The Angels' Children Are Marching To Hell

What is life? Is life just a matter of being born into this world, never mind how much suffering one has to go through after birth? Is life nothing more than being able to wake up each day and see the sun? Is life nothing more than being able to breathe, to feel the air?

What is not life? When a five-year-old girl has to beg for her food everyday on the dangerous streets of Manila, what she’s having is not life! That is cruelty. That is hell. When innocent children are being born only to serve as their parents’ cheap laborers, it is definitely not life that they’re having. When children as young as four years old are breaking stones everyday to feed themselves instead of playing with toys, what they’re having is definitely not life. When those beautiful little girls are still out on the dark streets of Manila at night just to peddle sampaguita garlands, making themselves extremely vulnerable to rapists and pedophiles, they do not have anything close to a life. When children are out of school and chasing garbage trucks to steal a few pieces of junk that can still be sold, they are deprived of life. When young boys are picking up guns to become terrorists and criminals just so they can feed their younger siblings, fulfilling responsibilities that they never chose to have, what they’re having is the exact opposite of life. When the brightest young men and women of this country are sacrificing their education, their careers and their happiness just take over their parents’ responsibility to feed and educate their siblings; they’re having the farthest thing from life.

In the Philippines, in this predominantly catholic country, countless souls are experiencing the exact opposite of life. And because we never seem to run out of Pro-Life advocates who vehemently oppose birth control, because there are people who preach that contraception is a sin and that bringing a child into this world will always please heaven, there will be millions more to experience the exact opposite of life. There shall be millions more to experience hell.

But you know what life is? Life is something had by well-off Pro-Life senators who work comfortably in the air-conditioned halls and offices of the Philippine Senate. Life is something had by the middle-class CFC (Couples for Christ) members who could afford to go to church in decent clothes each Sunday, the same people who take a stand against contraception. Life is something had by the bishops who go around the city in private cars and are able to eat three times a day without having to commit a sin, the same holy men who give homilies demonizing the proponents of birth control. Life is something had by the Pro-Life congressmen who win votes by blocking every bill that encourages birth control. Life was the one thing celebrated by the irresponsible parents when they conceived the children they could never take good care of.

Unbelievably, these people, the ones who had experienced and celebrated life, may even get something beyond life. Because of their deeds, they might earn tickets to heaven. The Pro-Life priests, churchgoers and politicians will be rewarded for their efforts to discourage contraception. They might even earn more rewards for encouraging parents to procreate. As for the parents, they’ll be rewarded for their aversion to contraceptives. They’ll be rewarded for each tiring day that they tried to take care of their children. They’ll be rewarded for their futile attempts to sufficiently feed all their children, even though from the start, they should have known that they never had the means to feed all of them. They’ll be rewarded for the countless times they selflessly prayed to God begging Him to let their children miraculously finish college, even though from the start, they should have had the foresight to anticipate their children’s educational needs, that they shouldn’t have conceived them in the first place if they cannot give them the education they deserve. They’ll be rewarded for all the emotional suffering they endured as they watched their children pitifully chase garbage trucks and steal every exposed piece of metal on the streets of Manila, even though prior to the conception of their children, they should have had made sure they had the capability to offer their children a real life.

I shudder to think how things would be in and hell someday. In heaven shall be the Pro-Life priests, nuns, churchgoers and politicians, relishing the cool, soothing air of the paradise. And in that same place, the parents, freed of their earthly burdens, will feel as light as air, their light allowing them to fly beautifully like angels. While down there in hell, burning in the deep, seething ocean of fire are the poor children who had been born to a cruel, apathetic world because those happy Pro-Life advocates encouraged their irresponsible parents to procreate. In hell shall be the children who had to become pickpockets just to feed themselves. In there shall be the little boys who had to work as lookouts for hold-uppers and hired killers because there was nothing else they could do to earn a living and feed their younger siblings. In hell shall be the young boys who became terrorists and bandits just to take over their parents’ duty of being the breadwinners. In hell shall be the poor kids who got imprisoned at an early age and whose minds were poisoned by the violent culture of the older prisoners.

Perhaps, out of rage, the children of hell shall question the wisdom of God. “God, why are those privileged angels up there while we are down here suffering?” they’ll say. “Why do you reward them when in their lives, all they cared about was saving their own souls? Why are they so happy now when they never suffered on earth as much as we did? Why do you reward them for bringing more poor children like us into the world? Does it make you happy to see all those angels’ poor children marching to hell? Why do you make them so happy now when in life, all they cared about was the love they could get from their own children, when they never even thought if we, their children, would ever find enough time in our grueling lives to love and feel loved?”

