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29 Ateneo L.J. 11 (1984-1985)

handle is hein.journals/ateno29 and id is 1 raw text is: THE CHURCH, THE STATE AND THE CHRISTIAN LAWYER Jaime Cardinal L Sin* (Speech delivered by His Eminence, Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila, before the Ateneo College of Law, held at the Ateneo College of Law Auditorium, Makati, on November 14, 1984 at 6:00 in the evening on the occasion of the Ateneo Law Journal - Ateneo Law Bulletin Lecture Series II.) My dear brothers and sisters in Christ: When I first received your kind invitation, I had this uneasy feeling that you had invited the wrong person. The three topics you asked me to discourse upon - - namely, the role that Christian lawyers are expected to play in present-day society, the support that the Church can give to them during these difficult and trying times, and the separation of Church and State - - these three topics, I am convinced, could be discussed much more competently and authoritatively by that very distinguished former dean of yours, now the president of Ateneo, Fr. Joaquin Bernas. But since the mistake had been committed, and since I could not expect you to withdraw your invitation, well, here I am, manfully trying to fill Father Bernas' shoes. I hope you do not find my thoughts too disappointing. As you know, I am not a lawyer. I may have several doctor of laws degrees to my name, but they do not count. For they were given honoris causa and gratis et imore. And precisely because I am not a lawyer, you cannot - - you should not - - expect me to give- you a very learned dissertation on what a lawyer, more specifically, a Christian lawyer, is supposed to do and to be in the present critical times. All I can do is to. share my perceptions with you, to tell you what My gut feelings are about the role a Christian lawyer must play in today's society. We are a predominantly Christian country, hence it is safe to assum6 that the overwhelming majority of Filipino lawyers are Christian. And yet, when we look around us, when we see the sorry mess that our politics is in - - and, mind you, most of our politicians are lawyers - - when I see how glibly our people ttlk aboift their low regard for -the judiciary: - - and all our judges are lawyers - - and when I hear people talk disparagingly about many of our fiscals, calling them fixcals for reasons I need not go into - - and again, all our fiscals are lawyers - then I am tempted to despair about the state of the legal profession in the Philippines. But let me stop talking in generalities and permit me to go into specifids Let us take, as a concrete example, the current controversy raging about the pi- priety - - or impropriety - - of the President's action to refer the two Agrava reports to the Tanodbayan and the Sandiganbayan. 11 Digitized from Best Copy Available

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