Church vouches for sued exorcist

This photo of Fr. Winston Cabading was lifted from the Facebook page of Adsum, the official publication of the Diocese of Bacolod.

The Catholic Church hierarchy has vouched for exorcist priest Winston Cabading, saying he won’t be reprimanded or investigated despite the criminal case lodged against him by a former Sandiganbayan justice due to their dispute over the purported Marian apparitions in Lipa, Batangas province.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issued a certification dated May 31 stating that Cabading “is a Dominican priest of good standing and is not under any censure or investigation by [CBCP].”

Cabading, who was arrested on May 13 and released on bail on May 21, was supposed to be arraigned on Thursday, June 1, on the charge of “offending religious feelings” under the Revised Penal Code, but the Quezon City court moved the proceedings to August 1 to let the priest pursue his petition for review in the Department of Justice (DOJ).

READ: CBCP ‘begs forgiveness’ over exorcist’s case

Judge Madonna Concordia Echiverri of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 81 also allowed Cabading to travel abroad for his annual visit to his family but required him to post a travel bond of P36,000, according to the Lay Catholic Initiative.

Former Justice Harriet Demetriou, a staunch Marian devotee, sued Cabading over the priest’s statements during an online program last year explaining the Vatican ruling that found the 1948 “apparition” of Our Lady of Mediatrix devoid of “any supernatural intervention.”

‘Maligned the image’

Cabading, according to Demetriou’s complaint, “maligned the image of the Mediatrix” during the 4th National Conference on the Ministry of Spiritual Liberation and Exorcism, when the priest “asked leading and open-ended questions… with the end view of instigating a defect in the already vulnerable image of Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace.”

The former justice said in her complaint that Cabading “is a longtime destroyer and has been launching a relentless barrage of discord against the faithful, thereby affecting and confusing minds of the public as to the true facts surrounding the story of Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace.”

Besides the CBCP statement, several Catholic Church groups, including the Philippine Association of Exorcists, have voiced their support for Cabading.

READ: Laity groups, clergy rally behind arrested exorcist

Last weekend, CBCP president and Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said Church leaders accepted blame for failing to facilitate dialogue among Church members in conflict “over matters of faith.”

“We beg forgiveness for this shortcoming. That a Catholic would feel the need to seek recourse to the civil court for the resolution of an issue that has to do with matters of faith is extremely disheartening, to say the least,” the CBCP leader said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the court rules it to be beyond its competence,” David added.

Reached by the Inquirer, Demetriou’s legal counsel Rainer Madrid said her camp accepted the deferment of the arraignment as it was “based on the rules of court.”

“It’s okay. Deferment is part of the process due to the pendency of [Cabading’s] petition for review of the [Quezon City] prosecutor’s finding of probable cause against the accused,” he said.

READ: Show us proof of ‘negative judgment’ on Lipa apparitions

2 years imprisonment

Under Article 133 of the penal code, anyone “who, in a place devoted to religious worship or during a religious ceremony… performs any act notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful,” may face up to two years in prison if found guilty.

A series of purported apparitions by Mary, Mediatrix of Grace were reported at the Carmelite convent in 1948, including a rain of rose petals, which a 1951 special Church commission dismissed as “exclud[ing] any supernatural intervention.”

In 2015, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles reopened the Church commission’s inquiry into the Marian apparitions, saying they were “worthy of belief.”

READ: Archbishop declares 1948 Lipa Mediatrix apparitions ‘worthy of belief’

A year later, the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) under Cardinal Gerhard Mueller overruled Arguelles, saying Pope Pius XII had definitively confirmed the inquiry’s negative finding. The CDF also ordered that all bodies studying the apparitions be “immediately disbanded.”

But Demetriou and other Marian devotees have since called for a reopening of the inquiry, arguing against its findings.

READ: Demetriou urges CBCP to hold new inquiry on 1948 Lipa ‘apparitions’