Duterte defies the church with three-child policy
Rodrigo Duterte, the incoming Philippines president, has launched a new charge in his battle with the powerful Roman Catholic Church by calling for a three-child policy and denouncing the country’s bishops as corrupt, womanising ‘‘sons of whores’’.
Eighty per cent of Filipinos are Catholics but Duterte has done no obvious damage to his popularity with a series of outrageous and foul-mouthed attacks on its leadership, from the Pope down.
His latest utterances, in an interview with Philippines television, expressed his rage at a letter sent out by the church leadership urging Catholics to vote against him.
‘‘You know the most hypocritical institution?’’ he asked. ‘‘The Catholic Church. They campaigned against me. Everybody was saying ’Do not vote for Duterte’.
‘‘Fine. I said, let this election be a referendum between the Catholic Church and me.
‘‘So who was right? Look, were you able to stop me? How many of you bishops were able to stop me? You sons of whores, aren’t you ashamed? You ask so many favours, even from me.’’
Duterte insists that he is a Christian but says he is no longer a Catholic.
During his election campaign he spoke with relish about his womanising, his plans to murder suspected criminals and his fantasy about raping a murdered missionary.
In particular, he has promised to confront the church over the question of contraception, which it opposes.
‘‘I only want three children for every family,’’ he said in the city of Davao, of which he is mayor. ‘‘I’m a Christian, but I’m a realist so we have to do something with our over-population. I will defy the opinion or the belief of the church.’’
Like many of Duterte’s provocative utterances, it is not clear exactly what form such a threechild policy would take. The average Filipina has 3.08 children.
Days before the election, the Catholic bishops’ conference of the Philippines released a pastoral letter urging Catholics to reject the ‘‘morally reprehensible’’ Duterte.
He won a decisive victory in the May 9 election and will be sworn in as president on June 30.
Duterte said: ‘‘You have been castigating me or criticising me – you want a debate before I become president? OK. All of you bishops stand up.
‘‘I will tell you the sins of the Catholic Church beginning from the time the institution of the papacy was established.
‘‘I will lecture until June 29 the sins of the Catholic Church, and whether or not you are still relevant. The most hypocritical institution is the Catholic Church.’’
He added: ‘‘If I start to name the bishops who got married or about the women in their lives, the Catholic Church would fall down. Do not think you are the moralising agents of society. As long as you are a human being, you are bound to fall down. You’re all pageantry.’’
Monsignor Oliver Mendoza, spokesman for the president of the bishops’ conference, said that the church would always defend its teachings. He asked: ‘‘If we fail to do that, if we close our eyes, if we close our lips, we close our ears, what will be the role of the church?’’