By Howard Lee –
Much ink has been spilt over the recent disagreement of opinion between the Catholic Church, headed by Archbishop Nicholas Chia and Function 8, a civil society group that champions critical thinking.
I will not go into the details, which can be read here, here and here. In brief, the archbishop wrote a letter to Function 8 supporting a commemorative event for Operation Spectrum held in June 2012, but later withdrew the letter due to alleged coercion by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The story was leaked to blogger Alex Au, and the rest is online history.
The current stalemate rests uneasily, it would seem, between Function 8 and the archbishop, with Function 8 openly asking for His Grace to reveal the contents of his letter. Accusations are also rife between the archbishop, MHA and Function 8, with the first two accusing the later of leaking the content of the archbishop’s first letter to Au. Function 8 has denied this, and both Function 8 and Au have called for more transparency about what transpired between the archbishop and MHA Minister Teo Chee Hean, which has allegedly sparked the retraction.
To me, the entire case is a real mess, not just because of the purported back-and-forth of His Grace, or the who-dun-it surrounding his letter, but because we now have three different parties – the Catholic Church, MHA and Function 8 – trying to convince the public about their position of integrity based on a whole lot of "if"s.
If the archbishop had written the letter on his own accord…
If the MHA had insider information on the letter…
If Teo had called on the archbishop to demand he retracts his support of the event…
If MHA was directly involved in the retraction…
If MHA deliberately crafted a press statement to counter the mounting scrutiny…
There are more questions than answers, and we are not likely to get any answered openly. Instead, a law of the jungle seems to have taken over –
"If I can say you are wrong, I must be right".
Right…
To me, the entire ruckus lacks a certain historical perspective, and if nothing else, I would have expected Function 8 to have a better appreciation of what is believed to have happened during Operation Spectrum in 1987, and realise that they need not have challenged His Grace so openly. If Operation Spectrum was a clamp-down on the Catholic Church, why would the archbishop want to be publicly involved now, when all that might have happened suggests that he might be putting the thousands of Catholics in Singapore at risk of investigation and persecution?
A shepherd tends to his flock. The head of the Catholic Church in Singapore has the duty to forgo his personal position for the benefit of his archdiocese. If indeed he has felt that publicity over the content of his initial letter does more harm than good to the Catholic community, then asking him to go public with it now is really a moot point.
In addition, without a definite eye on the contents of his letter, it is really difficult to say as to what magnitude the archbishop is cognizant of what happened in Operation Spectrum to make reference to it in any significant way. It might have been little more than a letter to acknowledge a well-organised effort, or a robust civil society movement, or keeping the budget in the black, or…
A shepherd tends to his flock. For whatever reasons the archbishop might have had to suspect his initial words could have been misconstrued, and no matter who it was that advised him, it is his duty to ensure that the Church retains its core function of spiritual guidance. Some may argue for this spirituality to spill over into works, but even if we cannot assume that he can understand the levity of his own words at the first pass, at least accept that he has no need to involve himself directly in the worldly affairs of the everyday. That is the job of public office and civil society, among others.
Less clear, and actually in greater demand for clarity, would be the position of MHA, and in particular why it saw the need to issue a press statement about the matter that effectively accuses Function 8 of leaking the contents of the letter to Au, yet in the same breath did not clearly state its own position on the issue – the fundamental one being, did Teo or anyone from the Ministry pressure the archbishop into the retraction? A simple yes or no would have sufficed, and made more sense to public interest.
Citizens deserve an affirmation that, whether the government has exerted pressure on the Church during Operation Spectrum or not, it is not doing so now. Instead, we got a blunt end of a rather vague suggestion that, because the content of the archbishop’s letter was leaked, it was most likely Function 8’s doing and hence by default their attempt to politicise his words, which in turn sanctions the retraction. Talk about making a point to prove another point.
But perhaps it is too much to ask MHA for this. Home Affairs have historically been about minimal disclosure to minimise security risk. And judging from MHA’s statement, this episode about words that were never publicly made known could easily jeopardise Singapore’s entire racial fabric.
Perhaps the better judge of that would be the archbishop himself, as the only other party in the secured conversation. But again, it might be too much to ask of a religious man to reveal such matters.
A shepherd leads his flock on the path of righteousness. His Grace is accountable to ensure that his archdiocese, not the MHA, is beholden to the truth.
Perhaps we will only know what really transpired when good sense and good faith prevails.
