Leonen: Catholic Mass in courts violates Constitution, promotes discrimination

Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Marvic Leonen has voiced his opposition to the high tribunal ruling that found nothing illegal in holding Catholic Mass in courts.

Explaining his position on the matter, Leonen said "tolerating and allowing" court personnel to celebrate masses inside a public building were a "clear violation" of the constitutional prohibition against the State's establishment of religion.

"It has no secular purpose other than to benefit and, therefore, promote a religion," said Leonen, the lone dissenter in the March 7 resolution backed by 12 other justices.

"It has the effect of imposing an insidious cultural discrimination against those whose beliefs may be different. Religious rituals should be done in churches, chapels, mosques, synagogues and other private places of worship," he added.

Leonen branded as "painful illusion" the SC's assurance that all faiths of all denominations may conduct religious activities in courts, especially at the Quezon City Hall of Justice, the subject of the high court ruling.

"Apart from violating Sections 5 and 29 (2) of Article III of the Constitution, it is a privilege that is not available to those who profess non-belief in any god or whose conviction is that the presence or absence of god is unknowable. It likewise undermines religious faiths, which fervently believe that rituals, worship icons and symbols are contrary to their conception of god," he said.

The ruling "invites judges to excessively entangle themselves with religious institutions and worship" and "weakens" the judiciary's commitment to protect all religious beliefs, Leonen noted.

"Decisions on the duration, frequency, decorations and other facets of religious rituals are not judicial functions. This also should certainly not be a governmental one," Leonen said, noting courthouses were not built for religious purposes.

Nothing constitutionally infirm

Should the faithful among the judges and employees find the need to worship, the associate justice said "they should muster the patience to walk to the closest church and there to fervently pray for more humility and a socially just and tolerant society."

In defending the Eucharistic celebration, Quezon City executive judges Fernando Sagun Jr. and Caridad Lutero have said there was nothing constitutionally infirm in such practice.

Court personnel must be allowed to freely exercise their respective religions, Lutero maintained, noting that masses do not disturb court proceedings court and are held during lunch break.

The high court's action stemmed from the plea of one Tony Valenciano, who complained about holding daily Catholic Mass at the basement of the Quezon City Hall of Justice.

In a series of letters from January 2009 to March 2010, to then-Chief Justice Reynato Puno, Valenciano said the practice of allowing regular Catholic Mass in the premises of the Quezon City Hall of Justice generated a perception that there is a "stamp of approval of bias favoring a religion" in violation of the Constitution.

Valenciano also claimed that the basement floor was practically converted into a Roman Catholic chapel, with religious icons permanently displayed and that the masses were disruptive of public services.

The SC rejected his allegations, saying that allowing citizens to practice their religion is not tantamount to a fusion of the Church and State.

Holding masses does not violate the constitutional prohibition against appropriation of public money or property for the benefit of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution or system of religion, the high court said. — VDS, GMA News