Cardinal Sin

The outspoken Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila could have lost his head like the biblical John the Baptist who denounced the sinful marriage going on the high place of his time. Thanks be to God, it is just the prelate’s name that was defamed (Letters, June 14) by a man (calling him hypocrite) whose blindness, in the first place, failed to see the moral obligation of a prudent pastor in taking care of his flock.

Fortunately enough, our pluralist Christian society still has a wisdom of Sin that could make a modern-day activist priest walk on tightrope in a perfect balance before the audience of extremist rightist, extremist leftist, the unscrupulous wealthy capitalist or elitist, you name it. For worst could have happened had the Philippine church leader ventured indiscriminately to poke his nose in a government social and economic dimension.

A persistent economic advocate of the poor, Bishop Antonio Fortich, to mention a few fightingest clergy, of the economically troubled province of Negros, tried Anthony Garavente’s suggestion--”If Sin would only throw his moral weight behind a genuine program of social and economic reform . . . “--and what happened? A bomb exploded in his (Fortich’s) home.

Thanks be to God again, the radical bishop was not killed and so as the thousands of hopes of his people in the diocese.

So let alone the religious freedom of a spiritual leader of a nation who has proven well to restore freedom and democracy in a land of tyranny by peaceful means.

PETER C. FERRER OSA

St. Genevieve’s Church

Van Nuys