“Why didn’t the friars forgive Celdran when their teachings urge the Catholic faithful to forgive those who sin against them?

Filipino historian and cultural activist Carlos Celdran passed away last 8 October in Madrid, Spain at the age of 46. His friends believe that he died of a heart attack in his sleep.

Celdran was famous in the Philippines for his walking tours of Old Manila, the district of Intramuros in particular. After a legal dispute with Roman Catholic Church officials years ago, he migrated to Spain where he continued his artistic pursuits.

I do not know how Manila Archbishop Luis Cardinal Tagle and his politicized friars feel about Celdran’s passing, but I believe that the country lost an energetic and zealous historian at a time when serious historians are rare.

Celdran was a popular name in the fight against Church intervention in national politics. He was particularly displeased with friars who were vocally against the Reproductive Health bill Congress was deliberating on several years ago.

The Church leadership opposed the bill because they saw it as a State-sponsored measure to promote sexual licentiousness. Friars even went to the extent of openly campaigning against any senator or congressman who will support the bill. One billboard of that nature even became the subject of a court litigation.

On 29 September 2010, Celdran dressed up as the national hero Jose Rizal, went to the altar area of the Manila Cathedral, and there held up a placard bearing the name “Damaso,” which was an obvious reference to the lecherous Father Damaso, the main villain in Rizal’s famous novel “Noli Me Tangere.” At that time, friars of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines were allegedly holding an ecumenical meeting.

Soon after the incident, Celdran apologized, but the friars were not in the mood to forgive him. They filed a criminal complaint against Celdran, accusing him of offending their religious feelings, a crime punished under Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code, which took effect in 1932.

Celdran was arrested, charged and convicted by a Manila trial court in 2012. In 2015, the Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, and in 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the appellate court.

The criminal case filed by the friars against Celdran came at an ill opportune time for the politicized clergy. Pope Francis was due to visit Manila in January 2015 and it did not look good to Vatican officials and the public in general that while Pope Francis and the Church urge Catholics to forgive those who offend them, the friars in Manila did not forgive Celdran.

Days before the papal visit, and in an attempt at damage control, Tagle announced on television that the Church had already forgiven Celdran, but the People of the Philippines, in whose name the criminal case was filed in court, constitute the collective complainant pursuing the criminal case.

That televised speech was considered by many as political double talk because, as every lawyer knows, criminal cases are always prosecuted in the name of the People of the Philippines, and that a criminal case not actively pursued by the private complainant is perfunctorily dismissed. That the criminal case against Celdran led to an actual trial that resulted in his conviction is an indication that the friars wanted him punished.

Now that Celdran is gone, the friars in the Philippines have one less vocal critic. Even so, the Church should engage in some serious stocktaking.

The two important questions that will not go away, and which must be answered sooner or later by Church officials, are — Why didn’t the friars forgive Celdran when their teachings urge the Catholic faithful to forgive those who sin against them? Shouldn’t they practice what they preach in the first place?

Legal experts suggest that Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code is impractical at a time when faiths are currently the subject of continuing, intense debate and scrutiny. That concern is better discussed in a different essay.

The incident involving Celdran and the friars is legal history now. It confirms that unless the Revised Penal Code is amended, its unchanged provisions, no matter how antiquated, remain in force and effect.