1,000 Catholics in Bacolod call end to killings
BACOLOD CITY – About 1,000 Catholics in black on Friday joined the Diocese of Bacolod Day of Reparation and Mourning to call an end to killings in the country.
Among the messages on their T-shirts were “Stop killings, Pray for healing” #pray for your enemies.”
The activity began with a Holy Hour at the Sacred Heart Shrine (Lupit) at 3 p.m., a penitential procession from Lupit to the San Sebastian Cathedral at 4 p.m. and capped by a Mass for the Dead at the Cathedral at 5:15 p.m.
“Let us not turn a blind eye to the violence that has come upon us for our ‘brothers’ blood cries out’ to the Lord from the ground,” Bacolod Bishop Patricio Buzon said in a letter calling on the faithful to join, citing Genesis 1:10.
The bishop declared Friday as a day of fasting and abstinence for the clergy, consecrated persons, and lay faithful of the Diocese.
The bishop reiterated his call for an end to the killings following the slay of Fr. Richmond Nilo, parish priest of St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in the Diocese of Cabanatuan on June 10.
At 4:10 a.m. on Thursday, a dismissed police officer was shot dead in an alleged shootout following a buy-bust operation in Purok Avocado, Barangay 20 in the city.
Killed was former Police Officer 3 Richard Dollosa, 35, of Barangay Progreso in Binalbagan town, Negros Occidental.
Dollosa was hit in the chest and was brought to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, but was declared dead on arrival, Chief Insp. Sherlock Gabana, Bacolod City Police Office public information officer, said.
