What would Pope Francis say? Charice on Glee, Fox Revisited

MANILA: Yes, I have a book, unpublished, Glee! Charice, 250 camera-ready pages, all 19 chapters of it authored and desktop-published by me, with a Foreword and a Backword. The cover blurb says, "How a child captivated FalseVoice, changed YouTube, charmed Star King & Ellen & Oprah & David Foster, crashed the gate of the American music industry, conquered Fox – and won back my heart."

Yes, it's about Charice Pempengco, the international singing sensation of the Philippines, the little girl who also captured the heart of Celine Dion in Madison Square Garden. It is the same girl who was a hit in the hit musical series "Glee" by Fox. My book is about her, "A happy, positive, insightful, engaging, witty unauthorized biography." No, I'm not thinking of publishing it anytime soon. For me, the story of Charice ended when she left her mother Raquel and brother Carl high and dry for the sexual pleasures of the company of another girl, Alyssa Milano. This girl had found happiness in the arms of that girl. Sin does that to you.

"Honestly, I'm very, very happy," Charice told Boy Abunda (Josephine Cuneta, 07 June 2013, blogs.wsj.com). "I can't explain how happy I am right now hearing all positive things." Sin makes you deaf except to the things you want to hear. So I wrote, "Slapping Charice, Lesbian. She's doing it for love, and so am I" (06 July 2013, A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com). I said if I met Charice in public, I would slap her face, hard, twice. She needed to come back to sanity.

First Question of 2015: "What would Pope Francis say?" He is coming to visit the Philippines 15-19 January 2015 and, of course, among other things, he will be asked what he thinks of homosexuals, as if he hasn't answered that already a hundred times. Unfortunately, he has also been misunderstood a hundred times.

To understand Pope Francis' stand on homosexuals:

First, let us distinguish between
behaving well, as Homo sapiens, homosexual (male gay, female lesbian), and
behaving badly, or homosexuality.

Next, we listen to Pope Francis' answer to the question of what is his position about homosexuals, given aboard the plane flying back to Rome from Brazil, where he had spent World Youth Day (John L Allen Jr & Hada Messia, 29 July 2013, religion.blogs.cnn.com):

If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?

Now, what do you think of the T-shirt ordered printed and offered for sale by ABS-CBN online with these words: "Ganito ako. Ganyan ka. WHO AM I TO JUDGE?" (I'm like this. You're like that. Who am I to judge?) (ANN, 29 December 2014, theguardian.com).

Since everyone knows that "Who am I to judge?" has been famously said by Pope Francis, the ABS-CBN T-shirt message strongly implies that Pope Francis accepts diversity, accepts homosexuality even, which he certainly does not!

Compare the contexts of how Pope Francis said "Who am I to judge?" with the context of ABS-CBN accepting diversity, strongly suggesting that the he accepts homosexuality, and quoting "Who am I to judge?" without mentioning Pope Francis as the source. This T-shirt should be withdrawn from sale as it misrepresents Pope Francis' stand on homosexuals. He did not say anything remotely similar to "This is me. That is you. Who am to judge?" His context was, let me put it this way, "If you're a homosexual seeking God, we Catholics should show compassion and may God have mercy on your soul."

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" is accepting the homosexuals but not accepting their homosexual acts. It's as simple as: Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin. ABS-CBN is selling Pope Francis-inspired T-shirts; in its Modern Shirt Tale, does ABS-CBN simply Love the Shirt?

Pope Francis wants "to make it easier for Catholic families to accept their homosexual members" (Francis X Rocca, theguardian.com). "The synod addressed the family and homosexual persons in relation to their families," the Pope said. "We have to find a way to help that father or that mother stand by their (homosexual) son or daughter."

At the October 2014 Synod, “What we did talk about was of how a family with a homosexual child, whether a son or a daughter, goes about educating that child, how the family bears up, how to help that family to deal with that somewhat unusual situation. That is to say, the Synod addressed the family and the homosexual persons in relation to their families, because we come across this reality all the time in the confessional: a father and a mother whose son or daughter is in that situation. This happened to me several times in Buenos Aires. We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their son or daughter" (Antonia Molloy (08 December 2014, independent.co.uk).

To apply Pope Francis' words and get the Francis Effect, we now go back to Charice and her mother, Raquel Pempengco amid the daughter's homosexual relations with Alyssa Quijano, once Charice's singing protégé at X Factor Philippines. Melba R Llanera writes about "Raquel Pempengco finally reconciling with Charice" because, "Ina ako. Mawawala ba yung pagmamahal na yun bilang ina?" (27 September 2014,.pep.ph). "I am the mother. Will the love of a mother be ever lost?" (my translation). Asked if Raquel had accepted Alyssa as her daughter's partner in a homosexual relationship, Raquel said, "Parang anak ko na kasi. Nakita ko naman na almost a year yung pagsasama nila na 'di nagbago. Nakita ko yung pagmamahal na ibinigay niya kay Charice." "As if she were my daughter already. I saw that their relationship of almost 1 year did not change. I saw the love she gave Charice."

Oh my God!

What would Pope Francis say? I can guess. He would say that a mother's unending love for her errant daughter is true and good and beautiful. Love the sinner.

Charice is a lesbian. Let us now simply rewrite what Pope Francis has said about gays and transform it to address the lesbians:

If someone is lesbian and she searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?

Lesbian or gay, homosexual relationships are not acceptable to Roman Catholicism no matter how you put it. Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Aside from her mother and her reconciling in love, if Charice wants the full blessings of her Catholic faith, she must renounce her homosexuality with anyone even if that someone loves her very much. She must remember that even the publicans and politicians love their own kind!

Raquel cannot condone her daughter’s bad behavior. She must cut off those sexual relations between this girl and that girl. And why are all those godfathers and godmothers of Charice mum on this matter?

Love between homosexuals is the kind of love that is an abomination. Pope Francis says the Church would welcome homosexuals because they are intelligent human beings and have gifts to offer to others, but not their homosexual acts. I say that because then they are unthinking human beings and have only sin to offer to others.

Now, let me tell you a Modern Folk Tale, to get rid of that Modern Shirt Tale:

Charice, homosexuality is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I implore you, be the modern-day Little Red Riding Hood and I be the hunter. Having made a mistake in disobeying your mother, you return home unharmed after the hunter saves you from the wolf. Then you will win back our hearts. @