Philippine bishops call for three-day fast after President Duterte calling God ‘stupid’

Philippine Catholic bishops on Monday called for fasting and prayers after President Rodrigo Duterte called God “stupid” and questioned God’s existence in profane remarks that set him on a collision course with Asia’s largest Catholic Church.

Archbishop Romulo Valles and the association of bishops that he heads called for a day of prayers on July 16 to invoke “God’s mercy and justice on those who have blasphemed God’s holy name, those who slander and bear false witness and those who commit murder or justify murder as a means for fighting criminality”.

Starting on July 17, the bishops asked Filipino Catholics to join them in three more days of prayers with fasting and almsgiving without giving other details.

Duterte has had a thorny relationship with Catholic bishops, who have criticised his anti-drug crackdown and vulgar language and expressed alarm over the killings of three priests in brazen gun attacks in recent months. In televised speeches, the 73-year-old leader has often lashed out at Catholic bishops, recalling reports of sexual abuses by members of the clergy, including a foreign Jesuit priest, who, he said, fondled him and other fellow students in a Catholic university.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines did not name Duterte in a carefully worded but highly critical “pastoral exhortation”, but the allusion to the president and his tough anti-crime crackdowns was clear.