MANILA Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle admonished police authorities on Friday, saying they should not twist the law and play with peoples’ fates.
“Let us not pretend that we can read the minds and hearts of people. In other words, we cannot play God,” Tagle said, referring to law enforcers who violate the law by interpreting it differently, in his homily for Mass that he led on Friday for the 52nd anniversary of the National Police Commission (Napolcom), which oversees the Philippine National Police.
Tagle warned that those who flout the laws would be still be punished in the end.
“All of us are accountable to God. All of us are subject to God’s scrutiny. Even those who can run away from human laws, in the end, cannot run away from God who sees the heart and who is the real law-giver,” he said.
He compared authorities who twist to law to the scribes and the Pharisees who persecuted Christ.
“The scribes and the Pharisees were so eager with implementing the law according to their interpretation, and in the end, they were the ones who brought Jesus to trial. They put the law-giver to the test,” he noted.
“It did not cross their minds that they have a different interpretation of the law,” the prelate said.
Tagle quipped that it was probably the last time he would be invited to says Mass at Napolcom.