In a desperate measure to make the Catholic church leaders understand his cause for his crusade against illegal drugs, President Rodrigo Duterte suggested the Catholic bishops to try shabu, so that they may know the effects of this poor man's cocaine in the mind.
Explaining he's had enough with the clergy's criticism on his fight against illegal drugs, Duterte hit back at the critics, saying they are hypocrites.
"I can’t understand the Church. They know how bad the characters of the parish priests. And yet they speak of that ‘extrajudicial killing,’” the President said in a speech during an anniversary of a prominent medical facility in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Wednesday.
“Some of those priests should try to ingest shabu so they would know. I recommend one or two of the bishops,” Mr. Duterte said which drew laughter and applauses from the crowd.
The President's tirade against the Church came days after the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issued a statement that various Church organizations will take to the streets their rejection of the extrajudicial killings (EJK) in the country.
Duterte also attacked the Catholic Church's "hypocrisy" citing some member of the Church to be having romantic affairs, some of which are even homosexual in nature, despite their vow to chastity.
“Even our priests there in Davao? All of them are the same. They have two, three wives. But they’re [the Church] trying to suppress this. Even the homosexuality of priests. They don’t want that to come out,” Duterte said.
“When you expose the frailties of your faithful, you are free to shout on the pulpit but you exempt yourselves. How can that be,” he added referring to the priests.
During the campaign period, then candidate Duterte said that he was molested by an American Jesuit priest while attending high school at the Ateneo De Davao.
The President’s attacks on the Church came just hours after he sent a letter to Pope Francis through Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza who was in Vatican City for the third round of peace negotiations between the government and homegrown communist rebels.
(READ: President Affirms ‘Special Relations’ With Vatican in His Letter to Pope)
Watch Duterte's speech as captured by ANC below.
Source: The Daily Tribune | ABS-CBN
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