Pastor stomps on Sto. Niño statue
BACOLOD CITY: A Born-again Christian pastor in Negros Occidental is in hot water over a video showing him stomping a statue of the Sto. Niño, breaking it into pieces.
Pastor Christopher Gayoba of the River of Life International Ministries, based in Barangay Tabao, Valladolid, Negros Occidental, is getting lambasted by netizens for posting the video on YouTube last Tuesday.
The video has more than a thousand views as of this writing.
Gayoba said the image was surrendered to him by a church member and he felt no remorse for doing so. He added that it was not the first time that he destroyed a saint’s image.
Saying he was angry at graven images, his message was that there was no salvation in carved statues, including those of Jesus Christ.
Gayoba, a former Catholic altar boy, however, apologized for his action. But not after his attention was called by his superiors in the church.
Pastor Emilio Henares of the same ministry issued an apology, particularly to Catholics and Aglipayans, saying Gayoba’s actions did “not represent our beliefs or our theological stand regarding idols and graven images.”
“We take full responsibility for his actions and we issue our public apology to all those who felt insulted and offended by what he did,” he added.
“We will impose disciplinary measures and hope to correct his mistake,” Henares said.
Catholic believers venerate images of saints, Jesus and Mary as a show of their desire to follow their examples.
Non- Catholics see this veneration as idolatry, but Catholics do not claim the statues are themselves God, although they associate miracles with them.