Fake extends to Priests?

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas has warned the Catholic faithful against a fake priest going around Pangasinan towns offering to administer the sacraments in exchange for cash.

“Please be informed that we have sought the assistance of the Philippine National Police in Mangaldan to apprehend a certain Right Reverend Eduardo Roxas who has been going around barangays of Mangaldan and Manaoag offering to celebrate Masses in private homes,” Villegas said.

Villegas, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, also asked his fellow priests to tell their parishioners about the impostor and immediately report to authorities if  they see him presenting himself as a Catholic priest.

Three other fake priests, namely Crisanto Bantigue, Jose Mark Robinson Bunag and Michael Caadan had been exposed in the past.

In 2013, former San Fernando Archbishop Florentino Lavaria issued the same advisory to his archdiocese confirming that Bunag is an impostor who has no right to celebrate the sacraments.

Bunag claimed that he is a priest of the Catholic Church of the East but Lavaria said he was not an ordained member of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Apart from being spotted in Pampanga, Bunag was also seen in Pasig City, Cavite, and Parañaque City allegedly offering to officiate mass in private homes without a valid “celebret”, a document certifying the bearer is a priest and may be allowed to practice as such in the particular diocese he is in.

The Diocese of San Pablo Laguna has also banned Caadan after it was found out that he is also an impostor.

Caadan was last seen on May 8, 2015 presiding over a funeral mass in the Diocese of Cubao.

Recently, Archbishop Villegas issued a statement that the Roman Catholic Church may abolish the fixed-donations or sacramental fees among the faithful to make Filipino prelates “more credible” and “more Christ-like.”

Villegas later urged his fellow priests not to require the faithful to give fixed donations for sacraments.

Villegas has lamented that the practice of having fixed rates for the sacraments and sacramentals “smacks of bad taste and intellectual dishonesty” on the part of the Church. He said that blessings and sacraments “must not appear as religious services rendered in exchange for fees”.

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