CBCP bans ivory statues, images
THE president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) appealed to his brother bishops of the Philippines to prohibit the clerics from blessing any new statue, image or object of devotion made or crafted from materials that are considered endangered or protected like ivory.
CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas also requested that no new statues or images be used as objects of veneration in any of our churches.
In his pastoral moral guidance on the poaching, trafficking and decimation of endangered species yesterday titled “The Lord God made them all”, Villegas however, said those statues and images of ivory and other analogous materials from protected and endangered species already in use probably for centuries before the issuance of this pastoral guidance, “should be safeguarded, and may remain in use for purposes of devotion and in recognition of their historical value”.
“No matter the beauty of a work of art, it cannot justify the slaughter of wildlife, the use of endangered organic forms and lending a seal of approval to the threat posed to biodiversity by poachers and traffickers,” Villegas said.
“We cannot, without offending the Creator, deface his creation,” he said, adding that, “All creatures great and small, the Lord God made them all!” he added.
Even as he cited, Pope Francis’ acclaimed encyclical on the environment that points to the relation between the defense of biodiversity and Christian spirituality, the archbishop said that endemic species in the Philippines alone are hardly cared for. “Poaching is rampant. Our seas and waters are overfished. Wildlife is surreptitiously traded — because there are both buyers and sellers,” the CBCP head said. (Tita Roces)
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