‘Priests should take shabu to understand’: Rodrigo Duterte dismisses Catholic objections to drug war
After largely keeping quiet over the drug war for months, church leaders are now leading a campaign to have their flock denounce the killings
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday taunted the country’s Catholic priests and bishops to take highly addictive crystal methamphetamine, as he accused them of “hypocrisy” for criticising his deadly drug war.
Duterte launched his broadside in response to the powerful Catholic Church mounting a campaign to stop the killings in his anti-drugs drive, which has claimed about 6,000 lives in less than seven months.
Duterte said that while parish priests around the country were well aware of the extent of the illegal drug problem, their leaders who had been railing about “extrajudicial killings” were clueless.
The [critical] priests should take shabu to understand. I recommend one or two of the bishops take it also
“The [critical] priests should take shabu to understand. I recommend one or two of the bishops take it also,” Duterte said, using the local term for crystal meth, the country’s most-used illegal drug.
Duterte, who has previously boasted about keeping multiple mistresses, also sought to discredit church leaders by accusing them of violating their own vows of celibacy.
“We’re the same, with two, three wives. Don’t get me started – all the hypocrisy,” said Duterte, 71.
Duterte also accused the country’s church leaders of plotting to “suppress” the public exhibition of an unspecified film that he said tackled the subject of “homosexuality of priests”.