The bishops of the Philippines have reiterated their horror at the targeted killing of drug dealers across the country, saying that all attacks on human life “cry to heaven for divine justice”.
Their message came after a former Filipino militiaman testified at a televised senate inquiry that he had heard Rodrigo Duterte, now the country’s president, directly order killings of criminals and opponents during his time as mayor of Davao.
Edgar Matobato said that he himself had carried out about 50 deadly assaults as an assassin but about 1,000 were thought to have been carried out in total.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the bishops’ conference, said in a message released on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows: “Human dignity must always be protected, and the nobility of every human person continues to shine despite the scars of the crime and sin.”
He said: “Drug addicts are sick brethren in need of healing … deserving of new life, not death. They are patients begging for recovery … They may have behaved as scum and rubbish, but the saving of love of Jesus Christ is first and foremost for them. No man or woman is ever so unworthy of God’s love.”
The archbishop said that drug dealers deserved a second chance: “Dead in their addictions, ‘living dead’ in the eyes of an unforgiving world, we bid our addicted brethren to rise up and live again.”
He added: “If peace begins in the heart, so does violence and sin. We are all responsible for the quagmire we are in. If we turn to the Lord, he will heal our land …
“May darkness of confusion be overcome by His light and may our cold indifference be cured by a new fire of Pentecost.”
Adverts appearing around America “calling for taxpayer funding of abortion in the name of the Catholic faith” are “deceptive,” “extreme” and promote “abortion as if it were a social good”, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has said.
The pro-abortion organisation Catholics for Choice placed full-page ads last week in the print editions of more than 20 publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The group “is not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way”, said Cardinal Dolan, chairman of the US bishops’ committee on pro-life activities. “It has no membership, and clearly does not speak for the faithful. It is funded by powerful private foundations to promote abortion as a method of population control.”
“As the US Catholic bishops have stated for many years, the use of the name ‘Catholic’ as a platform to promote the taking of innocent human life is offensive not only to Catholics, but to all who expect honesty and forthrightness in public discourse … The organisation rejects and distorts Catholic social teaching – and actually attacks its foundation.”
Don’t be trendy, bishops told
The Pope has warned new bishops against using their office to be self-serving.
In a talk to 154 recently appointed bishops, the Pope said: “The world is tired of lying spellbinders and, allow me to say, ‘trendy’ priests or bishops. The people sniff them out – they have God’s sense of smell – and they walk away when they recognise narcissists, manipulators, defenders of their own causes.”
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