CALL TO STOP KILLINGS. Dumaguete Bishop Julito Cortes, who led the faithful in Tuesday's (Sept. 15, 2020) ordination of two new priests in the diocese, has reiterated his call to local government officials and government instrumentalities to step up the fight against criminality. He issued a statement and the Oratio Imperata Against Killings to be read in all Sunday masses for an indefinite period in response to the violence pervading Negros Oriental. (Photo by Judy Flores Partlow)
DUMAGUETE CITY – Following the latest spate of murders and shooting incidents in Negros Oriental, Bishop Julito Cortes of the Diocese of Dumaguete on Tuesday reiterated his call to local government officials and law enforcement units to “stop the killings”.
At the same time, he instructed parish priests to pray the Oratio Imperata Against Killing in all of the masses in the diocese, starting this Sunday and the tolling of church bells at 8 p.m. daily until further notice “as a concrete expression of this call”.
An Oratio Imperata is an obligatory liturgical prayer when a grave need arises.
The Oratio Imperata Against Killing was prayed after the ordination of two priests on Tuesday at the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria here. Fr. Nathaniel Gomez, the diocese’s spokesperson, also read the bishop’s statement.
The call to action to solve the spate of killings in Negros Oriental came as the Catholic Church also celebrated the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, which recalled the agonies that the Blessed Virgin Mary suffered from when Jesus was at a young age, until his burial.
“On this day, too, we bring to the Blessed Mothers’ intercession the many sorrows that have plagued our lives and our communities in the past months, but especially in these recent days,” Cortes said.
Some of the latest violent incidents in the province include the shooting-to-death of a former vice mayor and councilor of Pamplona last Sept. 10, the attempt on the life of the son of a former mayor of Bindoy, the shooting of a lay minister, and the fatal shooting of a store helper who reportedly had a pending case on Tuesday night.
Cortes lamented that in the midst of the threat of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) “it is ironic that even as scientists and medical professionals seek to find a cure to the coronavirus and save lives, there are persons and forces in Negros Oriental whose intent is to kill and to create a climate of fear among its law-abiding citizens”.
“We call then on government officials and on government instrumentalities, whose mandate is to establish peace and order, to have the resolve to stop the killings and the will to bring the perpetrators of these unexplained and unresolved killings to justice,” the prelate said.
Cortes said that the diocese is looking once more at gathering different stakeholders for “circles of discernment” in response to the current peace and order situation in the province to perhaps address the situation and see “what we can do as part of the community”.
He said that every Negrense has the right to feel safe each day and not live in fear, “bothered that somebody with the intent to kill is following him or her”.
“The moment a Negrense feels that the streets, the establishments, even our homes have become unsafe, that moment signifies the death of us all,” he added. (PNA)
