Archbishop Tagle: We cannot govern the nation by killing

Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle (Archdiocese of Manila – Office of Communications)

We cannot govern the nation by killing.

This was the assertion of Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, as he called on the heads of parishes to ring church bells in the evening for five minutes, beginning September 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, to remember and pray for all those who perished under President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.

“The tolling of church bells in the evening to pray for the dead is an old Filipino custom that has almost disappeared. Now is the right time to revive it,” he said in a letter issued on Friday, the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary.

Tagle appealed to pastors and lay leaders to intensify their solidarity with the victims and their families by taking time to bless the dead and grieve together with those left behind.

“With pain and horror we continue to get daily news of killings around the country. We cannot allow the destruction of lives to become normal. We cannot govern the nation by killing. We cannot foster a humane and decent Filipino culture by killing,” Tagle lamented.

He encouraged those who kill or inflict harm on others to listen to their conscience and the voice of God “that summons us to do good and avoid evil.

“Heartless violence can be conquered only by a change of heart and by discovering in the depths of our being the inclination to do good and to love our neighbor,” Tagle noted.

The Manila Archbishops’ letter came after the recent deaths of three teenagers—Kian Loyd delos Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz, and Reynaldo de Guzman—which have drawn public outrage and have put the spotlight on the government’s violent crackdown against illegal drugs.

Tagle had previously condemned the administration’s anti-drug campaign, which has claimed thousands of lives of suspected drug criminals. KGA