Registrar cautions speaker on meddling the church with politics

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, September 13, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

FOLLOWING the much talked about National Repentance Day burning ceremony of carvings that took place at the National Parliament in August last month, the Registrar for Political Parties and Candidates, Dr Alphonse Gelu has sounded a warning on the meddling of religious beliefs with the functions of political governance.

He said the path on that the current speaker of parliament has taken to rid the parliament of its cultural ties was beyond the intentions of modernizing the legislature chamber.

“In other countries definitely Papua New Guinea will be looked down as going against this very basic principle of going against this very basic principle which is the separation of the church from public office,” Dr Gelu said.

“The church should never ever be part of government. There must be a separation. In America they talk about the erection of a wall that clearly separates what is the church for the church and what is for the state.”

“By separating those two we will be able to maintain a society where the level of tolerance is quiet high. You can tolerate, practice by the minorities, examples like homosexuality, such contentious subjects one must consider the rights of the persons involved, but under the church they are scrutinized as being something else.”

“Women are being burned because they are being suspected of being sorcerers. You can just see this biggest denials of the rights of these poor ladies.”

Gelu added that he totally support the speaker’s position to modernize parliament, but said also that the aim of modernizing had strayed with religious undertones.

“When you talk about modernizing parliament you should talk about how parliament is doing its core job in the law, the recording of the sittings and other processes that the house is there for. Employ skill people to go in and work in parliament.”

“To me that is what modernization of parliament is. You do not modernize parliament if you start going in a changing things in parliament.”

“I think the speaker should seriously reconsider for his actions in trying to do that. The clear separation will allow the government to come up with clear policies that would benefit the citizen of this country.”