In his ‘Retort’ last Sunday (29 November) to my ‘Inguanezspeak’ of the 22 November, Rev Joe Inguanez informs me, and presumably some few other interested readers, that it was not he who had chosen either the title (‘Reading the signs of the Times’ or the subtitle (Rev JI helps the church understand the political landscape, etc.’) of his interview (November 8).
A quick browse on internet tells the whole world that ‘Reading the signs of the Times’ is the motto of the Curia’s ‘Discern’ initiative entrusted to the care of Rev Inguanez; and as for ‘the political landscape’, in that interview the comments and statements made by the reverend father were mostly of a political nature.
One wonders therefore what made the Rev Joe comment in that tone about title and subtitle; and this only after three weeks and a letter exposing the ideas there expressed for what they were. Could he have been politely asked to do so?
There is of course nothing wrong in helping people to understand the political landscape; unless, of course, one hides one’s real intentions behind another garb which gives it the aura of neutrality.
I am therefore not in the least irked by his defining me ‘parochial’. If this means that my criticism of his views were slanted in favour of the Labour Party, and therefore ‘narrow-minded’ that is perfectly acceptable to me because I too have this view of his ideas. Only I made it very clear to all from which point of view I was writing.
Since I have no intention of being an opinion-maker, and am not a priest to boot, I can enjoy the luxury of expressing my voting preferences freely. On the other hand, I should think that the church would be very wary in making its own statements of the type made by Fr Inguanez.
The reverend opinion-maker closes his brief retort with one of his ‘clever’ remarks: the answers he gave to his interviewer depended on the questions put to him. I believe I quoted more than one example where this was not exactly the case; but perhaps the printed text did not reflect the actual interview very faithfully.
If this was the case, Fr Inguanez still has all the time in the world to rebut case by case what I wrote, expatiating on his answers and thus explaining why he has quite a habit of stopping short of a response that gives the ‘whole’ picture of the political landscape, not just those angles he likes or likes not.
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