Trademarking Catholics

Manila, Philippines — In response to the existence of Catholics™ for RH (C4RH), the Catholic™ Bishops Conference of the Philippines have trademarked the term, “Catholic™.”

An official of the CBCP said Monday that the term “Catholic™” is reserved for those who obey the Pope’s teachings and are granted an official license by the Vatican through its newly formed franchising agent in the Philippines, the CBCP Commission on Franchising and Life (COFAL). COFAL recently filed a complaint with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines against C4RH.

“Catholics™ for RH are not authentic,” added Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, COFAL president. “They are not recognized as Catholics™.” Last week, Archbishop Palma refused to meet members of the group unless it changed its name. “Either they change the ‘Catholic™’ part or they change the ‘for RH’ part. As it stands their name is an oxymoron, let alone illegal.”

Bishop Drona added that COFAL “does not consider nor recognize this group to be an authentically Catholic™ association or group since it espouses and supports a stand contrary and in direct opposition to the magisterial teachings of the Church. Their group violates not only Canon laws but intellectual property laws as well.”

COFAL President Palma casually dismissed these threats. “They can do whatever they want in their own church but it is useless,” said Arhbishop Palma. “The sacraments, the prayers, even the bread and wine have no holiness or power unless properly franchised by the Catholic™ Church.”

COFAL have recently filed applications to trademark the terms “moral,” “family,” and “life.”

Though the article is actually funny, it does have a point about how religious believers should be categorized. When you look at religious followers these days how do you actually determine who is a true believer and who is not? In our age, it is difficult to determine that because most of the beliefs of believers of religion are so filtered that one can no longer distinguish between what is true and what is false in their beliefs. And because of that, false beliefs are created and hypocrisy becomes widespread.  The problem here is that hypocrites usually don’t realize it when they are being hypocritical and because of that, they fail to realize that their faith is actually a misconception.

 

                Understanding is the key in this scenario. The point of religion, in a moralistic point of view, is to provide an anchor for those who believe in it. However, it is pointless to believe in something that is wrong in terms of its content. In religion, either you fully believe in something and follow in its beliefs or you don’t. There is no middle ground when it comes to religion because that is nothing more than hypocrisy. Faith is hard to distinguish in our age. If you ask a person what faith means, I doubt they will be able to fully explain what it means in their lives. So what people should do now is to learn to distinguish if they are actually religious or just hypocrites.

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