Ex-poll chief Demetriou files raps vs exorcist priest

MANILA, Philippines — Former Commission on Elections chief Harriet Demetriou yesterday filed a complaint for offending religious feelings under the Revised Penal Code against exorcist Fr. Winston Cabading before the Quezon City prosecutor’s office.

Demetriou, who is a devotee of the Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, accused Cabading of being a “rabid critic” of Mary.

In a Facebook post, the retired judge charged Cabading for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code.

Demetriou noted that the offense carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.

In her complaint, the former Sandiganbayan justice noted that the “Mediatrix of All Grace is a Marian apparition that took place in the Carmelite Monastery of Lipa, Batangas sometime in 1948.”

Cabading is an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Manila and an instructor of the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Sacred Theology.

“As a devotee of Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of all Grace and a lawyer, I believe that it is the duty of the state to safeguard my religious freedom,” Demetriou said.

She assailed Cabading’s claims that there exists a 1951 Lipa Diocesan Verdict that “negated the authenticity of the 1948 apparition of Our Lady, Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace.”