The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines on Monday slammed the people behind the spreading of fake news on social media, saying the Catholic church will stand by the truth.
In a message, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said the proliferation of fake news on social media is a big challenge to the Catholic Church’s mission to proclaim its teachings.
The CBCP president said in his homily during the canonical installation of new Lipa Archbishop Gilbert Garcera that the church must stand their ground against fake news by proclaiming the truth nevertheless.
He described the social media as highly technological fake news.
He called on all priests and Catholic leaders to spread only the truth amid wide spread of fake news, and to proclaim only the truth.
“It is no longer the pagans who killed Christians. It is our own brothers and sisters, Christian believers of Christ who caused the death of one another,” he said.
Villegas reiterated the call to the faithful to defend church teachings on the sanctity of life amid divisive public policies.
“Stand up for life nevertheless, Archbishop. People shout separation of church and state [when] what they actually want is separation of God and man, stay with God, Archbishop Gilbert, and show us the face of God, and in a new ministry show us, teach us that there should no separation between God,” Villegas added.
Earlier, Villegas lamented that bishops have become “martyrs” and “punching bags” of trolls in social media, amid their criticisms of administration’s policies like the war on drugs and the push to revive the death penalty.