Catholic priest urges calm amid viral video of Marawi church being desecrated

A Catholic priest has appealed for calm among devotees after a video of suspected Maute group members desecrating a church in Marawi City circulated on the internet.

"Yung mga ginagawa na 'yun, terroristic acts, I do have to condemn," Fr. Marciano Villagracia, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, said in a report by GMA News' Sandra Aguinaldo on 24 Oras on Tuesday.

To Catholic devotees, he said, "Dapat self-control lang, hindi magpadala sa agos ng emosyon." 

The video shows armed men ransacking the St. Mary's Cathedral, trampling over  religious images, including pictures of saints and popes. A cross was also broken in half while other pictures were ripped and burned.

Marawi Bishop Edwin Dela Peña described the destruction of the church and the kidnapping of Fr. Chito Suganob and his colleagues from the cathedral blasphemous and demonic.

"That is blasphemy! It's unacceptable. It's obvious that their actions are really out of this world. It's demonic," said Dela Peña.

Archbishop Oscar Cruz, for his part, likewise appealed to the public not to let the attack drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians.

"It is something extraordinary and painful if not detestable," Cruz said in the same report. "We have to respect each others' religion pero sabi ko nga, if we find bad people among the Muslims, there are many more bad people among Christians."

Muslim leaders have also condemned the attack on Marawi City in addition to the involvement of an Imam in the operations of the Maute group in Lanao del Sur.

The Darul Ifta of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also condemned the attack “in the highest degree," saying it was perpetrated "by these lawless elements" which had "nothing to do with Islam and should not be attributed to our faith."

"Sowing of terror in any form cannot be justified in the name of religion," the Darul Ifta added as it urged the government to "provide necessary assistance to the victims of this un-Islamic act." —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News