Several Catholic bishops said on Wednesday they were saddened that vote-buying worsened during the May 13 elections, an indication that the Catholic Church should boost its efforts to educate voters amid a nation facing values crisis.
The Catholic Church’s efforts to sway the electorate into supporting senatorial candidates it deemed good for the country ended in disappointment.
Religious groups that wield tremendous political sway with their bloc-voting members are moving to further widen their influence in Congress through the partylist system.
In an unprecedented move, Lucena Bishop Emilio Marquez used the pulpit to enjoin Catholics here not to vote for candidates seeking endorsement from or being backed by the Iglesia ni Cristo.
The “Catholic vote” is already chipped even before the Filipinos can go to the polls on Monday. And it’s sad that those who are not voting, or cannot vote, with the Catholic Church are senior hierarchs, including the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
Two Catholic Church dioceses in Negros Occidental are distributing sample ballots containing the names of their chosen candidates who are considered as prolife.
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI returned by helicopter to the Vatican on Thursday two months after his historic resignation to live in a former monastery, Italian media said.
Two months after his historic resignation, Benedict XVI was set to return to the Vatican on Thursday, where he will live in a former monastery in an unprecedented arrangement that will see a pope and a former pope both housed in the tiny state.
Senatorial candidate Teddy Casiño asked leaders of the Catholic Church on Tuesday not to reduce the coming elections into a battle between supporters and opponents of the reproductive health law.
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI will “probably” return to the Vatican on Thursday, a spokesman for the Holy See said, two months after the German pontiff’s resignation stunned the world.
“God knows we just do our part.” That was Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra’s answer when asked on Sunday whether the crowd of 6,000 at the Church-led rally against the reproductive health (RH) law on Saturday represented the Catholic vote in the city.
A new pope from Latin America who wants to build “a church for the poor” is stirring hopes among advocates of liberation theology, a movement of social activism that alarmed former popes by delving into leftist politics.
Bishop Emilio Marquez of Lucena led a gathering of Catholics here on Friday to question the finding of a Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll that many Catholics are considering leaving the Church.
