MANILA, Philippines – Fed up with drug war killings under President Rodrigo Duterte, the Catholic Church rose up in 2017 to condemn these deaths.
From launching rehabilitation programs to staging the “Walk for Life,” the Catholic Church proved there is hope for drug dependents, and there can be justice without bloodshed.
Rappler compiled 12 best images of the Church that prayed, marched, and fought for the value of life this year.
This is the Philippine Catholic Church of 2017.
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This year, we also talked about drug war killings in two Rappler Talk interviews – one with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, and another with Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.
Watch our full interview with Bishop David here.
RELATED STORY: ‘Killing of conscience’ worse than killing of addicts – Bishop David
Watch our full interview with Archbishop Villegas here.
RELATED STORY: Despite tears, Villegas says heading CBCP a ‘blessing’
The Church we saw in 2017 evokes memories of the words of Pope Francis.
“Do not close yourselves in! Go down among your faithful, even into the margins of your dioceses and into all those ‘peripheries of existence’ where there is suffering, loneliness and human degradation,” Francis told a group of bishops in September 2013.
Two months later, the Pope proclaimed: “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
Mobbed by trolls and denounced by Duterte himself, the Catholic Church in 2017 followed the words of Pope Francis, went out into the streets, and stormed heaven with prayers to stop the drug war killings in the Philippines.
Will heaven heed its plea in 2018? – Rappler.com
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