The Road to Justice and Equality
by Fr Shay Cullen
Last week Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, Archbishop of Manila, raised eyebrows in Cebu during the International Eucharistic Congress when he spoke directly about the greed and corruption of Philippine politicians who are so much a part of the throwaway society of greed, corruption, materialism and waste.
“Politicians, will you throw away people’s taxes for your parties and shopping, or guard them as gifts for social service?” He said politicians when elected consider the public treasures as their own piggy bank and plunder it wherever they can without being caught.
In recent years several senators and others have been charged with plunder and theft of billions of pesos.
The young cardinal’s statement against corruption and thievery is just touching the painful wound of poverty and low wages suffered by 99 percent of the one hundred million Filipinos. The painful truth is that the Philippines is just part of the great global inequality that is driving more money into the bank accounts of the super-rich and ripping it off the hard working poor and middle class people and driving hundreds of thousand into demeaning poverty in slums and working brothels for the sexual satisfaction of the rich.
Full post here.
Dives and Lazarus, Leandro Bassano, c.1595
Private Collection [Web Gallery of Art]