Outrage over Duterte calling God ‘stupid’

MANILA: President Rodrigo Duterte faced growing outrage yesterday in his largely Catholic nation after calling God “stupid”, the latest furore he has sparked with an unfiltered broadside.

He took aim at the biblical creation story during a speech, raising the question of why God would create Adam and Eve, then expose them to temptation.

Original Sin is something Christian theologians have struggled to explain for two millennia. Duterte opted for characteristically colourful language as he broached this thorny catechism.

“Who is this stupid God?” he asked on Friday. “You created something perfect, then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work.”

Leaders of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, which counts some 80 per cent of the nation’s more than 100 million people as believers, condemned Duterte.

“How can he be a president for all Filipinos if he does not have respect for the Catholic faithful?” Bishop Pablo Virgilio David wrote on Facebook.

The Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches yesterday said it was “completely inappropriate for our nation’s president to derisively curse at the God of the Christian faith who is deeply worshipped... by a majority of Filipinos.”

Yesterday, Duterte’s spokesman said the president formed a three-person committee for a “dialogue” with religious groups about his comments.