- CBCP appeals to voters not to use the pope or the Church to make false endorsements for bets
- It says posts about Pope Francis endorsing Duterte or the Church backing the LP not true
- Voters reminded not to exploit the pope or the Church for partisanship
MANILA, Philippines – With the election campaign heating up in the online community, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) urged voters to refrain from using Pope Francis or the Church to make false endorsements about their bets.
On the Facebook page Papal Visit-Philippines 2015, the CBCP singled out the online posters of Pope Francis endorsing Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and the Church leadership calling for members to vote for Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo as a bloc as examples of partisanship using the Catholic Church.
“May we inform the public that this statement from the Pope IS NOT TRUE. It came from a satire peace and is a fake. We beg everyone to please stop spreading this and to please cease from maliciously using the Pope for political gains,” read the CBCP statement on the Duterte-Pope Francis post.
As for the Roxas-Robredo poster, the CBCP said: “Reject claims by candidates that they are candidates of the CBCP, or of a diocese or of a particular bishop. It has never been the practice of the Catholic Church to hold out a candidate to the faithful as the “chosen” candidate of the Church.”
The comment on poster also came with a link to CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas’ guide for Catholic voters wherein he promised that the “bishops commit to desist from any action or statement that may give the appearance of persuading the faithful to vote for a particular candidate.”
Post a Comment