Moneeze Bernardo
- Duterte’s ‘solution’: Priests should be allowed to marry
- President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said Catholics priests, even those who are gay, should be allowed to marry
President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been a vocal critic of the Catholic Church, advocated on Sunday that Catholic priests should be allowed to marry, even those who are gay.
“That’s the only solution there,” Duterte said in the local dialect during a distribution of cash grants in Cebu.
“Even the gay ones, allow them to marry, same sex marriage. I am in favor of that para matapos na. Matapos na ang problema,” he said but did not specify on what problem it alluded to and what it would actually solve.
Coincidentally, the President made the remarks on the same day that Pope Francis declared an “all-out battle” on “abominable” abuse crimes involving the clergy at the end of an unprecedented Vatican summit.
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The summit was announced in September by the Argentine pontiff when the Church was facing abuse-related scandals right and left and across multiple continents which further scraped his leadership and the Church’s credibility.
In previous interviews, Duterte claimed about 90 percent of Catholic priests are gay, but did not provide any concrete proof then to back his claim.
