Philippine president criticises the Philippines' church leaders in front Pope Frances, appropriate?

[003]

In the presence of Pope Francis, the Philippine president criticises the Philippine church leaders for their silence during his predecessor administration's corruption. And while they were, they are now very to criticise him and his projects. Do you think this is just appropriate, or said out of place?

 

[globulon]

The president of the Philippines probably has some justification in criticizing church leaders and is certainly well within his rights. I'm not sure that would be a smart move though as these leaders probably have a huge influence with the public. I wonder if there will be greater backlash to the government from the clergy because of this move.

 

[Laplace]

I think that whatever it is, true or not, if it concerns the Pope, it should have been discussed privately with him. In my perspective, it is true what he said, but it is a very retarded way that he did it. It comes out as a blatant insult to the church that the Pope represents. His tone as well, very inappropriate. Additionally, I think the only reason he brought it up is only for his purpose.

 

[Ispanico]

I'm OK with him saying those things, even though it may seem out of place to do it publicly. The reason is that a public denouncement is much more powerful than a private conversation with the pope. The pope already knows who kept quiet and who didn't before his mandate, so the private denouncement would do little to no good.

If the accusations are public, the clergy has to justify themselves to the public or at least change some policies or act upon it to change the publics' perspective.

I believe what he did to be a very good thing to at least stop the blatant churches' corruption a little bit and I aplaud him for it, even though he probably has political reasons for it.

 

[DancingLady]

It is incredibly sad that church leaders would have to be criticized in this way. I don't really feel it is appropriate for the government to do this, but at the same time, if he is right, it is outrageous that the church leaders would be acting this way. If they really read their Bibles and sought to live out it's teachings this would not be an issue.

 

[kana_marie]

To me that's the equivalent of a boss criticizing his employee in front of a customer. It's just as simple as that. Wether it's a business, team, country, or military it's important to display a united front. Any issues should be handled in house.

 

[TommyVercetti]

It's fair. A president isn't really considered a 'boss' by any measure, although most of us do continually forget this fact. The president is a public servant. More importantly he is the head public servant of a government that is wholly separate from any church. It's just fair that he has the option to criticize them. It may be less tactful than we're inclined to, but basically, it's freedom of opinion. Nobody should be above criticism.