At least seven Filipino devotees were nailed to crosses yesterday during annual Good Friday re-enactments of Jesus Christ's final hours, organizers said.
The Lenten ritual is opposed by religious leaders in the Philippines but it has persisted in San Pedro Cutud village, in San Fernando city about 70km north of Manila.
The Roman Catholic devotees were crucified in batches, their palms and feet attached to crosses with 10cm nails soaked in alcohol to prevent infection, to repent sins, pray for a sick relative or fulfill a vow, organizers said.
PHOTO: EPA
Seven devotees underwent the ritual and a handful more were planning to do so later on yesterday, organizers said.
Ruben Inaje, a 45-year-old commercial sign maker, was nailed to the cross for the 20th time. He has said it is his way of thanking God for miraculously surviving a fall from a building when he was a construction worker.
San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez said more than 400 police and volunteer guards were deployed around the village, where spectators and devotees gather yearly for the event. An estimated 15,000 people turned out on yesterday.
Briton Dominic Diamond earlier told GMA television that he planned to join the annual rite, hoping to find his lost faith in God.
He said he had been suffering from insomnia and would go three or four days at a time without sleep. Diamond said he prayed to God to be released from the condition, but that it has persisted.
"So I thought this was such a simple thing to ask and he could not do it," Diamond added, explaining his waning faith. But when he heard about the crucifixions in San Pedro Cutud, he said realized "these people were the opposite thing, people who were so sure in their faiths."
But after carrying his cross from the village, he backed out when the time came for the nails to go into his flesh, weeping as he pressed his head to the cross and prayed.
A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines cautioned that the traditions of flagellation and crucifixion during Holy Week trace their roots to animism and are not approved by the church.
"They think that when they do that they will receive blessings for the coming year. That is not a Christian idea," Monsignor Pedro Quitorio said.
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