The Church Vs The President

It is not only now that the Church has become a political institution.

It has always been political ever since its birth. In fact, all forms of institutionalized religion are by nature political institutions. In theocracies, the church is even the backbone of the state.

The rise of the secular states and the entrenchment of the dictum of the separation of Church and the State are reactions to the enormous power of the Church in shaping the political trajectories of modern nations.

The Roman Catholic Church rose from the persecution of the early Christians, as marginalized forms of religion born from the caves and hidden alleys of Rome, but soon became a dominant and powerful institution that served and was served by kings and queens. From being persecuted, the Church became the persecutor. Torquemada inflicted the bloody horrors of the Inquisition from the privilege of being a Dominican drawing power not only from the institutionalized divine powers of the Roman Catholic Church but also from the civil powers of the Spanish crown.

Click on image to read Antonio Contreras' full article for the Manila Times.