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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS