Tagle tells public: Fight culture of death with culture of love

WATCH: “Jesus suffered all kinds of insults, sufferings and death,” Cardinal Tagle says in his Good Friday message. @inquirerdotnet pic.twitter.com/DpXQkRH7Zd

— Julliane de Jesus (@JLDejesusINQ) April 14, 2017

Use “culture of love” to fight culture of death.

Amid the Catholic Church’s outcry against the government’s brutal war on drugs, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle enjoined the people to spread love to fight the “mentality of death” that is creeping into the country.

“Ang buhay ay nasa pag-ibig. ‘Yan po ang kultura na ating panlaban sa kultura ng kamatayan (Life is founded on love. That is the culture we are going to use in fighting the culture of death),” Tagle said.

 READ: Tagle: ’We all need to get our feet washed by Jesus’

Apparently to stress a point on the importance of keeping the sanctity of life, Tagle mentioned the word “patay” (kill) several times in an emphatic homily during the culmination of a penitential walk in front of the Manila Cathedral on Good Friday.

Hundreds of Catholic faithful marched from 4:30 a.m. along Roxas Boulevard in Malate until 9 a.m. for procession dubbed the “Penitential Walk for Life” to commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus.

At the 14th and last station of Jesus’ Way of the Cross, Tagle led the prayer and delivered a message.

The prelate said like many people in the world, Jesus has suffered “all forms of deaths,” from the time he was rejected as a child until he was wrongfully executed.

“Mga kapatid, pinatay si Hesus. Ang nakakalungkot, ‘yung mga uri ng pagpatay na naranasan niya ay patuloy pa ngayon,” Tagle said.

(Brothers and sisters, Jesus was killed. What is saddening is the death he experienced continues until this very day.)

READ: Denounce all forms of killings, Tagle urges

“Subalit ang mabuting balita, may katarungan ang Diyos. Bubuhayin ng Diyos ang pinatay ng kasalanan (But the good news is God provides justice. God will give new life to those who were killed by sin),” he said.

He said Filipinos must not allow their fellowmen suffer from “these kinds of deaths.”

“Ang pagpatay sa Kanya ay unti-unti at sa iba’t ibang aspeto ng buhay ang pinatay sa kanya katulad ng pinagnilayan natin na iba’t ibang uri ng pagkitil ng buhay sa iba’t iba stasyon ng krus sa umagang ito,” Tagle said.

(He was slowly killed and in different aspects of life, and in the Stations of the Cross this morning, we will ponder on this and the different kinds of killings.)

For each station during the penitential walk, devotees offered prayers for the victims of extrajudicial killings, drug addiction, and other forms of social injustices. IDL

RELATED VIDEO