President Rodrigo Duterte creates controversy to turn the people’s attention away from his administration’s inefficiency, according to an official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

“It’s obvious that he delights in creating controversy to deviate people’s attention from his government’s inefficiency,” Father Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the CBCP’s public affairs committee, said in a Facebook post.

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Secillano was reacting to the President’s remarks urging people to build chapels in their houses instead of going to church.

‘Ignorance of Church’

“I’m not sure if the President’s urgings can be considered ‘pastoral necessity’ … but his ignorance of the Church’s workings tells us Catholics that we should neither believe this guy, nor even take him seriously,” he said.

The church, he said, houses the Eucharist, which is “Christ in the form of host (bread), which is reserved in the tabernacle.” It cannot be placed in houses, as the “danger for its desecration may occur,” he said. —Tina G. Santos

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