Manila, Philippines - “Dry Catholics” are now the second predominant religion in the country, next to the Roman Catholic, according to the leadership of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Speaking before the 2nd Marriage Encounter Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. (MEFP) gathering at the Century Park Hotel yesterday, CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said the number of dry Catholics – or those who are cold, hurting, skeptics and those who left the Catholic church to join other religions – would have surpassed other religions in size.
Villegas encouraged the couples to go out and extend help to fellow Catholics who have become disillusioned and confused.
“Look for the youth and the children who are more informed about the teachings against the Catholic faith than they are about the gospel; the poor who look at the church as an institution of the rich and the middle class; and the former Catholics who are hurting and disillusioned and confused and do not want to talk about God anymore. The gospel belongs to them,” he said.
Villegas also said that reaching out to the dry Catholics would help in reaching heaven.
“Do you want to go to heaven? Go to the children because the children will pave the way for you. Go to the poor because the Lord says, ‘Whatever you do to them, you do unto me’. Go to the hurting Catholics because to them the Lord said, ‘Go to the whole world and proclaim the gospel’,” the prelate added.