RETIRED archbishop Oscar Cruz, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines ecclesiastical judge in charge of church dispensations, reported an increase in the number of priests asking for dispensation to leave the priesthood and urged a golden age of reform in the local Catholic Church.
The 82-year-old canon lawyer, acknowledged President Rodrigo Duterte’s severe criticism of the Catholic episcopacy and clergy.
“It is a golden age for the church for these times to do self-cleansing. I think this is a very positive issue when the President attacks the clergy with two wives, etc, etc. Of course it is painful. But if it is painful, what can you do?” asked Cruz, who was CBCP president from 1995 to 1999.
“The bishops should now be more attentive. You just don’t close your eyes to these matters. If you do, there will be more,” he added.
Cruz explained there are two types of sanctions for clergymen who violate their priestly vows: ask for a dispensation from clerical obligation or be dismissed from the clerical state.
“The priest himself who violated his obligations to celibacy can ask for it. That is called dispensation from clerical obligations. The other one is dismissal from clerical state,” he said.
“Yes, the voluntary [dispensations] increased. I am talking only what I know. What is happening in different diocese, I don’t know the numbers,” he said. “But the dispensations increased.”
Cruz declined to reveal official numbers, but he said it would be better if bishops and priests themselves initiate filing cases against erring clergymen.
If they do not, Cruz said it can only result in the laity being scandalized, other clergymen becoming disoriented and seminarians deformed.
“Each diocese, as a rule, has a tribunal that can work on that. There is a tribunal that knows how to process this and that case filed against a priest or the priest himself files for it,” he said.
Cruz echoed the call of Pope Francis who had repeatedly pushed reforms in the Vatican since 2013.
In his traditional annual Christmas address, Francis even slammed Vatican officials for pushing back against reforms and saying that those taking part in “malicious resistance” have been inspired by the devil.
“The absence of reaction is a sign of death! Consequently, the good cases of resistance—and even those not quite so good— are necessary and merit being listened to, welcomed and their expression encouraged,” Pope Francis said, addressing the Roman Curia.
“The reform does not have an esthetical end to make the Curia more beautiful; it cannot be understood as a sort of face-lift or applying makeup to beautify the elderly curial body, nor plastic surgery to remove wrinkles,” he continued.