Now, the pro-life advocates out there might say that the children are marching to hell not because parents are irresponsibly conceiving them but because there is so much evil in this world. Because there is poverty in this country. Those are the sickest arguments one could ever hear.

Let’s say a preacher tells his young followers to dive into a river teeming with crocodiles. If the followers do as the preacher says, some of them may elude the crocodiles. But what fool would expect all of them to survive? If you are one of those followers who sees how your friends are being ripped apart by those ravenous reptiles, whom will you be more furious at? The crocodiles that devoured your friends? Or the preacher who told all of you to dive into that river? And if you can see how your friends are being brutally killed by the reptiles, will you not do anything to stop the preacher from telling more followers to swim in that river of death?

Yes, it is possible for even the most impoverished, underprivileged children to remain good. And there is nothing wrong in hoping that they would all resist the earthly temptations that come their way. But to expect that every child who grows up without getting all the financial and emotional support he needs will become a saint, that every such child would never be tempted to kill and steal for his food, that each one will never dream of being rich through illegal means, that each one would be able to contain all the seething angst inside of him, that is like telling innocent children to dive into a crocodile-infested river and praying that all of them would survive! Like it or not, as long as there are children who can not have a real life, as long as there are children who have to work to feed themselves, as long as there are children who have a reason to question the kindness of God and the fairness of society, as long as there are bright children who can not go to school, as long as there are children who can’t be taken care of by their parents, there will be sinners among these children. There will be more souls for the devil to reap.

Can the souls of those children still be saved? Of course. Why not? If you tell some children to swim in a crocodile-infested river, you can still try to rescue them after they obey you, right? But how many can you save?

Some people might say that the real problem of the country is not overpopulation but the unequal distribution of resources, and so birth control is not really a solution to the ills of this nation. But this argument is wrong in two ways. First, while I agree that the unequal distribution of the country’s resources is a problem, that problem should not be passed on irresponsibly to helpless children. Until the resources of the country are properly distributed among the people, no one has the right to tell every Filipino parent not to practice birth control. Second, the ultimate goal of birth control is not population control but the preservation of the most important human right—the right to have a real life. Whether the population of the world is 6 billion or 600,000, no parent has the right to conceive a child if he can’t offer the latter a real life. No parent should be so selfish as to feel a child’s love at the cost of letting the child suffer in this world.

“Anak ko, mahal ko. Condom, ayoko,” says the writing on the wall of the Ascension of Our Lord parish in Lagro, Quezon City. In English, that means, “I love my child. I don’t want condoms.” How could there be so much crap in the church of God? And how could so many Catholics be buying that crap?

Seeing that writing on the wall reminded me of Niccolo Machiavelli, author of the controversial book The Prince, in which he wrote, “The end justifies the means.” For Machiavelli, even if a prince brutally executes an innocent man in public, if that unjust execution instills fear in the heart of his constituents and maintains order in his realm, the prince is still essentially doing the right because he is achieving his desired end, even if an innocent man is killed in the process."

When a catholic saves his soul by refusing to use contraceptives and pleases God through the act of procreation, never mind if another child will grow up struggling to feed himself and may end up selling his soul to the devil out of poverty, that Catholic is no more just nor less immoral than Macchiavelli. Because he is attaining an end (salvation) through a means that sacrifices the welfare of an innocent child. A church that teaches Catholics to act that way is a church that encourages its flock to attain an end through a means that brings suffering to helpless children. A church that tells its flock to save their souls by avoiding contraception is a Machiavellian church.

A few centuries ago, the Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo for simply telling the truth – that the earth is not the center of the universe. That fiasco was one of the lowest points in the history of the church. And it never should have happened if there were enough enlightened Catholics who stood up and challenged the wisdom of the church. Before that, the Church also launched crusades to conquer the holy land, all of which led to the deaths of countless innocent people. If only there were Catholics brave enough to oppose their bloodthirsty church leaders, all those innocent lives could have been spared. I am a Catholic. And I will not allow posterity to liken me to the cowards who never lifted a finger when Galileo was imprisoned and when the crusades were launched. If I know that the church is wrong about contraception, why should I hesitate to oppose my own church's view?

Remember, the lowest points in the history of the Catholic Church were reached when all the good, enlightened Catholics remained silent.