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Dagupan, Pangasinan: Healing priest Fernando Suarez is now forbidden
from celebrating healing masses and sessions in Pangasinan, reported
the Philippine News Agency on Sunday.
Similar to the ban earlier imposed by Bishop
Jose Oliveros of the Diocese of Malolos, Bulacan, the new ban
slapped by Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Archdiocese of
Lingayen-Dagupan stemmed from Father Suarez’s practice of
celebrating a healing mass without the prelate’s nod.
In announcing the ban on Father Suarez,
Archbishop Cruz said that Father Suarez’s activities are “open
to abuses.”
Cruz said Suarez’s healing masses had been
“open to abuses, like superstition, hysteria, fanaticism, and
money,” adding that only Jesus Christ can raise people from the
dead.
The Archbishop of Lingayen also raised questions
about Suarez’s selling rosaries and other religious articles,
which are passed around as supposedly having healing powers.
Also, he cited reports reaching the Archdiocese
of Lingayen that solicitation letters have been circulating for the
construction of Suarez’s healing center in Batangas province.
“I hope he really cures—and I want that very
clearly—and cures as many sick people as possible, especially in
this country where medicines, seeing a doctor, and hospitalization
are very expensive,” Cruz said.
Cruz also noted that Suarez held a day of prayer
and healing at the St. Therese Parish without his permission on
December 28 last year.
Cruz, whose archdiocese covers 26 parishes in
central Pangasinan, said the ban on Suarez in his turf is on a
“case-to-case” basis, adding the ban is not an issue within the
CBCP.
He said Suarez could hold healing Masses freely
in Metro Manila and Batangas, because the bishops in those places
allowed him to do so.
“They believe in him. And that’s okay,” he
said.
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