Cardinal Tagle warns vs thieves, gatecrashers at weddings

Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Weddings are supposed to be a joyful occasion for the bride and groom and their families and friends, but there are those who would see in the festivities an opportunity to rob distracted guests.

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle on Saturday warned betrothed couples and their guests, particularly on this wedding month of June, to be wary of strangers posing as a relative or friend from one side of the newly united family.

No one knows them but thinks someone else in either of the families does.

Tagle said these shady characters usually struck during photo sessions with the newlyweds.

“I’ve experienced this many times, especially during picture-taking,” he said in a speech at a forum on good governance for lay leaders in Quezon City.

“When the family of the bride is called to go to the front for picture-taking, when they return to their seats, they find out their bags are already missing,” he said.

Nuptials are not the only milieu of these wedding crashers, they also victimize people attending funerals, according to Tagle.

The archbishop said these unscrupulous people would blend in easily with the guests by dressing up for the occasion. “They look like one of the relatives because they are also dressed nicely.”

“If it’s a funeral, they are also dressed in funeral clothes. They even cry so that others may think they are one of the grieving relatives,” he said.

These uninvited guests would even go to the extent of wearing a cassock or “soutana” (priest’s habit) to look like a sacristan and be able to execute their modus operandi, he added half in jest.

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