CA affirms dismissal of case filed by ex-justice vs priest
The Court of Appeals (CA) has upheld the dismissal of retired Sandiganbayan Justice Harriet Demetriou’s complaint against a Catholic priest for “offending religious feelings” over his remarks on the 1948 Marian apparition in Lipa, Batangas.
In a 28-page ruling dated Sept. 29, the appellate court’s 12th Division affirmed the Quezon City Regional Trial Court’s finding that the online Catholic program in which exorcist priest Fr. Winston Cabading questioned the authenticity of the apparition did not constitute a “religious ceremony”—a required element of the offense under the Revised Penal Code.
“What appears in the recitals of facts is the alleged violation of respondent Cabading against the CBCP Pastoral Instruction and Injunction Order of the Dominican Province. This act is not punishable under the Revised Penal Code or special penal laws,” the appellate court said in the ruling penned by Associate Justice Ma. Consejo Gengos-Ignalaga.
Demetriou is a devotee of Our Lady Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, whose apparitions were reportedly witnessed by Teresita Castillo inside the Carmelite Monastery of Lipa in 1948.
She filed the case against Cabading in December 2022 after he suggested in a Facebook program that the phenomenon involved “demonic deception to let people focus on the extraordinary instead of the ordinary path to holiness and love of God.”
Not of supernatural origin
The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, later known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declared in 1951 that the events bore no signs of supernatural origin, further reiterating this in December 2015.
The Quezon City court dismissed the case against Cabading in May 2024, saying the charges against him do not constitute an offense. It also denied Demetriou’s motion for consideration, prompting her to elevate the case to the CA.
In affirming the lower court’s ruling, the CA noted that the facts did not satisfy the elements of the crime, particularly the requirement that the act be committed in a place of religious worship “or during the celebration of any religious ceremony.”
It agreed with the Quezon City court that the Facebook program did not fall within the scope of a religious ceremony, describing it instead as “akin to a show, broadcast, telecast, videocast, performance, or dialogue.”
