Filipino devotees re-enact crucifixion of Christ

Penitents flagellate themselves as part of Lenten observance in Angeles City, Pampanga province, north of Manila on April 17, 2014. The dominant Roman Catholic church does not condone flagellation and other extreme acts of penitence including gory Good Friday reenactments of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but devout Catholics say it is a means of atoning for their sins and to implore God to spare them and other members of their families from illness or bad luck. AFP

SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines — Devotees in northern Philippine villages had themselves nailed to wooded crosses to re-enact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as thousands of local and foreign spectators watched the bloody annual rites to mark Good Friday in Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation.

Church leaders and health officials have spoken against the practice which mixes Roman Catholic devotion with folk belief, but the annual rites continue to draw participants and huge crowds, particularly in northern Pampanga province.

Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 53, had himself nailed to a cross at a dusty mound in Pampanga’s San Pedro Cutud village for the 28th year. He began his yearly rite after surviving a fall from a building. Men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless steel nails into his palms and feet amid. A packed crowd of onlookers stood with cameras ready to capture the penitents’ agony.

Lasse Spang Olsen, a 48-year-old filmmaker from Denmark, joined Enaje and eight other Filipino devotees, and had himself nailed to a cross. He grimaced in pain as nails pierced his hands and feet.

He said two years ago he made a film about Enaje’s yearly crucifixion and decided to have himself crucified after he fell sick twice. He had a small camera attached to his cross while a colleague filmed his experience.

“It’s a personal matter between me and (God),” he said, with his finger pointing up. After being helped down from the cross, he said of his experience: “fantastic, you should try it.”

Archbishop Socrates Villegas, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, discouraged the crucifixions.

‘If what you do makes you love others more, then it is pleasing to God,” he said. “But if you do it for photographs, just to be famous, that is spiritual vanity.”

The health department also discouraged the practice because of health risks. Health Undersecretary Eric Tayag urged devotees to get anti-tetanus shots. Devotees undergo the hardships in the belief that such extreme sacrifices are a way to atone for their sins, attain miracle cures for illnesses or give thanks to God.

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