The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines needs to get its head out of its ass. Seriously.

Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of Manila issued a pastoral letter this week denouncing the mother who delivered her baby on a Gulf Air flight and dumped it in the airline’s trash. Reprehensible as the act is, it is obvious this one has a back story, something that compels the mother to abandon her newborn. To denounce her and condemn her without taking into account her possible circumstances is just mean.

In his pastoral letter, portions of which were printed by the Inquirer, Rosales disingenuously exploited the incident to whack away at abortion.

 Abortion is a grave sin against a defenseless life; and for this the severe canonical penalty is excommunication.

 If the expositions of discarded human fetuses are not done with evil intent, then the practice alone of rampant abortion is symptomatic of a grave moral decadence and irresponsible behavior that now seriously threaten the country.

 The placing and exhibiting of aborted human fetuses in public places are not favored in other cultures, and decent people refuse to do the same.

If only people are less selfish, are more disciplined and capable of self control, exercising a strong will and capable of making sacrifices.

Rosales’s pastoral letter exposes the fact that he and the Catholic Church are totally out of touch with reality.

Oy, Cardinal: More than half a million Filipino women undergo induced abortion every year. Most of them do it in unsafe and unregulated condition. As a result, more than 1,000 of them die every year. And the reason why they had to do it clandestinely, thus exposing themselves to more danger, is because you, your church and your lackeys in government continues to outlaw abortion and continues to deny women the needed reproductive health services.

If you cannot recognize this reality, then you and your church are in big, big trouble.

Rosales issued a pastoral letter based on one incident but as far as I know, neither he nor his church has done the same thing to denounce the continued and rampant abuses and killings of overseas Filipino workers, many of whom go home in coffins.

If you cannot condemn the murders  of adult, living “modern-day heroes of the Philippines,” what gives you the right to condemn women who merely wanted control of their bodies?