On bishops and stocks!

It won't come as a surprise to me at all, friars once owned vast tracts of land and azucareras ( sugar mills)during the Spanish era, BPI, the country's oldest bank , once sat on prime property owned by Dominican Friars. They have been doing this since the time of Padre Damaso. Before the Spaniards came and brought the Religion to the Philippines, they were already selling indulgences in Europe during the Middle Ages, right , salvation in exchange for donations. It's really hard to have a separation of Church and state in our country although we have already a law, once in a while it would pop up it's ugly head because of our historical and religious past.

I hope I am not late to post a comment on this one. I haven't read all in the article posted above, I just scanned it. And yes, I wonder how did they attain the position as top stockholders on some local banks. just put www. in front, mybpimag.com/images/pdf/top_100_stockholders.pdf I want to share something that I think is complicated, I worked on a famous and well known local bank in our country as an analyst in loans department. I was some kinda shock and intrigue, coz we always have 2 or 3 credit card applicants of priests, bishops and nuns every month. If I was to base their applicants, I might reject them since one of the qualifications on credit card is you must have a basic salary, and since religious sector doesn't have basic salary, they are not qualified. But since they have an account [that has a huge amount of money] in that bank, they immediately receive their requested credit cards. I was wondering, where did they get that sum of money on their accounts or the church's account if they only get their money thru donations or "abuloy" on the mass. Some well known churches in our country has a minimum deposit of not less than a million. I am not criticizing or complaining, I am just curious about it. Is their any corruption on religious sector or political scandals?

It makes me sad reading this article. I haven't heard this side of the story before. And I thought the bishops already returned the said vehicles. I never knew that this controversy would get bigger. The priest shared in his homily yesterday that he was saddened but not because of the Bishop but because of people jumping directly to conclusions. He was asking us that we should know both sides of the story first before throwing hurtful words on the accused. He was also sad that most of the people giving violent reactions came from the youth. As what I've heard on the bishops' side, they've returned the vehicles and the government officials accusing them found out that the vehicles were not really SUVs. The excess of the money were really used to help those in need. The officials even apologized because of this misinterpretation.

There is a passage in the Bible which says you can serve God or money, but not both. Some of our bishops obviously have lost their way even though they will vehemently deny it and will even demand apology if you remind them of their duties as servants of God. I am a Catholic and I am deeply disappointed as to what our priests and bishops had become.

This is noting new as we all know that Catholics schools in the Philippines are run by these Church officials, they give education only to those who have the money and ask donations in the name of the poor to finance their comfortable living. In our church, people's donation is used to purchase the parish's priest car, a Crosswind for this matter!

I cannot begin to describe how irritated I am with this issue. Some people who are being looked up to by many ought to be more careful in their actions..AND their desires.