Did you know that the first known April Fool’s Day was found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1392? As I recall it, the fools’ day was the day the Nun’s Priest’s Tale was spun. The comic and ironic fable was about a proud rooster and a sly fox that highlighted reckless human decisions because of flattery. Reckless and loveless decisions that the cold and hardened of hearts can laugh at and call “funny,” even if they do cost lives that cannot ever come back to life again.

When I read that tale, I still remember how it made me reflect on how the letter of human rights as implemented by governments played such a “practical joke” on the spirit of the solemn declaration of human rights by the Church. That came back to me a few days ago. In the Philippines, there was an inspiring show of force of prolife Catholics and non-Catholics against the RH bill, affirming and asserting the right of the unborn child. In China, three Filipinos were meted out the death penalty for drug trafficking and in a few minutes met their death. In Libya, the agreement for cease-fire appeared to be nonchalantly ignored as state forces continued their attack on the rebel forces, asserting the state has the right to self-determination. The words of John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, ring in my ears, “Even in countries with democratic forms of government, human rights are not always fully respected.” There is the painful reality of wars and violence of every kind. “Red” violence that causes blood to spill much faster than oil, in genocides, mass deportations, capital punishment—the death penalty. “White” violence that causes human lives to degenerate into unspeakable indignities in the exploitation of illegal migrant workers, the recruitment of child soldiers, illegal trafficking of women and young girls.

True, the Pontifical Commission Institutia et Pax, The Church and Human Rights, reminds us “the pastoral commitment (to justice and human rights) develops in a twofold direction” in the proclamation of the Christian foundations of human rights and in the denunciation of the violations of these rights.” And that in the end, “proclamation is always more important than denunciation…which gives true solidity and the force of higher motivation.” This translates to indefatigable commitment to ecumenical cooperation, a dialog among various religions and ideologies, to all appropriate contacts in governments, business and other organizations, national and international levels. But, at the same time, there must be a balance between particularity and universality: all nations are called to bring about as their primary duty to live in a posture of peace. Thus, when a government metes out the death penalty on citizens of a country other than its own, or a government violates a multigovernment call for cease-fire and shoots at its own citizens to preserve its state apparatus, or congressional leaders tolerate discussion of bills that create a culture of death, the practical joke is not funny anymore. Pride in one legal system’s definition and practice of justice will eventually become its own downfall.

“Love without justice is sentimentalism but justice without love is ruthlessness” Cardinal Sin used to quip: “justice without love is baloney.” So servant leaders would rather be April Fools for life, persisting in advocacy, in teaching and reaching out to decision-makers and decision-influencers with awesome powers to shape the future of humanity with more humane laws than laws just too human, that they err in form and substance. The social doctrine of the Catholic Church reminds us in no uncertain terms: “human rights, especially the right to life, is to be defended not only individually but also as a whole: protecting them only partially would imply a kind of failure to recognize them.” Who then will have the last laugh?

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