The Sunday Star
by Roger Tan
When spiritual leaders start to use the church to make fun of the
government or endorse a particular political party or candidate, this is
wrong.
ON April 15, Roman Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee
Ing lambasted the government for holding the 13th general election on a
Sunday. Tan warned, as reported in a Malaysiakini article,
“Bishop says Sunday ballot a bane to Christians”, that for this reason,
he would urge Catholics in his diocese to consider carefully before
voting.
It is surprising that this Bishop of the Diocese of
Malacca-Johor who was also someone who had helped found the Catholic
Research Centre could have got his facts so wrong. In this respect, I
could not have agreed more with Austin Gonzales’ response to Tan’s
unwarranted outbursts (see “Is Bishop Paul Tan being insensitive and
callous?”, The Star, April 18) except to reiterate that, firstly,
it is not the government but the Election Commission that fixed the
election date. Secondly, the 7th, 8th and 11th general elections were
all held on a Sunday – Aug 3, 1986, Oct 21, 1990, and March 21, 2004.
If
Tan feels so strongly that Catholics in his diocese should not be
inconvenienced on a Sunday because it is a holy day, then all the more
he should urge them to consider carefully before voting for PAS as the
weekly holiday may well be changed to a Friday should they come into
power!
I am sure Tan’s sentiments are not shared by many
Christian Malaysians. In fact, I am rather concerned that lately the
pulpit has been misused for political purposes. Just last Sunday, one
woman pastor in an established Kuala Lumpur church purportedly said over
the pulpit without any substantiating evidence that thousands of
foreigners would be voting in this election.
In the Facebook
Group of the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia, someone was even allowed
to post that Sunday had been chosen in order to enable phantom votes to
take place in the morning when Christians are worshipping in church!
This is indeed a colossal exaggeration. There was also another posting
there heaping praise on PAS for fielding Hu Pang Chow, a Christian, in
this coming election.
To my mind, what Tan and the woman pastor
did was to sow hatred and make their believers angry. They have
obviously forgotten the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi to become
instruments of peace so that where there is hatred, may they sow love,
and where there is injury, pardon.
Tan, in particular, should be
reminded by what Pope Francis said recently that hypocrisy has
undermined the church’s credibility. In the pontiff’s words:
“Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they
say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining
the Church’s credibility … Those who listen to us and observe us must be
able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give
glory to God.”
