MANNY A MILKING COW OF PROTESTANT PASTORS?

The banner story (which all along had been datelined six months ago in Inquirer-Mindanao) that Protestant pastors had been swarming Pacquiao for cash and various perks since he changed his faith was truly mind-boggling.  At least, now I know why Mommy Dionisia had appeared in a television interview soon after her son's defeat as kind of "scolding" the pastors.  Indeed, that story  could have just fizzled out unnoticed like a shooting star in the news local horizons,  had not certain quarters been quoted as attributing Manny's loss to Marquez to his sudden change of religion.  Such attribution is of course pure gobbledegook!

Quite inevitably, the news cannot but leave a very unpalatable taste in the mouths of Protestants.  In fairness, chances are the pastors involved -- some of whom have personally admitted asking boons from Manny in exchange for the role they played in making him change his erstwhile undesirable habits or life styles -- may not be true Protestants in the strict sense of the word; some say they are merely "born-again Christians" and, truth to tell, both Catholics and Protestants are "Christians."  As things stand, even so, "born-agains" are of two kinds, each one being mostly a "break-away" group from either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant sect.  Those who were truly Roman Catholics call themselves "Born-Again Charismatics", while those who were originally Protestants -- whose denominations, by the way, are so numerous in our midst and times -- are more commonly called "Born-Again Protestants."  Only very few Charismatic groups now exist under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, whereas many "Born-Again Protestants" that remain still galore.may have been once upon a time true Roman Catholics.

 I have ventured to opine in my last blog that the sheer flair to be a leader-preacher -- to be kind of "bida" or "sikat" in a manner of speaking, is what oftentimes tempt otherwise true-born Catholics to call themselves "Born-Agains."  And Pacquiao is just one of them.  But the fact remains they are comparatively more identifiable with Protestantism than with Catholicism.  That is clearly because, like Pacquiao, they abandon their allegiance to the Holy Rosary and the sign of the cross (items quite anathema to Protestantism) in expressing their respective religiosity.    And so,  Protestants may not just so easily disown the pastors who have turned Manny into a milking cow.  That, quite unfortunately is the little problem in this regard. The Roman Catholic Church does have more control, better regulation on members of their flock than does the Protestant.

Alas, I am raring to hear or see how the Protestant movement in the Philippines will be able to handle this truly unfortunate happenstance.  This is even as, at the very least, it calls to mind a related news once upon a time wherein Catholic bishops had been reported as accepting suspicious "envelopes" from GMA.