state.

With its rigid stance against the bill, Triunfante said, the Church may lose its “ministry of compassion.”

Triunfante, who has been ostracized by the Church after he quit the ministry, was wary of being vocal about his stand on the reproductive health bill because, he said, it would be easy for people to judge him as a “sour grape.”

But, he said, after he decided to leave his “pedestal” to be more immersed in the community, he learned to heed the people's needs and to take side with their voice.

“When you're a priest, people put you in a pedestal. People would always want to serve you rather than you to serve them. I knew something was wrong with this,” he said.

Triunfante, one of the pioneering members of the Philippine Federation of Married Priests Inc. (PFMP), said even the group was hoping that the Church would at least be open to a dialogue.

“But the Church would not even want to listen,” he said, adding that this was also how the Church treated many priests who still wanted to serve God even after they married.

“We were isolated. The Church was not open,” he lamented.

The PFMP, which promotes dignity of marriage and family life as one of its objectives, was founded in 1972 and has now a membership of over 500 couples nationwide.

But Triunfante clarified that his open stand on the reproductive health bill was not solely influenced by his married life.

He said he had always believed in the “theory of liberation,” which teaches that knowing the issues of the people and living with them makes ministry more effective.

In 1980s, Triunfante reviewed his life with the help of a Jesuit spiritual adviser.

“I felt like my life was not normal anymore, especially my sex life. There were realities that could not be ignored,” said Triunfante, who recounted having lived a very secluded life in the seminary as young as 11 years old.

He studied Philosophy and Theology in Rome, Italy through a scholarship, where he was exposed to the Vatican Council's discourse on celibacy as an option for priests.

“This imbibed in me the spirit of reformation,” he said.

After having been an active priest for 11 years, Triunfante took a leave of absence from the ministry for one year and lived in an urban poor community to see how it felt to be near the people before he decided to get married in 1980.

“I was no longer happy because of my frustrations. I felt I was isolated and far from the people,” he said.

“Now, the Church and the state can sit down for a while and discuss things that can be agreed upon, especially on providing a better life for the people,” he added.